Comedian Nathan Fielder responds to criticism from the FAA about the premise of the latest season of his HBO show “The Rehearsal,” that interpersonal awkwardness between pilots and co-pilots contributes to airplane crashes. “That’s dumb. They’re dumb,” he said about the FAA denying they’ve seen data to support his thesis that co-pilots are too intimidated by pilots to speak up when they notice a problem. “I trained to be a pilot, and I’m a 737 pilot. I went through the training. The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying, If you are a copilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it. That’s all. That’s the training,” he said. “And they talk about some crashes that happened, but they don’t do anything that makes it stick emotionally.” He added to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown: “You’re Wolf Blitzer, right? So you’re like, your name is first on the thing. So I’m sure, Pamela, at times you might not want to say-you know, Wolf wants to do something, and you don’t think it’s a good idea, you might not want to express that, always.” CNN and HBO are both owned by Warner Bros./Discovery. Here’s the full interview:

PAMELA BROWN, CNN: We reached out to the FAA to see what it had to say about all of this, and it told us that it mandates all airline pilots and crew members to complete interpersonal communication training. And it says it hasn’t seen the data that supports the show’s central claim that pilot communication is to blame for airline disasters. So I want to get you to respond to that. NATHAN FIELDER: That’s dumb. They’re dumb. Here’s the issue. I trained to be a pilot, and I’m a 737 pilot. I went through the training. The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying, If you are a copilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it. That’s all. That’s the training. And they talk about some crashes that happened, but they don’t do anything that makes it stick emotionally and makes you-like, pilots think they’ll act a certain way in an accident, but like the crash that just happened here, it seemed like they saw that was sort of the issue, right? WOLF BLITZER: So you’ve seen evidence that a lack of communication between a pilot and a copilot in the cockpit has caused a crash? FORMER NTSB BOARD MEMBER JOHN GOGLIA: Contributed. Has contributed to it. WOLF BLITZER: Do you agree? NATHAN FIELDER: Well, yeah, that was my whole thing. That’s the whole show. But I mean, it’s like a human thing, you know what I mean? Like, there’s definitely stuff-I’m sure you guys, like-you brought up the analogy. But like, I’m sure, Pamela, you don’t say some things to Wolf, because between you two, who would be like the boss or the more, like-you’re Wolf Blitzer, right? So you’re like, your name is first on the thing. So I’m sure, Pamela, at times you might not want to say-you know, Wolf wants to do something, and you don’t think it’s a good idea, you might not want to express that, always. WOLF BLITZER, CNN: She’s very blunt. PAMELA BROWN: We actually have a pretty- NATHAN FIELDER: Well, you have to say that now. PAMELA BROWN: No- NATHAN FIELDER: I know, but you don’t want to say to Wolf-you can’t, you know, as a journalist, you don’t want to say, Oh, I don’t want to- WOLF BLITZER: She says that. NATHAN FIELDER: She says it to you? So maybe you’re afraid to say something. PAMELA BROWN: He’s very blunt with me, too. He has no ego. But I take your point that- NATHAN FIELDER: I mean, Wolf’s in movies and stuff. PAMELA BROWN: He’s a big deal. There is no question. NATHAN FIELDER: So that’s intimidating. That can be intimidating. That can be intimidating. That’s sort of the thing we’re trying to explore.

Fielder’s main contribution to pilot safety discourse, aside from learning to fly a 747, came from reading the memoirs of Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger:
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