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    Nathan Fielder Calls F.A.A. ‘Dumb’ in CNN Interview

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    In a CNN interview to discuss the recent season’s focus on pilot safety, Fielder responded to a Federal Aviation Administration statement and criticized training standards.Nathan Fielder, the creator of the HBO comedy-documentary series “The Rehearsal,” extended his show’s commingling of performance and reality with a live appearance on CNN on Thursday.Fielder went on “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown” to promote the second season of “The Rehearsal” (whose finale aired on Sunday), and to raise awareness about airline pilot safety. Fielder had been closely examining safety in the season, including the communication between pilots and co-pilots, which he argued is poor and is a key factor in many plane crashes.In the finale, Fielder himself flew a Boeing 737 passenger jet with more than 100 actors on board in an attempt to simulate inter-pilot communication on real-world commercial flights.On “The Situation Room,” he fired back at criticism from the Federal Aviation Administration, which said in a statement to CNN that it “isn’t seeing the data that supports the show’s central claim that pilot communications is to blame for airline disasters.”“Well that’s dumb, they’re dumb,” Fielder said, sitting next to John Goglia, an aviation expert and former National Transportation Safety Board member who appeared as an adviser on “The Rehearsal” this season. Fielder criticized the F.A.A.’s training standards, which he said do not adequately prepare pilots and co-pilots to speak their mind if they have a concern.“The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying ‘If you are a co-pilot and the pilot does something wrong, you need to speak up about it,’” he said. “That’s all. That’s the training.”On Friday, the F.A.A. said in a statement that it “requires all airline crew members (pilots and flight attendants) and dispatchers to complete Crew Resource Management training,” which focuses on interactions among crew members.“They must complete this training before they begin working in their official positions and complete it on a recurring basis afterward,” the F.A.A. said.Over the course of six episodes, Fielder recruited several pilots to participate in elaborate role-playing scenarios that tested their ability to navigate sensitive conversations. In one episode, a pilot was encouraged to confront his girlfriend with suspicions of disloyalty while seated next to her in a mock cockpit. In another, several pilots were graded on their ability to deliver harsh feedback to contestants in a fake singing competition show.Although the scenarios are contrived and frequently involve actors, the show also regularly depicts what appear to be genuine interactions with nonactors. The fifth episode featured an awkward interview with a congressman, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a member of the aviation subcommittee. And Goglia’s appearances are played completely straight.“It’s exploded,” Goglia said on “The Situation Room,” when asked about the public reaction to the show. “My emails exploded, my messages exploded, my grandkids were all over me — it’s unbelievable, the response.” More

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      in Music

      Drummer and Music Agent Among 6 Killed in San Diego Plane Crash

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      Friends paid tribute to Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada, and Dave Shapiro, a music agent who worked with Sum 41, Hanson and other bands.They were two rock music veterans who were excited to fly together from New Jersey to San Diego.One was Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada. The other was Dave Shapiro, a music agent who worked with Sum 41, Hanson, Jefferson Starship and other artists, and was also a pilot who ran his own aviation business.In an Instagram story posted on Wednesday night, Mr. Williams shared a photo of their plane, a Cessna Citation, on a tarmac and two more photos of himself in the co-pilot’s seat.“Here we goooooo,” he wrote.But after crossing the country, the jet hit power lines and crashed in a residential neighborhood as it prepared to land in dense fog in San Diego early on Thursday morning.All six people aboard were killed, eight people on the ground were injured and 10 homes were damaged, the authorities said. It was not clear if Mr. Shapiro was piloting the Cessna when it crashed or if Mr. Willians was a co-pilot.Daniel Williams of The Devil Wears Prada at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival in 2012 in San Bernardino.Chelsea Lauren/Getty ImagesThe music executive Dave Shapiro last year in Nashville.Stephanie Siau/Sound Talent Group, via Associated PressOfficials on Friday did not release all of the names of the victims, but Mr. Shapiro, 42, was killed as were Emma Lynn Huke, 25, and Kendall Fortner, 24, two employees at Sound Talent Group, the company Mr. Shapiro co-founded, the company said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Steve Mensch, President of Tyler Perry Studios, Dies at 62

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      Mr. Mensch, a longtime supporter of the film industry in Georgia, died in a plane crash on Friday in Florida, according to officials.Steve Mensch, a film executive in Georgia who pushed for state policies to support the industry and who was the president of Tyler Perry Studios, died in a plane crash in Florida on Friday. He was 62.Mr. Mensch was the sole occupant of a small-engine fixed-wing aircraft that crashed on Highway 19 in Homosassa, Fla., just after 8 p.m. on Friday, according to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.Mr. Mensch worked at Tyler Perry Studios for more than eight years, managing the 330-acre studio in Atlanta that was once home to Fort McPherson, a U.S. military base that closed in 2011, according to the company.Mr. Perry, the actor and entertainment mogul whose movies and television shows often depict the lives of Black Americans, bought the decommissioned base for $30 million in 2015.The lot has been a host to many of Mr. Perry’s projects, like “Boo! A Medea Halloween,” featuring Mr. Perry in his comedic role. Since his breakout role as Madea, Mr. Perry has appeared in nearly 50 shows and movies, including “Don’t Look Up” and “Gone Girl” and has over 70 producer credits, according to IMDb.Other shows and films have been shot at his studio, including “Pitch Perfect 3,” “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jim Abrahams, 80, Dies; One of Trio Behind ‘Airplane!’ and ‘Naked Gun’

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      Along with David and Jerry Zucker, he revolutionized film comedy with a style of straight-faced, fast-paced parody.Jim Abrahams, who with the brothers David and Jerry Zucker surely comprised one of the funniest trios of comedy writers in film history, layering on the yucks in classics like “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun,” died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 80.His son Joseph said the death was from complications of leukemia.Mr. Abrahams and the Zucker brothers — often known around Hollywood as the “men from ZAZ” — revolutionized film comedy with their brand of straight-faced, fast-paced parodies of self-serious dramas like 1970s disaster films and police procedurals.Along the way they littered pop culture with a trail of one liners seemingly custom-cut to drop into daily conversation: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” And “Nice beaver!”Their films spawned an entire genre of spoof comedy, many of them pale, scruffy comparisons to the tight scripts and cleverly paced plots that gave the ZAZ films their punch.The trio shared writing credits on five films, starting with “Kentucky Fried Movie” (1977), a compilation of parody sketches that grew out of a comedy show they developed after college in Madison, Wis., and took to Los Angeles in 1972.The idea for their second film, “Airplane!” (1980), came after watching a 1957 thriller called “Zero Hour!” about an ill-fated passenger plane on which the crew are stricken with food poisoning, forcing one of the passengers, a psychologically scarred ex-pilot, to take control.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Pilot Killed in New Mexico Air Show Crash Instructed ‘Top Gun’ Actors

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      Charles Thomas “Chuck” Coleman was a flight instructor who prepared actors for the 2022 action movie “Top Gun: Maverick,” which starred Tom Cruise and Miles Teller.An accomplished test pilot who was a flight instructor for the cast of the 2022 movie “Top Gun: Maverick” died in a crash of a small plane during an air show in New Mexico on Sunday, the authorities said.The pilot, Charles Thomas “Chuck” Coleman, 61, was the only person onboard the single-engine Extra Flugzeugbau 300/L plane when it crashed during a performance at the Las Cruces Air and Space Expo around 2:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, according to Las Cruces city officials and the Federal Aviation Administration.The show, a display of aerobatic performances, helicopters, airplanes and spacecraft, was held at Las Cruces International Airport and ended after the crash. The airport was also temporarily closed on Sunday, according to the city.“Unfortunately, we had a tragic ending to our Air and Space Expo this weekend,” Mayor Eric Enriquez of Las Cruces said in a statement posted to social media on Monday. Las Cruces is a city of about 111,000 residents in southern New Mexico.“We would like to extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones and fans of Chuck Coleman,” he added.The cause of the crash is being investigated by New Mexico State Police, the F.A.A. and the National Transportation Safety Board, the city said.Las Cruces officials said that Mr. Coleman, who was based in California, was “a well known and respected engineer, aerobatic and test pilot” with more than 10,000 hours of flight time. He had also performed at hundreds of air shows and had provided more than 3,000 rides in aerobatic aircraft, according to his official website.Mr. Coleman was an aerobatic flight instructor for the actors in the 2022 action movie “Top Gun: Maverick,” which starred Tom Cruise as Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who trains a group of eager young combat pilots for a dangerous mission. The movie also starred Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly and Val Kilmer.“He flew 140 flights in order to prepare the actors to fly in Navy F-18 Hornets,” Mr. Coleman’s website stated. On his Instagram page, Mr. Coleman posted a photo of Mr. Teller in a flight suit and said that the actor had flown with him for 12 training flights or about 14 hours to prepare for the Navy jets.The movie was the sequel to the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun,” which followed a group of young pilots at the Navy’s elite fighter weapons school, also known as Top Gun.Mr. Coleman also worked on the film productions of “The Round and Round” (2002) and “First in Flight” (2012), and appeared in the 2009 documentary “Air Racer: Chasing the Dream,” according to IMDb.com.Kirsten Noyes contributed research. More

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      in Television

      Netflix Adds Disclaimer to Indian Show After Anger Over Hijacker Names

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      The series, based on a 1999 plane hijacking, prompted backlash on social media. Critics claimed it wrongly portrayed the Islamist hijackers as Hindus.Netflix expanded a disclaimer for Indian audiences with a fictional series inspired by the 1999 hijacking of a plane by Islamist militants, after social media users and a high-ranking member of India’s ruling party accused it of portraying the hijackers as Hindus.“IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack,” released last week, became the latest production by a Western streaming giant to find itself in the cross hairs of India’s Hindu nationalist movement, which has been accused of building up an increasingly intolerant atmosphere in the country.The series shows five Islamist militants hijacking an Indian Airlines flight from Nepal to India, and their interactions with the plane’s crew and passengers. In the show, the hijackers refer to themselves by code names, including “Shankar,” a common name for Hindu men.That prompted anger among many social media users, with some accusing the producers of playing down the Muslim identity of the hijackers. A national official of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Malviya, said the series’ use of the hijackers’ aliases “legitimized their criminal intent.”“Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814,” Mr. Malviya, who oversees information technology and social media for the B.J.P., wrote on X on Monday.India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting summoned a Netflix executive to discuss the government’s grievances about the show, according to local media reports.“For the benefit of audiences unfamiliar with the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, the opening disclaimer in India has been updated to include the real and code names of the hijackers,” Netflix said in a statement on Tuesday.During the actual hijacking of the flight, over eight days, the militants forced the pilots to fly the plane to a number of locations, including Dubai, and then Kandahar, Afghanistan, which was ruled by the Taliban at the time. The plane’s passengers were freed after India released three Pakistanis who had been held under terrorism charges.The Indian government said at the time that the five hijackers were from Pakistan and used code names, including “Shankar,” in front of the passengers and crew to conceal their identities.Before the show’s release on Aug. 29, its director, Anubhav Sinha, told Scroll, an Indian news site, that his goal was to present the event “exactly in the manner in which it happened.”The updated disclaimer on Netflix now says the series “does not make any claims of authenticity or historical correctness” of the events featured in it. It also lists the hijackers’ real names: Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir.This is not the first time major streaming platforms have faced pressure from Hindu nationalists in India.Netflix in January removed a film after Hindu nationalists said it mocked Hinduism. The makers of a 2021 Amazon series cut some scenes after critics accused them of disrespecting Hindu gods. More

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      in Music

      How Laurie Anderson Conjured Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight

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      Imagine — or perhaps remember — a time when the world seemed much larger, when air travel was novel and dangerous, when wireless communication could never be taken for granted.That’s the era Laurie Anderson conjures on her new album, “Amelia,” out Friday. In a fast-moving 36 minutes and 22 tracks, “Amelia” traces the doomed final flight of Amelia Earhart, who set out “to become the first woman to circumnavigate the Earth,” as Anderson narrates. Earhart took off from Oakland on May 20, 1937, and flew across the Americas, Africa and Asia before her plane disappeared over the Pacific on July 2.“I really fell in love with Amelia,” Anderson said in a video interview from her New York City studio, where she was surrounded by keyboards and mixing equipment, preparing for a tech rehearsal. “Amelia really was this badass person.”Amelia Earhart “was the original blogger,” Laurie Anderson said, noting her journey was very documented.Like nearly the entire body of work that Anderson has created since the 1980s, “Amelia” is an uncontainable hybrid. It unfolds as something between a song cycle, an oratorio and a vintage radio drama. Anderson deploys a string orchestra, electronics and a jazz-tinged rhythm section along with her gallery of singing and speaking voices. Parts of “Amelia” are matter-of-fact and diaristic, noting dates and places. But there are also stretches of heaving orchestral counterpoint that grow enveloping, even dizzying, evoking the vastness, and danger, of sky and ocean.Anderson describes “Amelia” as “a distant cousin” of music she composed for a concert series in 2000 by the American Composers Orchestra for the turn of the millennium. The conductor Dennis Russell Davies had called on Anderson, Philip Glass, Samuel Barber and others to write music about flight.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Three Members of the Nelons Gospel Group Are Killed in a Plane Crash

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      The band members were traveling on Friday to a performance when their plane crashed in Wyoming. Four others on board were killed.Three members of the award-winning gospel band the Nelons and four other people on board were killed in a plane crash in rural Wyoming on Friday, according to the authorities and representatives for the band.The plane, an 11-seat Pilatus, crashed at approximately 1 p.m. local time in a remote area north of Gillette in Campbell County, Wyo., the county government said on Facebook.The three band members, Jason Clark; his wife, Kelly Nelon Clark; and their daughter Amber Kistler were traveling to perform on a cruise that was set to depart on Saturday from Seattle and sail to Alaska, according to a statement from Gaither Management Group, which the band recorded for.Ms. Kistler’s husband, Nathan, was also killed, as well as the band’s assistant, Melodi Hodges; the pilot, Larry Haynie; and his wife, Melissa.The Nelons, which were founded in 1977 by Rex Nelon, perform gospel, hymn and folk music. The group’s work drew three Grammy Award nominations, in 1979, 1982 and 1990. The band was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016. Among other honors, it won Voices of Gospel Music Awards.The group recorded more than 35 albums, with hit Southern gospel songs about hope and faith that include “We Shall Wear a Robe and Crown,” “Come Morning” and “O For a Thousand Tongues.”Autumn Nelon Streetman, a fourth member of the band, was already in Seattle with her husband, Jamie. They had flown commercially, according to Mike Roberts, a booking agent for the band. She found out about the crash once she arrived at her hotel.“Autumn and Jamie will return home for now to Kelly’s brother, Todd Nelon and his wife, Rhonda, to begin the hard tasks that lie ahead,” Gaither Management said on social media.The band had dozens of tour dates on its schedule this year. Earlier on Friday, band members posted a video from an airport tarmac in Nebraska City, Neb., before departing for their next destination in Montana.The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. A preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report is expected within 30 days.A board spokesman said investigators were expected to be at the scene of the crash on Saturday. “The aircraft is in a remote location, and once they gain access, they will begin documenting the scene,” he said.A wildfire broke out near the crash site, Campbell County officials said. A spokeswoman for the Campbell County Fire Department said that airplanes and heavy equipment were used to contain the fire to about 38 acres on Friday night. More

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      in Movies

      How Flight Attendants Fought Back Against Sexism in the Airline Industry

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      Decades ago, “stewardesses” earned less than men, couldn’t get married or gain weight, and had to retire at 32. A key figure in a landmark lawsuit looks back at a not-so-golden era.In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a stewardess — as they were then called — for Northwest Airlines, she was 20 years old and the clock was already ticking. At 32, she would be forced to retire. That is, if she didn’t marry, get pregnant or even gain too much weight before that: All were grounds for termination. It was the golden age of aviation for everyone except, perhaps, the women serving in-flight meals to the nattily dressed passengers.Six years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and female flight attendants began to join forces against sexism.In 1970, Ms. Laffey Inman, a union leader and Northwest’s first female purser — the lead attendant on a flight — spearheaded a class-action suit, Laffey v. Northwest Airlines Inc., that resulted in the airline paying more than $30 million in damages and back wages in 1985. It also set the precedent for nondiscriminatory hiring of flight attendants across the industry. But even then, not everything changed: Flight attendants on some airlines were still subjected to “weigh-ins” into the 1990s. (Northwest merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008.)Now, decades after the landmark decision, Ms. Laffey Inman, 86, is one of several former flight attendants featured in “Fly With Me,” an “American Experience” documentary that chronicles how women fought to overcome discrimination in the airline industry. It premieres on PBS on Feb. 20. The New York Times spoke to Ms. Laffey Inman about how she made history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Ms. Laffey Inman in her Northwest uniform in 1968, around the time she became the airline’s first female purser, or lead attendant on a flight.Courtesy of Mary Pat Laffey InmanWhat inspired your career in the airline industry?I was working at Montefiore Hospital, in Pittsburgh. I always wanted to travel, ever since I was a kid. As a flight attendant, I could travel — all expenses paid. I thought it was wonderful. Other stewardesses and I laugh about how lucky we were to be in the industry at that time. We would bid for three-day layovers in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo. A limo would be there to pick you up and take you to the hotel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More