What the truck is going on with plane crashes?
Inside the WHAT THE TRUCK?!? newsletter: plane crashes, Nikola’s bankruptcy and more. The post What the truck is going on with plane crashes? appeared first on FreightWaves.
Welcome to the WHAT THE TRUCK?!? Newsletter. In this issue: plane crashes, Nikola’s bankruptcy and more.
Up in the air
Delta turns air travel upside down — When I boarded my flight from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Wednesday afternoon, one of my Delta pilots announced over the intercom that our flight was being flown by Air Force and Marine veterans.
Curious timing in light of recent crashes, including a Delta CRJ-900 jet, operated by Endeavor Air, which crashed while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday. In fact, I was reading about this story while stuck on the tarmac in Atlanta for an hour due to a lack of air traffic controllers in the Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida, area.
Of the four Delta flights I took between Monday and Wednesday traveling from Chattanooga to Orlando through Atlanta, that was the only one to have the pilots list their credentials.
Miraculously, nobody died in that plane crash, but the Atlanta-based mega airline is already getting ahead of legal action. According to Fox Business, “Delta Air Lines confirmed the plans to provide $30,000 to each victim – 76 passengers and 4 crew members.” A Delta spokesperson has said that the offer “has no strings attached and does not affect rights.”
I asked my good friend and industry attorney Matthew Leffler what he’d do were he on that flight or representing someone on it. (Note that this is not legal advice; consult your own attorney.)
I polled my audience to see what they’d do. 37.8% of X users and 46% of LinkedIn users said they’d take the money and move on. But, with no strings attached, many said they’d prefer to do both. 62.2% of you on X and 54% on LinkedIn said they’re calling their lawyer.
NTSB
It may seem like an abnormal number of plane crashes have been happening across North America this year even though National Transportation Safety Board crash data is down. Here are a few of the most notable:
Sixty-seven people died in January when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines-affiliated commercial jet.
A pilot was killed when Motley Crue singer Vince Neil’s private jet crashed into a plane upon landing in Arizona.
A medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood on Jan. 31. The crash killed all 6 on board as well as a father who was in his car on the ground.
Earlier this month, a commuter plane crash in Alaska killed 10 people on board.
Small planes crash all the time, but commercial airline crashes are a whole other story. In fact, there had been no major U.S. commercial passenger airline crashes with fatalities between Feb. 12, 2009 (Colgan Air Flight 3407, 50 deaths), and Jan. 29, 2025 (the Black Hawk collision).
IMDB
Hell, when pilots Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles landed on the Hudson River in January 2009, they made a movie about it. That’s how rare commercial crashes are. Two high-profile ones happening within weeks is sure to get the public’s blood pressure up.
While selection bias and reporting may be bringing more attention to this despite all crashes being down, the involvement of commercial airliners is the outlier that is demanding the public’s attention.
How is this hitting freight? FreightWaves reports, “Parcel and air cargo customers are experiencing shipping delays in parts of North America because of winter storms and Monday’s crash of a Delta Air Lines regional jet at the Toronto airport.”
“Given the impact of the weather events in Toronto and Montreal, as well as the temporary runway closure in Toronto as a result of Monday’s incident, there has been a knock-on effect to our cargo operations, but it is too soon to determine the extent of the impact as it remains a fluid situation.” – A spokesperson for Air Canada
FedEx has warned of delays due to snow at its hub in Memphis, Tennessee, while UPS has been contending with its own storm and flooding in Kentucky.
Tomorrow on WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, we’ll get much deeper into this story with AirlineGeeks founder Ryan Ewing.
The Ballad of Nikola
On Sept. 10, 2020, Hindenburg Research dropped a nuclear bombshell on Nikola Motors. Hindenburg’s report, “Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America,” set in motion the conviction of Nikola founder Trevor Milton and caused the company’s stock to fall into a death spiral.
At its five-year peak, it was valued at $1,977 a share. Today it trades for 46 cents. Wednesday, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Speaking of Trevor Milton, the embittered founder and convicted felon has returned to the same place he got in trouble for saying too much in the past: social media.
Milton posted to X, “We owned all of our assets, we were ahead and built the first production intent trucks in the united states and later delivered the first trucks in production.”
He even claims the Badger was a real thing. What he doesn’t mention is that truck they were showcasing and allegedly rolled down a hill for an ad isn’t what they brought to market.
What Nikola did bring to market were Iveco trucks, which they rebranded as the Nikola Tre and sold with their own battery electric and hydrogen technology.
I’ve been in a few and to Nikola’s credit, I know of several fleets that use their trucks every day. In fact, I did a documentary with Talon that included their fuel cell electric vehicle. We even took it to a HYLA station to see it refuel. Coyote Container’s William Hall recently shared his experience owning a Nikola Tre FCEV with us on WHAT THE TRUCK?!? here.
On Wednesday, he reacted to the news on LinkedIn.
I’m not sure what pathway current Nikola owners will have to keep their trucks serviced and if there is even a market to sell them into without taking a massive bath. It’s a tough situation for fleets that listened to government regulations that were forced upon them.
Hall had reported a number of issues with his Nikola over the past year. Now that they’re in bankruptcy, holding on to one could be a real liability considering few will be able to properly service it.
With news of Nikola’s elongated downfall, and EV trucks in general presenting underwhelming solutions with poor infrastructure, why are we forcing fleets and dealers to support this market and assume such risk?
In Massachusetts, where the prospect of owning an EV semi is far less attractive than in sunny SoCal, heavy-duty truck dealers say EV requirements are hurting business.
Despite dealers and fleets trying to talk sense to regulators, Jason Mathers with the Environmental Defense Fund told WBZ News, “I think there is an urgent need right, given the human health impacts for addressing diesel pollution, and I would say, the technology is ready, and it’s getting better every day.”
That is true, if we completely ignore that companies like Nikola are going bankrupt and dealers can’t sell units as the infrastructure and application for these trucks are not mature enough.
Matt Preston, vice president of Peterbilt Stores New England, told WBZ, “We really don’t have the infrastructure in place to be able to accommodate that. Plus, we’re very limited in the applications that we have for electric trucks so it really restricts what we can do.”
WattEV did finally get one Tesla Semi, so there’s that. Sound off. What do you think: Are you planning on investing in EVs, or are you sticking this one out as long as you can? Email me here.
Meme of the week
WTT Friday
Mid-America Trucking Show preview; WHAT THE TRUCK is up with plane crashes – Friday on WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, I’m catching up with Mid-America Trucking Show event organizer Toby Young! We’ll find out what’s going to go down when over 50,000 truckers and industry professionals descend upon Kentucky next month.
Supertrucker Justin Martin returns to the show to talk about trucking’s biggest and most controversial issues, like immigration hiring by fleets, cleaning snow off a trailer, parking and more.
What the truck is up with all these plane crashes? AirlineGeeks founder Ryan Ewing tells us everything we need to know about what’s going wrong with these commercial airline crashes.
Plus, all the latest headlines, trends and viral weirdness since our last show.
Catch new shows live at noon EST Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on FreightWaves LinkedIn, Facebook, X or YouTube, or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player and at 5 p.m. Eastern on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Trucking Channel 146.
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Now on demand
Daytona 500 brought to you by a truck; terror in I-80 tunnel; AI trucking teams
Trucking love stories; Trump’s reciprocal tariffs; Response’s $4M seed round
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The rest of the noise
Port of Los Angeles sees record January volume
Federal Maritime Commission dropping DEI from strategic plan
Trucking braces for immigration crackdowns
Trucking groups praise DOT termination of NY congestion tolls
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Don’t be a stranger,
Dooner
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