![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/tom-costello-edit.jpg\")
Costello\u2019s interest in aviation has developed through the\nyears. It began when he was a reporter\nat KUSA-TV in Denver, covering the crash of United 232 in Sioux City, IA. \u201cI\nfound the NTSB\u2019s deep-dive into the plane\u2019s manufacturing history to be\nfascinating,\u201d said Costello. \u201cThe\ninvestigators were meticulous in their work and managed to zero in on the\ntimeline for when the tail engine\u2019s fan disk came off the assembly line and how\na metal fatigue crack caused the disk to disintegrate in flight. That exploding disk then took out flight 232\u2019s\nhydraulics and forced an emergency landing.\u201d \nCostello considers Captain Al Haynes, who managed to save 185 lives on\nthat day, the hero of that incident. \u201cOne of the great moments of my career was\nmeeting Capt. Haynes, 23 years later.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other serious incidents or crashes covered by Costello include\nUnited 585 in Colorado Springs, the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, the Miracle on\nthe Hudson water landing, the Comair 5191 crash in Kentucky, Asiana 214 in San\nFrancisco and more recently the twin 737-Max crashes overseas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Costello, who is based in Washington D.C., says he has also enjoyed covering the business of aviation and seeing first-hand the manufacturing process at Boeing and Airbus and taking classes at both companies. \u201cThe airline industry has been a fascinating topic to cover ever since 9\/11, as it struggled to recover,\u201d said Costello. \u201cIt then went through cataclysmic mergers and came out stronger on the other end.\u201d Costello feels it\u2019s an industry that nearly every American feels they have a very close, personal connection to because they entrust their lives and the lives of their families to these companies every time they fly. \u201cSo, we find there is usually great audience interest in the aviation stories we cover on NBC.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tom-Costello-NBC-edit.jpg\")
The knowledge gained and exposure to the aviation industry that\nCostello has experienced over the years has seeped into his personal life as\nwell. \u201cI find I am often the one who is reassuring friends and colleagues that\nflying is truly the safest way to travel,\u201d said Costello. \u201cEvery day, more than\n2 million Americans board a flight. Thankfully, serious incidents are very rare\nthese days.\u201d Costello says the\nengineering expertise and the culture of safety at the nation\u2019s major airlines\nare firmly cemented into the minutiae of how they do business. When there is a serious incident, Costello\nsays it\u2019s usually the result of human error at some level. \u201cBut as I\u2019ve gone behind the scenes with\nairlines and manufacturers, I\u2019m always impressed with how robust the system is,\ndesigned to ensure a mistake doesn\u2019t get through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Costello believes the ongoing 737-MAX investigation is\nalready having a profound impact on Boeing and the airlines that fly it. \u201cNever\nin the history of aviation has the FAA grounded a plane for so long,\u201d says\nCostello. \u201cBut, the incident has also exposed alleged deficiencies in how the\nFAA oversees the manufacturing process and approves planes to fly.\u201d Now, the world\u2019s aviation regulators are\nsaying they will not automatically follow the FAA\u2019s lead on recertifying the\nMAX for flight, which Costello believes is a serious loss of confidence in what\nhas been one of America\u2019s most-trusted government entities. \u201cOf course, Boeing has also suffered a\nserious loss of confidence after two crashes and 346 deaths,\u201d continued\nCostello. \u201cBoeing is under tremendous pressure, to not only fix the problem,\nbut to design planes for pilots in countries that may not have the expertise\nand training of pilots in the U.S. or Europe.\u201d The result \u2013 Costello believes these\nhorrific crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia could likely result in significant\nchanges at both the manufacturing and regulatory levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On another note shared with the State Aviation Journal, Costello\nbelieves the government shutdown in early 2019 had a profound impact on the men\nand women who rely on government pay checks. \n\u201cThese are people who perform the tough jobs that the country depends on\nevery hour of the day; whether it\u2019s air traffic controllers, TSA officers, FBI\nagents, NASA Mission Controllers, food inspectors, the list is endless.\u201d Costello says the political calculation to\nshut down the government puts these people into extreme hardship during the\ncoldest weeks of the year. \u201cMany turned\nto food banks for help. It was only when\nair traffic controllers began calling in sick, forcing air traffic to slow to a\ntrickle, that the president reopened the government,\u201d said Costello. \u201cIf\nthere\u2019s ever another government shutdown in the future, those men and women may\nbe far less patient and far less willing to work for free.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Kim J Stevens Veteran NBC News Correspondent Tom Costello was awarded the prestigious NATCA James Oberstar Sentinel of Safety Award on Wednesday, during the Association\u2019s Communicating For Safety Conference held in Las Vegas. The award honors members of the aviation community that have displayed outstanding achievement in the advancement of aviation safety. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Costello-Cameraedit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13831,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13823\/revisions\/13831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}