NASA Administrator Brad Isaacman declared his independence from government oversight and flew a vintage military jet during Saturday’s massive Fourth of July air show over Washington, D.C.
The Federal Aviation Administration last week denied a NASA request for pilots from the space agency and the Air Force to streak across the sky in four 1970s-era fighters, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The FAA reportedly deemed the Northrop F-5 Tiger II aircraft “very high-risk,” saying the planes posed a potential danger to people and property on the ground in the nation’s capital, according to The Journal.
But in a move that raised the Trump administration’s exercise of executive authority to new heights, Isaacman used a regulatory loophole to pull off the feat.
“It’s clear the president wanted the grandest flyover ever,” Isaacman told the Journal. “It certainly was.”
Isaacman is an experienced aviator who’s flown military aircraft for years, and his company, JDI Holdings, owns three of the F-5 jets that opened Saturday’s air show, while the fourth is owned by another entity, according to The Journal.
In a statement to The Independent on Monday, an FAA spokesperson said, “The FAA conducted a standard safety review for a privately owned, experimental aircraft.”
“Once the aircraft was transferred to NASA, it became a ‘public use’ (or government) aircraft,” the spokesperson said. “The responsibility for the operation falls to that specific government agency, not the FAA.”
A NASA spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Independent.
The FAA’s six-page decision addressed issues involving the F-5’s flight controls, the consequences if pilots needed to eject and previous crashes involving the planes, according to the Journal.
Isaacman told the Journal that the number of F-5s in operation worldwide and their decades of service meant there was no reason to question whether Saturday’s flyover could be conducted safely.
Isaacman also said the situation surrounding the aircraft reflected a misunderstanding of the FAA’s role in events such as Saturday’s 250th Independence Day celebration.
Although he acknowledged that NASA sought permission from the FAA, Isaacman said he had previously put the F-5s under NASA control without transferring their titles to the space agency.
That put the planes under different rules that fall outside the FAA’s jurisdiction, Isaacman said.
“It never should have been a civil operation from the get-go,” he said of Saturday’s air show.
The event was organized by Freedom 250, a group aligned with President Donald Trump that also sponsored the sparsely attended Great American State Fair on the National Mall.
A Freedom 250 spokesperson didn’t immediately return an inquiry from The Independent, but the Journal said it referred questions about Saturday’s flyover to NASA.