ATLANTA- Delta Air Lines (DL) has served former pilot Karlene Petitt with a cease and desist letter regarding statements about February’s Endeavor Air crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ).
The legal action centers on Petitt’s social media posts alleging training failures by the Endeavor Air captain involved in the incident, with Delta claiming these statements are “false and defamatory.”
Photo: X userDelta Attempts to Silent Ex-Pilot
Delta’s attorney David Balser challenged four specific statements made by Petitt on social media platforms and her blog regarding the Endeavor Air Flight 4819 accident.
The airline demanded clarification of claims that the captain had previously failed Delta’s first officer training program before returning to Endeavor.
In response, Petitt published the cease and desist letter on her personal blog on March 7, 2025, along with her clarifications to the four points.
Petitt maintains that her publications were motivated by safety concerns and based on information received from both Endeavor and Delta pilots.
She argues that the legal action might actually serve her purpose of transparency, stating, “With a lawsuit, I can legally subpoena the CVR, FDR, depose both pilots, depose all Delta’s instructors, request names and records of all those who flowed up to Delta and were sent back, and can even request all training documents.”
Photo: By BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada – Delta Connection (Endeavor Air) Bombardier CRJ-900 N305PQ, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47801242Pilot Training Procedures Questioned
The controversy centers around Endeavor Air captain James Henneman and claims about his training history.
According to Petitt’s sources—including emails from an Endeavor pilot and a Delta instructor—there are questions about the pilot flow-through process between Endeavor Air and Delta, and how pilots who don’t complete Delta training successfully are handled when returned to regional carriers.
Delta has publicly refuted the allegations, stating on February 20 that “assertions that he failed training events are false” and “assertions that he failed to flow into a pilot position at Delta Air Lines due to training failures are also false.”
However, the airline cited the ongoing Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigation as preventing them from releasing specific training information about the Flight 4819 captain.
Representative Photo | Credit: By Alan Wilson – Bombardier CRJ-900 'N820SK’ Delta Connection, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33925297History of Conflict Between Petitt and Delta
This is not the first legal confrontation between Petitt and Delta. She references her previous AIR21 whistleblower action against the airline regarding operational safety concerns.
Petitt suggests Delta may have “singled her out” for legal threats while not pursuing other individuals who made similar claims online about the Toronto incident.
In her response, Petitt connects the current legal challenge to past conflicts, noting that Delta’s current legal representation, King & Spalding, has connections to a Delta Labor Relations attorney who was involved in her previous case. She frames the current dispute as part of a continued pattern of the airline attempting to suppress safety concerns.
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The post Delta Air Lines Tries to Silent its Former Pilot Over Toronto Plane Crash appeared first on Aviation A2Z.
