A comedian tries to fix aviation

Summary

Today, Explained: A Comedian Tries to Fix Aviation
Vox Media Podcast Network
Release Date: May 28, 2025
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram and Noel King

---

1. Introduction to Aviation Safety Challenges

In this episode of Today, Explained, Sean Rameswaram and Noel King delve into the troubling state of American aviation, highlighting a series of recent crashes and systemic issues plaguing the industry. The hosts set the stage by referencing a recent midair collision involving an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk military helicopter in Alaska, emphasizing the severity and frequency of these incidents.

Sean Rameswaram [00:00]: "American aviation has been having a tough year."

2. Newark Liberty International Airport: A Case Study

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Newark Liberty International Airport, where ongoing radar and air traffic control (ATC) failures have raised alarms. Darrell Campbell, an aviation safety writer for The Verge, provides an in-depth analysis of the situation.

Darrell Campbell [02:04]: "What's been happening at Newark has actually been happening for almost a decade and a half... it's systemic."

Campbell explains that radar outages and outdated ATC systems at Newark are not isolated issues but indicative of widespread problems across the nation's airports.

3. Systemic Problems in Air Traffic Control

The episode outlines several critical challenges facing ATC systems nationwide:

• Staff Retention and Training: The rigorous training process for air traffic controllers, which can take up to four years, coupled with stagnant wages, leads to high turnover rates and staffing shortages.

  Darrell Campbell [03:42]: "It just takes a long time to get up to the point where you're actually entrusted with airplanes."

• Aging Infrastructure: Many ATC facilities rely on outdated technology and infrastructure that struggle to keep up with modern aviation demands.

  Darrell Campbell [02:20]: "This is emergency level of staffing at a baseline."

• Mandatory Overtime and Burnout: Controllers are often required to work excessive hours, exacerbating burnout and further reducing the workforce.

4. Efforts to Address the Issues and Their Limitations

Sean and Campbell discuss recent governmental efforts to modernize ATC systems, including increased funding and hiring initiatives. However, Campbell remains skeptical about the long-term effectiveness of these measures.

Jeff Wise [05:46]: "We have the plan we actually have to build a brand new state of the art air traffic control system."

Darrell Campbell [07:13]: "It's really this fight between the FAA and Congress where everybody's willing to have a photo op to say, yeah, we're gonna do a lot today to fix these problems."

Despite commitments, the persistent budget backlogs and political challenges hinder substantial progress, leaving the industry vulnerable to ongoing safety risks.

5. Recent Accidents Highlighting Persistent Issues

The conversation shifts to recent accidents, including a tragic crash in San Diego where a Cessna 550 collided with power lines, resulting in six fatalities. The incident underscores the dire consequences of ineffective ATC and poor pilot communication.

Darrell Campbell [07:52]: "This is exactly what he's talking about."

6. Nathan Fielder’s "Rehearsal": Satirical Take on Aviation Safety

A unique segment of the episode explores Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder's HBO show "Rehearsal," specifically its second season focused on aviation safety. Fielder's approach blends absurdist humor with serious commentary on pilot communication and crew resource management (CRM).

Nathan Fielder [15:36]: "The captain has made a decision. The first officer understands it's wrong, but the first officer doesn't feel they have the ability to speak up about it."

Fielder attempts to address communication breakdowns between pilots by implementing unconventional solutions, such as actors echoing pilot statements to boost confidence and assertiveness.

7. Expert Insights on Crew Resource Management (CRM)

Aviation expert Jeff Wise elaborates on CRM, emphasizing its critical role in ensuring safe flight operations through effective communication and teamwork among flight crew members.

Jeff Wise [17:12]: "Crew resource management is the idea that a flight crew is more than the sum of its parts."

Despite CRM being a mandated part of pilot training since the 1970s, Wise acknowledges ongoing deficiencies and cultural barriers that prevent effective implementation.

Nathan Fielder [17:39]: "The training could be improved because right now it's terrible."

Wise discusses the concept of "Safety Voice," a subset of CRM focused on empowering first officers to assert concerns without fear of retribution, highlighting cultural challenges within pilot communities.

Jeff Wise [20:19]: "Some pilots were like, that sounds like girl stuff."

8. The Intersection of Comedy and Seriousness in Aviation Safety

The hosts and guests reflect on the impact of Fielder's show, questioning whether blending humor with serious safety issues can drive meaningful change in the aviation industry.

Jeff Wise [22:47]: "In theory it could. But I think there's a major caveat to that..."

While the show brings attention to critical safety issues, Wise remains cautious about its potential to effect real regulatory change without substantial industry support.

9. Recent FAA Reauthorization and Its Implications

The episode touches on the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, highlighting its intentions to modernize ATC systems and increase staff. However, Campbell critiques the act's temporary fixes and the government's inconsistent funding approach.

Jeff Wise [05:46]: "It works for a little while. But then three years down the road, the same problems are really still occurring."

10. Conclusion: A Grim Outlook and the Need for Continuous Vigilance

As the episode concludes, the hosts underscore the urgent need for systemic reforms in aviation safety and ATC systems to prevent further tragedies. The ongoing challenges exemplify the complexities of governmental and industrial change, leaving listeners with a sobering perspective on the future of American aviation.

Darrell Campbell [09:45]: "This is your textbook why governments fail case study."

Notable Quotes

• Sean Rameswaram [00:00]: "American aviation has been having a tough year."

• Darrell Campbell [02:04]: "This is systemic."

• Jeff Wise [17:12]: "Crew resource management is the idea that a flight crew is more than the sum of its parts."

• Nathan Fielder [17:39]: "The training could be improved because right now it's terrible."

• Darrell Campbell [09:45]: "This is your textbook why governments fail case study."

---

For Further Reading and Listening:

• Darrell Campbell's Work: Explore his articles on aviation safety at The Verge and his book Fatal: How the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software.

• Jeff Wise's Podcast: Finding MH370 explores the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

• Nathan Fielder's "Rehearsal": Watch the second season on HBO or HBO Max to see his satirical take on aviation safety.

---

This summary provides an in-depth overview of the "A Comedian Tries to Fix Aviation" episode of Today, Explained, capturing the critical discussions on aviation safety, systemic challenges, and innovative yet unconventional approaches to mitigating risks in the aviation industry.

Transcript

[Sean Rameswaram]

American aviation has been having a tough year. The crashes An American airlines flight with.

[Jeff Wise]

64 people on board colliding midair with a Black Hawk military helicopter. The urgent search underway after a deadly crash plane crash in Alaska.

[Sean Rameswaram]

The air traffic controllers the systems are really old.

[Jeff Wise]

They should have been updated a long time ago.

[Darrell Campbell]

The Newark radar contact lost we lost our radar.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And as you'll hear on today explained it might get rougher before it gets better. But you're also going to hear about a Canadian comedian who's deadly serious about one particular solution. He thinks pilots would crash less if they were simply better at talking to each other.

[Nathan Fielder]

The captain has made a decision. The first officer understands it's wrong, but the first officer doesn't feel they have the ability to speak up about it.

[Sean Rameswaram]

We're going to ask if he's got a point.

[Jeff Wise]

With HubSpot's suite of AI powered tools, you can get more done way faster. Speed up your lead generation and create.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Attention grabbing, lead driving quota crushing campaigns in an instant.

[Jeff Wise]

Get started [e-mail] AI avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app download Today we are preparing for takeoff on Flight Today Explained.

[Darrell Campbell]

My name is Daryl Campbell. I'm an aviation safety writer for the Verge and author of Fatal how the Manager.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Fuck.

[Darrell Campbell]

Shit. I fucked that up. All right, we got it out of the way. I'll do it again. Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Software Darrell Campbell recently wrote about the problems we've been seeing at Newark Liberty International Airport for the Verge, but his take was that this isn't just a Newark, New Jersey problem. This isn't even just a tri state area problem. This is systemic.

[Darrell Campbell]

So you've probably seen some of the news articles about it and it's really again, only in the last couple of months because everybody's been paying attention to aviation safety that people are really saying, oh my gosh, there's, you know, the Newark airport. They're losing the ability to see airplanes. They're losing radar for minutes at a time. And that's not something you want to hear when you got airplanes flying towards each other at 300 miles an hour. So it is rightfully very concerning. But the thing is, what's been happening at Newark has actually been happening for almost a decade and a half. And it's in sort of fits and starts. It'll get really bad, and then it'll get better again. But now we're seeing a combination of air traffic control problems, we're seeing a combination of infrastructure problems, and they've got a Runway that's entirely shut down. And the way that I think about it is, you know, while Newark is its own special case today, all of the problems that it's facing, other than the Runway, are problems that every single airport in the entire country is going to be facing over the next five to 10 years. And so we're really getting a preview of what's going to happen if we don't see some drastic change in the way that the air traffic control system is maintained.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Yeah, I mean, we heard about some of these issues after the crash at DCA outside Washington, or what exactly is going on with air traffic controllers.

[Darrell Campbell]

So the first problem is just one of staff retention and training. So on the one hand, the air traffic control system and the people who work there, they're a pretty dedicated bunch, but it just takes a long time to get up to the point where you're actually entrusted with airplanes. So it can be up to four years of training from the moment that you decide, okay, I want to be an air traffic controller. So couple that with the fact that even these are government employees, and like many other agencies, they haven't really gotten the cost of living increases to keep pace with the actual cost of living, especially in places like the New York, New Jersey area, where it's just gone up way faster than in the rest of the country.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Hmm. So this is bad at Newark, but. But you say it promises to get bad everywhere else, too.

[Darrell Campbell]

Yeah, I think the cost of living is still outpacing the replacement level at a lot of these air traffic control centers. And then the washout rate just of the who are learning for the first time is actually pretty high. We've seen the average staffing level at a lot of American airports get down below 85, 80%, which is really where the FAA wants it to be. And it's getting worse over time. And then at Newark in particular, it's down to about 58%, I think, as of the first quarter of this year. So this is an emergency level of staffing at a baseline. And then on top of that, you have. In order to keep the airplanes going, you've got people working Mandatory overtime, mandatory six day a week shifts. And that's just accelerating that burnout that naturally happens. So there's just a lot of compression and a lot of bad things happening independently, but all at the same time in that kind of labor system that's really making it difficult to both hire and retain qualified air traffic controllers.

[Sean Rameswaram]

These sound like very few fixable problems, Darrell. Are we trying to fix them? I know. Former reality TV star and Fox News correspondent and transportation secretary in this day and age, Sean Duffy has been out to Newark.

[Jeff Wise]

What we are going to do when we get the money, we have the plan we actually have to build a brand new state of the art air traffic control system.

[Darrell Campbell]

Yeah. And you know, to his credit, they have announced some improvements on it. They've announced a lot of new funding for the faa. They've announced an acceleration of hiring, but it's just a short term fix. So to put it in context, the FAA's budget usually allocates about $1.7 billion in maintenance fees every year. And so they've announced a couple more billion dollars, but their backlog is already 5.2 billion in maintenance. And these are things like replacing outdated systems rep replacing buildings that are housing some of these radars. Things that you really need to just get the system to where it should be operating today, let alone get ahead of the maintenance things that are gonna happen over the next couple of years. And it's really this fight between the FAA and Congress where everybody's willing to have a photo op to say, yeah, we're gonna do a lot today to fix these problems.

[Jeff Wise]

It has been nearly one year since the FAA Reauthorization act of 2024 was signed into law. I was proud to co lead that effort in the Senate. I was proud to help get it across the finish line. And we gave the FAA clear marching orders. Hire more air traffic controllers, modernize outdated technology, replace systems that are unsafe or unstable.

[Darrell Campbell]

And it works for a little while. But then three years down the road, the same problems are really still occurring. You got that one time shot of new money, but then the government cuts back again and again and again. And then you're really just kind of putting out one fire, but not addressing sort of the root cause of why there's all this dry powder everywhere.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Which leaves people feeling unsafe, obviously. Yeah, people are canceling their flights into or out of Newark. But there are also all these smaller accidents we're seeing most recently in San Diego this morning, horrific new doorbell video.

[Darrell Campbell]

Showing the moment a plane clipped power.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Lines and slammed into a San Diego neighborhood, erupting into a fireball. The investigation now intensifying, officials saying all six people on board the Cessna 550 were killed.

[Jeff Wise]

The pilot did not report any problems to air traffic control, and he did not declare an emergency.

[Sean Rameswaram]

How should people be feeling about that? The last time we spoke, you said the only way to make sure there are no plane crashes is to ground all the plan.

[Darrell Campbell]

So there's really no silver bullet. And all the choices are, let's say, not great to actively bad at baseline. So, number one is you get the government to pay what it actually costs to run the air traffic control system. That empirically has not happened for decades. So I don't know that we're going to get to do it, especially under this administration, which is really focused on cutting costs. The second thing is pass on fees to flyers themselves. So that sort of $1,500 that we charge in the U.S. maybe that gets bumped up to 5,000, but then airlines are going to pass that on to the customer. And it's just like the conversation that Walmart's having with tariffs is that they don't want to do it. When they try to pass it on to the customer, President Trump yells at them. And it's just not a great situation. The third option is to just reduce the number of flights in the sky. I mean, part of this is that airlines are just competing to have the most flights, the most convenient schedules, the most options for your routing. And that's really just led to this log jam at places like Newark, where you really have these constraints on it. I mean, right before all of this stuff happens, Newark was serving about 80 airplanes an hour. So 80 landings and takeoffs. Today the FAA has actually started to admit restrictions on it, and now it's closer to 56 flights an hour. And that's probably the level that it can actually handle and not have these issues where you've got radars coming out and planes actually becoming in danger, but no airline wants to hear, hey, you have to cut your flight schedule. And in fact, we saw that with United, that their CEO was saying that the air traffic controllers who took trauma leave had walked off the job, which seemed to suggest that he didn't think they should be taking trauma leave because just gotta have more planes coming in. And yeah, that's a competitive disadvantage for him, but you've also got to balance safety. I mean, you know, it's difficult to understand. It costs a lot of money to fix. This is your textbook why governments fail case study. And it's not really reassuring that, you know, in 24 hours I'm gonna be in the middle of it again trying to fly out of Newark.

[Sean Rameswaram]

You're leaving in 24 hours?

[Darrell Campbell]

Yeah.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Oh man.

[Darrell Campbell]

Well, that's what the schedule says. Let's see what time I actually get out.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Darrell Campbell's flight out of Newark Liberty International Airport was delayed.

[Darrell Campbell]

His book is called Fatal how the Managerial Shoot Fuck why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software and you can.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Read [e-mail] flying for you when we land back on Today Explained Foreign Comes from Shopify Entrepreneurs know that when you're building a business, you have to wear too many hats. I think there was one of these recently where they had me name all the hats and I kind of enjoyed it. But this time I don't think we're doing that. They're just going straight to the business. According to Shopify, they are behind 10% of all E commerce in the United States, from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. Now that if true, very impressive. You can turn your business idea into Cha Ching is going to happen here with Shopify on your side. You can sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling [e-mail] explained. You can go to shopify.com explained. That's shopify.com explained. And I think there's going to be a Cha Ching that happens here too.

[Unknown]

Support for Today Explained apparently comes from Smalls Cat Food. If you're a person who cares deeply about the cat in your life or the cats in your life, then you probably believe that those cats deserve everything and that those cats should have something to look forward to after a long day of not doing very much. Cats don't enter Smalls Cat Food. A delicious meal, I'm told for your cat to enjoy. Smalls Cat Food says their recipes are packed with protein and made with preservative free ingredients such as those you'd find in your refrigerator. Also, it's delivered right to your door. And now you can add on other cat favorites like amazing treats and snacks your Smalls order. The team at Smalls is so confident that your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they will refund you if your picky cat doesn't eat their food. What are you waiting for? You can give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time only because you are a Today Explains listener. You can get 35% off smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using the code explained. That's an additional 50% off when you head to smalls.com and use the promo code explained. Again, that's promo code explained for an additional 50 off your first order plus free shipping. It's smalls.com.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Support for today explained comes from Vanta. If I could automate 90% of one task in my life. Oh no, they are putting me on this spot. Oh, I like most of the tasks I do. What do I need? Not like, I guess I wouldn't take the trash out. I don't like the alley behind my my house. Maybe if I had a robot I would have them go into the alley behind my house and take out the trash and then pick out some of the trash that's already in that alley because other people aren't doing their fair share in the neighborhood anyway. Vanta says they're a trust management platform that helps businesses automate up to 90% of the work. For in demand security frameworks like SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and more, go to vanta.com explain to meet with a Vanta expert about your business needs. That's vanta.com explain.

[Jeff Wise]

This is today explained.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay, so first and foremost, the rehearsal is funny in an absurdist humor kind of way. The second season of the show, which just concluded this past Sunday, is all about aviation safety, but in ways you'd never expect. You'll see Nathan Fielder, the star and creator and director of the show, try to boost a pilot's confidence by having a group of actors follow him around and echo everything he says.

[Jeff Wise]

So what do you want to do?

[Darrell Campbell]

That's a good question.

[Nathan Fielder]

I've got the fish tank over there if you want to learn about fish. I can be that nerd.

[Darrell Campbell]

Yeah.

[Sean Rameswaram]

You'll see Fielder himself transform into the hero pilot, Sully Sullenberger. To better understand how Sully performed the Miracle on the Hudson, Sully announces the.

[Nathan Fielder]

Decision to attempt a landing in the Hudson River. Okay, let's get the flaps out. Put the flaps out.

[Jeff Wise]

Flaps out.

[Sean Rameswaram]

You'll see an American Idol style singing competition judged exclusively by pilots and the.

[Jeff Wise]

Whole of the brave.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Ellie, that was great. Unfortunately, you're not moving on. But this is also a show where you'll see Nathan Fielder become a fully licensed pilot in order to fly a bunch of people around on a Boeing 737. To understand what that's like. This isn't commitment to a bit. Pilot and aviation journalist Jeff Wise says this isn't a bit at all.

[Jeff Wise]

Because Nathan Fielder, the Actual person, while not making people laugh. His hobby, one of his hobbies is reading accident reports. He got obsessed with this Canadian TV show called Mayday which looks at all these different crashes throughout history and how they, what caused them. On a cold day in northern Ontario, a passenger jet is unable to climb above the trees.

[Unknown]

I thought, oh my God, we're in a crash.

[Jeff Wise]

And he noticed a trend which is a real actual thing, which is that there are failures of pilots and co pilots to communicate.

[Nathan Fielder]

It seems as though the communication issues between first officers and captains in regards to assertiveness is possibly the number one contributing factor to commercial airline crashes in history and it has not been solved.

[Jeff Wise]

He believes that this aspect of what's called CRM, crew resource management in the field needs to be improved, training needs to be improved, and that this will help aviation safety. Crew resource management is the idea that a flight crew is more than the sum of its parts.

[Nathan Fielder]

This dynamic between captains and first officers is one of maybe the leading cause of commercial airline crashes in history. It's not the sole cause of the crash, but had someone asserted themselves, the plane might not have gone down.

[Jeff Wise]

It's not just a captain doing the captain's job and the first officer doing the first officer's job, but the interaction between them is really important. And the field really got its wings, as you could say, back in the 70s when there was a, still to this day, the most fatal air accident that ever happened, where these two 747s, heavily laden with tourists, were maneuvering around in the fog at Tenerife Airport in the Canary Islands. One was about to take off, the other one hadn't yet, had not yet left the Runway. But the first one couldn't tell because it was so foggy. And the first officer, as they're about to take off, the first officer says, I don't think the Runway is clear. And the captain's like, yeah, we're good. And they take off and they hit the other plane and hundreds and hundreds of people died. And so it was realized. Well, the problem is that somebody on the flight deck understood that there was a potentially major problem, but they weren't able to communicate it to the person who was in the controls of the aircraft at that time. So you had a lot of people talking about this thing. People in the industry started really taking it more seriously seriously. Now CRM is mandated as part of the training. As Nathan and Nathan talks about in the show. He feels that it's. Even though it's mandated, it isn't sufficient. They don't really do a very good job. Why don't you say that the training could be improved?

[Nathan Fielder]

The training could be improved because right now it's terrible.

[Jeff Wise]

No, I wouldn't go that far. There is a void in some training programs.

[Nathan Fielder]

You said it was bad.

[Jeff Wise]

It is bad. The outcome is bad.

[Nathan Fielder]

It's bad.

[Jeff Wise]

So Nathan's argument is that there's a big difference between being told something in a PowerPoint presentation or reading it in a book, or your teacher telling you about it in a classroom. There's a big difference between that and actually doing it in the cockpit.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Right. You spoke to a number of pilots, aviation experts, about this show. What did they have to tell you about what Nathan was arguing and the real world implications?

[Jeff Wise]

There's a whole field, it's a small field, but it's a field of academic study of this particular subset of CRM where people talk. It's called Safety Voice. Britain and Europe have different equivalents of the faa, but they both require a significant amount of time spent getting certified in a particular skill called mcc, which stands for Multi Crew Cooperation. And the idea is that when you learn how to fly, you're flying alone. And then when you start to become an airline pilot, you're now in this situation where you have to cooperate. And as I said, the flight crew is more than the sum of its parts. You have to learn how to deal with this other person and work cooperatively, share the information that you need to share, listen, speak, all that. And so they have a whole course that's devoted just to. That involves a lot of simulator time. So they're pretty much doing, you could argue exactly what Nathan's proposing. There was a study that one of these researchers did where they asked, they did a survey of pilots and they asked them, like, how do you feel about improving your communication skills? And a lot of pilots were like, that sounds like girl stuff.

[Darrell Campbell]

Wow.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Girl stuff is not dying, then. I'm. Consider me a girl.

[Jeff Wise]

Yeah. Although I'm not a very serious pilot myself, I haven't dedicated my life to it the way that a professional pilot has. But I do spend a fair bit of time amongst pilots and I do think that there is a pilot culture. I think that pilots have a certain kind of character to them, and I think that there's a reason for that. You are doing a life or death thing. You have to have your ducks in a row. You have to fundamentally take it seriously or you're not going to be around very long. And so pilots are a certain kind of have a certain Kind of no nonsense attitude. But there is something I think really smart about recognizing that. Humility, for instance. I mean, I think humility is an important concept both for doctors in the surgical suite and for pilots and captains in the cockpit.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Do you think Nathan Fielder, you know, shining a light on this issue, on an HBO show that, you know, despite its serious themes, is ultimately entertainment, could move the needle in any significant way?

[Jeff Wise]

In theory it could. But I think there's a major caveat to that, which is that we do not live in normal times. There's an old saying, regulations are written in blood. One of the major drivers of regulatory change in aviation has been plane crashes, people dying. And so a lot of the rules that you see in that rule book are there because at least one person died. And so if your attitude is, we're gonna. Every time you wanna put in a new rule, we're gonna take 10. Nobody can even believe the numbers.

[Darrell Campbell]

I promise to eliminate 10 old regulations.

[Jeff Wise]

For every new regulation. Well, that's just opening up the door to more people dying.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Regulations are written in blood. And Nathan Fielder's very funny, deeply absurd second season of the Rehearsal, which is all about aviation safety, comes at a time debuts in a year where we have seen one of the worst accidents in American aviation history, Especially in recent American aviation history.

[Jeff Wise]

I think the worst, probably this. This century. So what happened was the helicopter was flying along this very narrow route, required the helicopter to be below 200ft, which is quite low and hugging the bank of the river. And the supervising pilot, who was kind of the trainer of the pilot who was actually at the controls, said, you are out of your lane. You're too far away from the bank. And she was also too high. And we don't know what exactly was going on. We don't know if she didn't hear or she heard and chose not to obey or whatever, but for whatever reason, this is a classic case of cockpit communications failure, where somebody knew that there was a problem, somehow was unable to convey that information to the pilot at the controls, and catastrophe resulted. So this is exactly. I mean, it's uncanny that this is exactly what he's talking about.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Nathan Fears Fielder made this show last year, maybe the year before that. It seems like he started training to be a pilot at least two years ago. It comes out mere months after the exact thing he's trying to fix in this show happens and kills dozens of people over D.C. airspace.

[Jeff Wise]

Yeah, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, frankly. And it was one of the things I wanted to ask him about how did it feel to him? Because on the one hand it's horrific. I mean, it's the kind. I mean, one wishes one's predictions to come true, except when they're horrible predictions. And that's what happened. And he said his answer to the question was he wasn't surprised that he thought it was just a matter of time and the timing was really uncanny. But you know, this really demonstrates the stakes. This is not merely someone thumping on a tub or using as an excuse to make a TV show. It really, really underlies just how serious this comedy show is at its core.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Jeff Wise has been writing about the second season of the rehearsal for Vulture. You can read and [e-mail] Jeff's Got a Podcast all about the disappearance of that Malaysia Airlines flight back in 2014. It's called finding MH370. You can listen where you listen and you can of course, watch the rehearsal on HBO or Max or HBO Max or whatever it's called this week. Thank you Andrew Tangle from the Wall Street Journal for helping with this episode that Devin Schwartz produced. Amina Al Saadi edited, Laura Bullard, Fact Checked and Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd mixed. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.

[Unknown]

Nobody knows your customers better than your team, so give them the power to make standout content with Adobe Express. Brand kits make following design rules a breeze, and Adobe quality templates make it easy to create pro looking flyers, social posts, presentations and more. You don't have to be a designer to edit campaigns, resize ads and translate content. Anyone can in a click and collaboration tools put feedback right where you need it. See how you can turn your team into a content machine with Adobe Express, a quick and easy app to create on brand content. Learn more at adobe. Com Express Business.