Nathan Fielder called the Federal Aviation Administration “dumb” and forced an uncomfortable moment between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and his co-host during a surreal interview Thursday.
The quirky comedian, 42, spared no one, including a US representative, as he discussed the chatter around his HBO docu-series, “The Rehearsal,” that recently concluded its second season and pushes the claim that communication issues between pilot and co-pilot contribute to many devastating airline crashes.
Fielder went as far as to get his commercial pilot license after two years of training and then flew a 737 plane with 150 actors on board as passengers for the show.
When co-host Pamela Brown read a statement from the FAA that the agency doesn’t see data that backs up the show’s central theory, Fielder shot that down.
“That’s dumb,” he said on CNN as he wore a 737 hat after the Boeing plane. “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 co-pilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it.’ That’s all,” Fielder went on to say.
“That’s the training, and they talk about some crashes that happen, but they don’t do anything that makes it stick emotionally so pilots think they’ll act a certain way in an accident.”
Fielder, who appeared on the segment with aviation expert John Goglia, then tried to use the dynamic between Blitzer and Brown in a bid to prove his argument.
“I’m sure, Pamela, you don’t say things to Wolf because between you two, like who would be the boss? Like you’re Wolf Blitzer so your name is first on the thing,” Fielder said, “so I’m sure Pamela, at times, you might not want to say, ‘Oh, Wolf wants to do something,’ you don’t think it’s a good idea, you might not want to express that always.”
When Brown tried to insist that the pair have a good relationship, Fielder kept going.
“But you have to say that now,” he said. “You don’t want to say to Wolf you can’t as a journalist, you don’t say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to.”
Blitzer also made clear that Brown speaks up when the two have a differing opinion.
“Here’s the great thing about Wolf is that he doesn’t have an ego,” Brown added. “He has no ego, but I take your point.”
For the show, Fielder also sat down with Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee), but the aviation subcommittee member told CNN he was disappointed with the meeting.
Cohen said his office was told Fielder wanted to talk about how people with autism could have “difficulties in a crash situation,” but most of the “substantive parts” of the interview didn’t make the show.
Fielder brushed off the criticism and claimed Cohen didn’t seem to know much about Crew Resource Management, which involves interactions among flight crew, during their talk.
“Look, I wasn’t gonna bring that up, but he seemed to come at me a little,” he said, arguing he was trying to bring him an important issue.
The CNN interview comes a day after Fielder raised eyebrows for labeling his successful flight on the show the “Miracle of the Mohave” and suggested to Jimmy Kimmel his landing was more impressive than “Miracle on the Hudson” by hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger.
“Not to create sort of like a competition or anything,” Fielder said. “But I did put down my plane safely on land.”
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