AVWEB APOLOGIZES TO ARTHUR ALAN WOLK

As you know aviation attorney, Arthur Alan Wolk sued AVweb and certain of our subscribers for libel. While we initially felt that we were justified in our characterizations of Mr. Wolk and his activities, it has become apparent that many of our subscribers disagree with us, and others with whom we have consulted believe we did libel him.

One of Mr. Wolk's complaints was that we did not supervise our chat room to prevent libelous comments about him being published by our subscribers. We have corrected that. Another of Mr. Wolk's complaints was that our characterizations instigated some of our subscribers to libel him. We will no longer characterize matters in such a way as to bring apparent discredit upon anyone.

Mr. Wolk also complained that we didn't gather the facts before "reporting" events that concerned him on AvFlash. He is correct and in the future we shall make certain that we see the black and white instead of reporting on mere rumor or innuendo.

While the defense of Mr. Wolk's lawsuit has been expensive, he nonetheless has been gracious enough to settle with us for a payment to charity. In fact, even in settlement negotiations, when there was a demand for money, it was always to be contributed to charity, none for Mr. Wolk himself. He steadfastly insisted that his lawsuit was not about money and we have come to believe him.

One of the terms of our settlement with Mr. Wolk was that we investigate the facts and issue a point for point retraction of the things said about him to or by our subscribers. We have investigated and we have consulted with attorneys who because of their own aviation practices know Mr. Wolk personally and professionally. We have been assured that Arthur Alan Wolk is perhaps the most highly regarded aviation lawyer in the country, if not the world. He has never been known to break his word, either written or verbal, even in the most hotly contested cases. One of our lawyers informed us that Mr. Wolk's word is well known to be completed trusted. We are also informed that aircraft manufacturers, their insurers, their defense counsel, whether they agree with Mr. Wolk or not, would never question his honest belief in the rightness of his clients' cases or his attempts to honestly plead their causes before judges and juries. In fact, one of the things most respected about Mr. Wolk's word is that he thoroughly tests his theories, analyzes accidents and the components he feels contributed to them and looks at the accidents through his pilot-trained eyes. The zeal with which he prosecutes his cases is also highly respected.

In one of our articles about Mr. Wolk, we criticized him for suing the NTSB and Allied Signal about the report of his own accident. We suggested that money was the motive. The truth is that when we wrote that piece we hadn't read his complain, knew little or nothing of the reasons he filed it and weren't familiar with the particulars of his accident. In a complete departure from accepted journalistic practices, we didn't telephone Mr. Wolk or get a copy of his complaint so we really didn't know enough to legitimately characterize it in any manner. It turns out, now that we have seen it, Mr. Wolk complained that Allied Signal investigators consulted by the NTSB falsely mislead the NTSB how the fuel control in his jet fighter operated so Wolk alleges the focus of the investigation was misdirected. Wolk also complained that the NTSB after agreeing that the first investigation was sloppy and inaccurate again published the withdrawn NTSB report on the web. This occurred even after three new investigators had concluded mechanical failure was the cause of the accident. What Mr. Wolk was suing about was not money, it was to protect the families of other victims of airplane crashes who are dead and can't speak up for themselves from being victimized by component manufacturers who are trying to protect themselves from liability instead of helping the NTSB. What we did was wrong and violated not only Mr. Wolk's rights, but journalistic ethics as well.

In another article we called Mr. Wolk a "self-proclaimed safety advocate". This was in response to a press release he issued where he criticized the FAA for refusing to order a fix on aircraft fuel tanks to prevent explosions like TWA 800 because it was cheaper to pay the claims for the dead people than to fix the problem. We were wrong! In truth, we learned that the night of TWA 800's crash, Mr. Wolk, who had investigated fuel system safety for many years, was the lone expert on MSNBC to suggest the fuel system explosion and not a terrorist act brought that aircraft down. It turns out he was the only one who was correct. We reported that following the NTSB hearings on that crash, Mr. Wolk was trolling for clients in the media coverage that followed. In truth, Mr. Wolk was not at those hearings and was recovering from injuries he suffered in the crash of his own aircraft. He did not represent any victims of TWA 800. We were wrong again.

Our investigation reveals that far from being a self-proclaimed safety advocate, Arthur Wolk is regarded as an aviation safety expert and advocate by virtually ever major news organization in this country and many throughout the world. He was given these titles not by himself, but by others after time after time he correctly identified the causes of aircraft accidents long before the NTSB. In fact, Mr. Wolk calls himself a pilot and avaiation lawyer, both of which are true. The other appellations came solely from those who were impressed by his accuracy and credibility and were not self-proclaimed. Our investigation reveals that Mr. Wolk is considered an expert in the causes of aircraft accidents by many more than just the media including pilots, manufacturers, aircraft owners, insurance companies, judges and juries. His work in identifying correctly the Boeing 737 rudder problem is being rewarded now by the FAA ordering a complete re-design of the rudder control system on that aircraft.

We have also investigated statements made about Mr. Wolk in our chat room. They were appalling and untrue. We should have acted immediately to filter them and prevent them from being published. We now appreciate the power a site such as ours has. A power to do good for aviation and our subscribers, and the power to do harm to people like Arthur Wolk. We have learned a very powerful lesson and we are sorry. It will not happen again to Mr. Wolk or to anyone else if it's in our power to prevent it.

We began this piece with a statement that Mr. Wolk's lawsuit against us has been withdrawn. He has demanded no money, but we acknowledge that what happened here on AVweb and our chat room has damaged him. After our investigation was completed and we learned the facts, we can honestly say he did not deserve that. We learned, for example, that he has worked since he was twelve years old, first in a hobby shop selling model airplanes; that he came from a poor family raised by a single mother and worked his way through school. We learned that he worked a full time job while he went to college and law school on full academic scholarships. After acquiring his first new airplane and experiencing multiple equipment failures, he realized that maybe pilots who died in crashes also experienced mechanical failure and just couldn't defend themselves because "dead men tell no tales". That's what influenced him to limit his practice to air crash litigation and most often to be the voice of pilots who could not longer speak for themselves. Whether you agree with what Mr. Wolk does, and many of our subscribers do, his motives appear, to us, to be honest. If we or our subscribers made him appear dishonest, that was a disservice to him and the people he represents and for that we apologize.

We thought that in fairness to Mr. Wolk, even though we know we can't fix it completely, we should publish some comments from his clients whose loved ones were lost in airplane crashes and others who know his work. Some are pilots and some are not, but perhaps they can give a perspective that we didn't publish. So we ask that you take the time to read these as we have. Perhaps a balance can then be struck which is what we should have done in the beginning.

Mr. Wolk, in behalf of the ownership, publishers, editors and to the extent we speak for the subscribers of AVweb, we apologize and we thank you for giving us the opportunity to make amends.

During the 2000 and 2001, and even more recently, I have made statements both on the Internet and elsewhere about Arthur Alan Wolk. Mr. Wolk has sued me and others concerning those statements. I would like to settle that lawsuit and, at the same time, try to undue some of the damage I did to Mr. Wolk, as I have acted unfairly and have libeled him.

I previously wrote in Avweb that Mr. Wolk pranced around in an overstressed flight suit covered in patches that real pilots had to earn. In fact, the person to whom I was referring turned out to be not Mr. Wolk at all, but rather another pilot of another flying Panther jet. That occurred around 1996, and I assumed it was Mr. Wolk. In fact, it was not. The pilot I was referring to, and with whom I had a conversation, was not Mr. Wolk after all, it was, in fact, a former Navy pilot who did earn the patches on his flight suit. I have never seen Mr. Wolk's flight suit or the patches on it. Therefore, when I made the statement on the Internet, I had no idea whether Mr. Wolk had earned his patches or not. I am informed that Mr. Wolk's flight suit has only patches that he has earned and, therefore, for that misstatement, I apologize.

I also published on the Internet that the Kalamazoo Air History Museum has been forced to curtail its flight activities due to Mr. Wolk's causing insurance rates to be raised so extortionately, and I accused Mr. Wolk of raising those rates because of his own accident, which I claimed was due to incompetence.

In truth, when I made those statements, I had not even seen a copy of the NTSB Report on Mr. Wolk's accident, had not spoken to any NTSB investigator, I had not contacted the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum, nor spoken to them as to why they curtailed flight activities, I did not speak to any other pilot of the Cat Flight with whom Mr. Wolk had flown for eleven years before his accident, and I did not contact Mr. Wolk or even make an attempt to do so to learn of the particulars of his accident or what was found following the completion of the NTSB investigation of the accident. Indeed, I have learned that Mr. Wolk's accident had nothing to do with Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum curtailing its activities or insurance rates at all.

In fact, I was not familiar with the myriad of problems Mr. Wolk had had with the fuel control of his aircraft or that, in fact, the fuel control overhauler did not, in fact, overhaul the fuel control, but had yellow tagged it improperly. Indeed, I was not familiar with the particular circumstances of Mr. Wolk's accident, or the fact that the NTSB itself concluded that it had improperly investigated his accident, and had assigned three new investigators, all of whom had concluded that the accident was not Mr. Wolk's fault in the slightest.

In fact, I did not know that the Federal Aviation Administration, which performed its own accident investigation concluded it was as a result of mechanical failure, and did not even require Mr. Wolk to demonstrate his competence to fly with a 609 checkride. All of this investigation should have been performed before I made such statements on the Internet. For these misstatements, I apologize.

I also stated on the Internet that Mr. Wolk's aircraft was perfectly flyable and his crash was due to his incompetence, that he demonstrated aviation stupidity and endangered innocent lives. In truth, I knew nothing about Mr. Wolk's accident, except that he crashed. I knew nothing about the circumstances about the accident, what went on in the cockpit, or what indications he had in the cockpit. In fact, I did not have in my possession nor had I reviewed a flight manual for the F9F-2 Panther Jet (and still don't have one), which outlined procedures to be followed in the event of the circumstances described by Mr. Wolk. In truth, had I had this manual prior to making those statements, I would have realized that Mr. Wolk followed the emergency procedures that were set forth in the manual, which perhaps was one of the reasons why both the NTSB and FAA concluded that he was blameless for the accident.

I have also called Mr. Wolk an ambulance chaser and suggested that he hounded grieving relatives to squeeze the maximum amount of blood money, that he was a low life, that he was an unpleasant fat fellow, not the least bit gifted, and a number of other equally demeaning and ugly comments. In truth, I realize, and should have realized before, that Mr. Wolk is none of those things. In fact, he is not fat, and is generally considered to be gifted in his field. In fact, he has never, to my knowledge, nor did I have any information to the contrary, solicited a widow, a grieving widow, grieving relatives, or performed any unprofessional or unethical act as an attorney ever. In fact, when I made these statements, I knew nothing about Mr. Wolk, except what had been written on Avweb, and made no investigation and, even though I live in Pennsylvania, as does he, I made no attempt to contact him, to meet with him, to discuss his work or see the results of it. In short, I essentially knew nothing about Mr. Wolk and took no steps to learn anything before I made these false statements about him. For this, I apologize.

I also have accused Mr. Wolk of being self aggrandizing, and have also disputed his claim of performing critical work in the investigation of the Boeing 737 rudder failures. I was completely unaware when I made these statements that on the very night of the crash of United Air Lines Flight 585 in Colorado Springs, which involved a Boeing 737 aircraft, Mr. Wolk suggested on Larry King Live on CNN, that the rudder was a likely cause. I was completely unaware that between that crash and the crash of USAir Flight 427 near Pittsburgh, also involving a Boeing 737, Mr. Wolk had conducted a personal investigation of the 737 rudder system, including the purchase of a rudder control unit of a Boeing 737, which he had reconstructed and tested, and discovered failure modes which had not been previously disclosed either to the NTSB or the FAA. I also learned that Mr. Wolk's metallurgist was asked to come to Washington, DC to present evidence discovered during the course of Mr. Wolk's investigation to assist the NTSB in its investigation of USAir Flight 427 accident. I was completely unaware that Mr. Wolk had been speaking to the NTSB and providing the results of his findings to the NTSB, trying to persuade it to take steps to cause the rudder to be fixed before any further accident occurred. In fact, I was completely unaware that Mr. Wolk had attempted to get the rudder fixed on Boeing 737s before the unnecessary loss of life in the Pittsburgh USAir accident.

I was unaware, when I made these statements, that following the Pittsburgh accident when further studies were performed by the FAA, it was indeed found that Mr. Wolk's concern about the rudder were confirmed, and now all Boeing 737s will, within the next five years, be retrofitted with an entirely newly designed rudder control system. It was unfair of me to take these statements about Mr. Wolk without performing any investigation whatsoever to determine the truth or falsity of what he claimed. It now appears that his claims were sound.

I also participated in chat rooms where it was suggested that an F-14 pilot in the group known as the Cat Flight in which Mr. Wolk flew the Panther jet with other Grumman cat fighters was concerned about his flying ability. That was no true. I had never spoken to such a pilot, I never met with such a pilot, I never received correspondence from such a pilot, I knew nothing about such a pilot, and, in fact, there was no such pilot who made such a reference to Mr. Wolk's flying. Indeed, the members of the Cat Flight, many of whom were former Navy and Air Force trained pilots, embraced Mr. Wolk's flying, flew in formation with him for eleven years in air shows throughout the Country, with high regard for his flying abilities. Indeed, I have met not a single person, nor spoken to any person who has flown with him, who has any complaint about Mr. Wolk's competence as a pilot. I never spoke to anyone who had flown with Mr. Wolk who said anything negative about his capabilities as a pilot.

I, in fact, never flew with Mr. Wolk, never saw him fly, never spoke to anyone who flew with him, and never spoke to the NTSB or the FAA, who had knowledge of his flying capabilities. In fact, before I made these statements, I had not even attempted to talk to the Flight Standards District Office that issued his Letter of Authorization to fly the Panther jet to find out what they thought of Mr. Wolk's flying abilities and competence, his Low Level Aerobatic Waiver to 500' AGL or his Formation Airshow Qualification.

During the course of the litigation that Mr. Wolk brought, I accused him of perjury and altering documents, none of which is true.

During the course of the discourse over the Internet, I made belittling statements about Mr. Wolk's knowledge of aircraft fuel systems and the like. The truth is I didn't know whether Mr. Wolk had knowledge on these subjects or not. In fact, I have no knowledge of Mr. Wolk's training, capabilities, experience, study, or virtually anything else about him. I should never have made these remarks, because they were inconsistent with what I believe that I stand for.

There is a mob mentality that takes hold on chat rooms on the Internet. Things that people would ordinarily never say or do becomes easy perhaps because of the anonymity that is provided by this electronic means of communication. What I didn't realize, and do now, is that the Internet has great capacity to do harm to innocent people. Whether I am in agreement with Mr. Wolk's profession or the results he has obtained for clients, what was wrong about what I did was not taking any steps to learn about what this man has dedicated himself to do for essentially his entire professional life. That was unfair, illegal and wrong. It was also against the principals that I believe that I stand for, and have my whole life. Therefore, for some reason that I cannot adequately explain, I harmed a person whom I didn't even know. That is just wrong, and for that I apologize to Mr. Wolk, and I appreciate his willingness to forgive me without exacting a price from me.

It is my understanding that Mr. Wolk has resolved his case with Avweb, and in exchange for that resolution, monies are being paid to charities, none to Mr. Wolk personally. That tells a lot about Mr. Wolk, and says a lot more about Mr. Wolk than anything I could say in this apology.

Again, I am sorry. I apologize, what I did was wrong, and I've learned a lesson that will remain with me the rest of my life.

I agree that there are some lessons in responsibility to be learned here. However, let's keep it in perspective. Litigation is time consuming and expensive. Wolk was suing these people, and they were feeling the pain. He obviously conditioned dismissal of the case on public apologies. So, what we are seeing are statements made under some duress. While I don't doubt that there is truth in them, I suggest that they cannot be taken at 100% face value.

As far as Wolk being a showman, my recollection from my days in Philadelphia was that he used to drive a Rolls Royce with the vanity plate "AIR LAW." Nothing wrong with that, but clearly this is not someone who is adverse to a little showboating now and then.

Another aeronautical news site, which is frequenltly critical of Wolk, was not sued. Wolk said (I am told by the editor of the site) that it is because they have always been diligent about calling him for his personal comment and they have reported his side of the story. In fact, if you are in the media, Arthur Wolk is a very accessible guy. He returns calls.

His F9F Panther crash is another story. It is interesting that he gave the plane away and never flew it again. I don't know if that means he's afraid to fly it, and if so, is it because he doesn't trust the machine, or his own skills? Or maybe he just didn't want to go through that again. (I _have_ read the NTSB report -- both versions, the one they wrote independently and the one that Wolk forced them to write with a suit -- and he was damned lucky to get away with his life, either way). Anyway, the bottom line here is your free speech ends at Mr Wolk's rather thin skin.

As far as "self-proclaimed safety expert" is concerned, I am unaware of any certification program for air safety experts. To that extent they are all self-proclaimed.

Word in the business is that the suit has AvWeb on the ropes. One hopes that's not true, as they produce a good news sheet twice weekly and publish many good columnists.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

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