A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

In the opening session of NBAA’s Schedulers &amp; Dispatchers Conference in New Orleans this morning, Ed Bolen, the association’s president and CEO, addressed the recent spate of high-profile aviation accidents and their effects on the industry.
“We know that business aviation—all of aviation—is under a microscope right now,” he said, noting the fatal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2025-01-30/us-army-helicopter-american-airlines-flight-collide">midair collision</a> in Washington, D.C., involving an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a regional jet. That accident was followed by others involving business aviation aircraft, including fatal accidents involving a <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2025-01-31/medevac-learjet-crashes-after-takeoff-philadelphia">medevac Learjet</a> in Philadelphia and a <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2025-02-10/landing-learjet-crashes-parked-jet-runway-excursion">runway departure</a> in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“All of this has brought an intense focus on aviation, with an important question being asked about our industry: Is it safe?” said Bolen. In response, he pointed to aviation’s enviable safety record. “Imagine that, [of] all the modes of transportation, the one that goes up in the air and comes back down is the safest way to go.”
Yet, he added, “it is not enough to be safe; we’ve got to be perceived as being safe,” and for him, being safe is not a destination in itself, but a path towards perfection. While acknowledging that it is an unachievable goal, Bolen said it is one the industry must strive for “every day, in every way.”
To improve safety, he pointed to two crucial factors, the first being elimination of complacency. “It’s easy sometimes to just do what you are doing,” he told the audience. “We’ve got to always focus on doing what we’re doing with excellence.”
The second is the adoption of a just culture. “For decades now, we have been promoting a voluntary reporting system where people can come forward to their company, to our industry, to the FAA and share what their experiences have been,” and knowing that wouldn’t necessarily come with punishment. “We’re about working together and understanding how good people trying to be safe are making mistakes.”
Toward that end, Bolen said he was encouraged by the NTSB’s resisting pressure to place immediate blame in the Washington midair collision and its insistence on conducting a full and thorough investigation before determining the cause of the accident.

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