How Glenn Daley's Experience Shapes Aviation Safety Part I | Ep 360

Welcome back to the Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS, in partnership with Vertical Valor Plus.  

Our guest is retired Lieutenant Glenn Daley of the New York City Police Department Aviation Unit. Glenn’s career in airborne law enforcement spans decades of service, leadership, instruction, and experience, that has taken him around the world. This conversation is powerful, emotional, educational, and, without question, one of the most important discussions we have had on this podcast.

This series begins on Sept. 11, 2001, at 8:46 a.m., the moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Glenn takes us back to that horrific morning and provides a firsthand account of the response by NYPD Aviation assets during one of the darkest days in American history. He shares not only the operational response, but also his personal experiences and how that day forever changed him both professionally and personally.

Throughout this series, we walk through Glenn’s remarkable NYPD career, including his time assigned to the Special Enforcement Unit, and discuss the transition into flying and instructing after retirement from the department. Glenn’s passion for aviation safety and training is evident throughout every episode.

One of the most impactful parts of this conversation is our deep dive into IIMC (inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions). Glenn shares his extensive knowledge and experience on what pilots and crews must do to prevent and survive these situations. We discuss go and no-go decision making, simulator training, proficiency versus currency, instrument ratings, crew coordination, and the mindset required to avoid tragedy. These lessons are real-world, practical, and potentially lifesaving.

Episodes like this truly have the power to save lives someday, and we are incredibly fortunate that Glenn was willing to share his experiences, knowledge, and perspective with all our listeners.

This is a conversation you will not forget.

Thank you to our sponsors CNC Technologies, Metro Aviation and Trakka Systems.

Transcript

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The Hanger Z podcast welcomes retired Lieutenant Glenn Daly of NYPD Aviation. Preparation is the key. Knowing that it can happen to you, that you are not, you know, immune from this happening, and you can't fix it without planning. Again, I say put me with all my, you know, 7,000, 8,000 hours and lots of hundreds of hours, actual FR, put me in a jet ranger, fly me into a cloud tonight. I give myself a 50-50 chance of surviving. There's a video by the U.S. helicopter safety team called 56 Seconds. That's the average time in all these recorded crashes the person has lived after once they penetrated on IMC. Have a plan and make it part of your SOP, part of your protocols. Encourage. Pat the guy on the back and hold the guy up who makes the landing in the park, not who gets it done through thick or thin. Welcome to a very special three-part series of the Hangers E podcast. Our guest is retired Lieutenant Glenn Daly of the New York City Police Department's Aviation Unit. Glenn's career in airborne law enforcement spans decades of service, leadership, instruction, and experience that has taken him around the world. This conversation is powerful, emotional, educational, and without question one of the most important discussions we have had on this podcast. The series begins on September 11, 2001, at 8:46 a.m., the moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Glenn takes us back to that horrific morning and provides a first-hand account of the response by NYPD aviation assets during one of the darkest days in American history. He shares not only the operational response, but also his personal experiences and how that day forever changed him both professionally and personally. Throughout this series, we walk through Glenn's remarkable NYPD career, including his time assigned to the Special Enforcement Unit, and discuss the transition into flying and instructing after retirement from the department. Glenn's passion for aviation safety and training is evidenced throughout every episode. One of the most impactful parts of this conversation is our deep dive into inadvertent IMC. Glenn shares his extensive knowledge and experience on what pilots and crews must do to prevent and survive these situations. We discuss go and no-go decision making, simulator training, proficiency versus currency, instrument ratings, crew coordination, and the mindset required to avoid tragedy. These lessons are real-world, practical, and potentially life-saving. Episodes like this truly have the power to save lives someday. And we are incredibly fortunate that Glenn was willing to share his experience, knowledge, and perspective with all of our listeners. This is a conversation you will not forget. Thank you to our sponsors. CNC Technologies. Track a systems. And Metro Aviation. Welcome to the Hanger Z Podcast. Brought to you by Vertical Helicast. The Hanger Z Podcast is the first and only podcast dedicated to promoting and exploring the personnel and equipment behind the missions in public safety aviation. So Southbound's getting to a stop now by here. Looks like you're getting ready to bail. Heads up, guys, bailing. Okay, the guy, he's running through the house, jumping the fence, through the shotgun, through something out. Grabbing the shotgun. Don't go over that fence. Dog over that fence. Grab the shotgun again. He is armed. Stay there. Hold your position. Welcome to the Hanger Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical Helicast and partnered with Vertical Valor Plus. I'm your host, Jack Shanley, and with me today to co-host this great episode that you're about to listen to is the creator of the Hangers E Podcast, John Gray. John, how are you? Good, good morning. You sound like an announcer, baseball announcer with that was which runs in your family, so we'd be surprised. That's true. The Seans, man. Miss the Shans. Oh, that's great. So this is a this is going to be a good one. Uh, we've been uh talking about getting this guest on for quite a while, and he's here, and we got a lot to talk about. There's a wide variety of things uh with our guests that are very interesting, not just his background and what he did for work and what he did in retirement, but his instruction over the years, his relationship with these different organizations that uh that are all about sharing information. And uh I think our our listeners are gonna enjoy this. I know we will very much. And with that, we'd like to welcome to the hanger Z, Lieutenant Glenn Daly, NYPD retired. Glenn, how are you? Great. How are you guys doing today? Awesome. Good. Welcome to the hanger Z finally, Glenn. Thank you for having me. Uh, we're we're thrilled to have you. This is uh this will be good. Uh, one of the topics we're going to get to today that is very, very important and that you have a passion about is inadvertent IMC. Um, so uh that'll be something we get to, but I thought how do we start with Glenn? Because there's so much to cover. And I just thought back uh to things that you and I have talked about over the years. We've known each other a long time, we taught in the same places, and uh and I wanted to start with something that's not um it's part of our history, but it's it's not pleasant, but it needs to be discussed, especially from a perspective of NYPD, and that's September 11th. So let's just start there, Glenn. September 11th, 2001, 0846 hours. Uh American Airlines Flight 11 hits the North Tower. Where were you, Glenn? And what what did you do personally and then go into what the unit did that that phase? I was in bed, and the phone rang, and my wife's in the NYPD, and a friend of hers who's in the NYPD called and says, You better put the TV on. I think a plane just hit the World Trade Center. Glenn should probably go to work. So I got up and I said, Yeah, we all we we all felt the same thing at the same time. It was a Cessner, it was a Piper. I'm like, there's no rushing me to go to work. There's a full complement of people. I'm not the only lieutenant in the NYPD aviation unit. There are plenty of people to handle this. I'll start making some moves to go to work, but I'm not gonna, you know, race down the driveway and go to work. As I was getting out of bed to get in the shower, had the TV on, out of the corner of my eye, I see the second jet hit. Usually it took me 50 minutes to get to the hangar from home. I made it in 35 that day, and it cost me a set of brakes on my car. When I pulled in the hangar, there were literally four little columns of smoke coming up from my wheel wells. I destroyed my brakes. The first thing as dramatic as it was, there was plans for this in the NYPD aviation unit. They have a very robust high-rise fire rescue plan. It's pre-planned, trained, choreographed. That plan was put into effect where the 412s would launch with emergency service unit officers, which is the unit I used to be in prior to aviation. They go recon the roofs, repel or fast rope onto the roof, clear an LZ, and start to evacuate. That September 11th, that wasn't going to happen. So just to give you an idea of the way it was laid out, you have the North Tower and the South Tower. Crystal clear day. The wind was blowing directly out of the northwest. So even though tower two wasn't hit for a while, the smoke from Tower One obscured the roof of Tower Two. So any high-rise fire rescue was out of the question for Tower Two. Tower one, I'll debate with people whether it could have been done or not. The roof was compromised very, very quickly. The northwest corner of that northwest building, the way the wind was flowing, there was an automatic window washing machine. That was accessible if anybody made it to the roof, but we later found out the roof doors were locked. They were set to be remotely unlocked from the command center in the basement. And when the jet flew through the building, it severed the wires that allowed those doors to open. We'll never know how many people perished trying to get to the roof or not. I'd rather not even think of that. Right. But early on, we decided my role for the majority of the day, I wasn't an air crew. I came in and tried to make sense out of chaos in the Flight Operations Center. Myself, two other lieutenants, commanding officer. We were getting all kinds of conflicting reports. At one time we would we were being told through through channels that there are 10 more jets inbound to New York. I'm like, this is this is getting crazy. So the the rescue element of it was out. We actually told the the primary rescue aircraft, there was a heliport that's seldom used on the New Jersey side of the river, right across from the World the World Trade Center, to land there, gather your crew up, wait for plan B to take effect. Our other aircraft was recalled to base for a crew change. And we had we had two 412s and two or three 206s on the scene. And then they shift into a command, control, and communications role where they they they were constantly updating the ground units that these buildings look unstable. You better start thinking about evacuating the PD personnel and the FD personnel. So all this is going on, the towers fall, we all know. We're still told there are more jets inbound. We had more mutual aid assistance that day than we could have ever needed. We got Air Force Pararescue Unit from West Hampton Beach, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, Nassau County Police, Suffolk County Police, New Jersey State Police, New York State Police. And I look out on the flight line and I'm like, maybe I'm being paranoid, but this looks like a big wonderful target. Why don't we disperse these aircraft out of here and send two to Newark Airport, two to LaGuardia Airport, two to Kennedy Airport, to the city heliports, and we'll dispatch them as needed. And then one of the roles I undertook with a newly assigned officer was as an air an asset flew in, we looked at what they could do for us. What kind of comms capability did they have? Did they have a Netavac capability? Did they have hoist rescue capability? So we were taking the mutual aid aircraft that fit the mission and plug it into the mission that was emerging. Plus, we still had police work to deal with. It took somewhat of a backseat for a while. I didn't get into the air until 3, 3:30 that afternoon, where literally the dust was settling. And we were dispatched on a Medevac that was called off prior to getting there. And the sad thing about it is we there weren't that many injured people to transport. It was either you were alive or you were dead. That plain and simple. And then the challenge became the days, the weeks, and the months afterwards, the emerging missions and the op tempo. Wow. It was again they had a plan. In 1993, they executed a textbook high-rise rescue off the North Tower. Where emergency service responded with aviation, repelled onto the roof, cleared a landing zone, transported uh high priority people to the roof, transported, it wasn't a mass evacuation, it was medical-aided and I believe a pregnant woman off the roof. We had two 412s going just elevator runs back and forth to the roof. So it was something that was in our toolkit, but just on 9-11, it was just such an extreme situation. There was talk. Should we insert emergency service to the roof? And the the talk in the Air Operations Center was like, we're just adding more victims to this bad situation. Wow. A couple things that come to mind. One was that there was an aircraft up pretty quick after after the first tower was hit, and they were in the vicinity when the second tower got hit. Tell tell us about that. Yeah, that was uh aviation 14, which is a 412. They were making a right turn between Governor's Island and the battery. It was crude. I know the uh the pilot and the co-pilot was Timmy Hayes and Pat Walsh. And as they were turning right around the battery, looking at the World Trade Center, they looked left, and here comes the United Jet. They pulled as hard as they could on the stick to gain altitude. They dove, they said the chin bubble just turned gray. That's when the United Jets were blue on the bottom, gray on the top. They said the chin bubble just was completely full of the top of that jet. The jet noise was was overwhelming. They they raided the base like as it was happening with a play-by-play, and we actually had that aircraft land at Governor's Island, which was a defunct Coast Guard base, and just literally get themselves together after they witnessed, they witnessed this jet go terminal. Yeah. Wow. Incredible. Incredible. A couple other things. One was that I remember seeing that day live, a lot of it live, was 412's landing uh in Lower Manhattan. What was you established a an LZ close to the to the water? Right. That was 12 LZ1. That was a very unusual situation. If you went near ground zero on foot, it looked like a post-nuclear winter, like an apocalyptic scene. I couldn't really describe it. LZ1 was right northwest of that, with just a building between that and ground zero. That it was a park that we took over and made it a landing zone, stayed pristine. But I was actually sitting there one night in a bench facing New Jersey and looking westbound. You'd never know anything horrible happened right over your shoulder. And then you turn over your shoulder and look around the building, and all hell was breaking loose. Wow. And we ran that LZ for a couple of months. We had hardwired landing lights, a windsock, everything we would need. We'd fly personnel and equipment in and out. And like the first hint that New York was getting back to normal, like weeks and weeks after 9-11, was the people in those apartment buildings started making noise complaints about the helicopter. Yeah. Like when it happened, it was like open arms. It lasted, I'd say six weeks, almost to two months. Wow. I I remember you telling me soon after. I mean, you know, when when the dust settled a little bit, we chatted and uh and how you're looking at what happened and how everybody's going, wow, we we gotta spool everything we got for Metavax, and how it ended up being, you know, a non-it was so catastrophic that that became a non-event. Uh and and that you were transporting more water and supplies and stuff than you were people. And you also got to remember that Manhattan, you you you can't shake a stick without hitting a hospital. There was no need for helicopter medavacs, that any injuries that were not fatal were just simply moved by ambulance. There were a lot of hurt banged up people. Sure. But the way I remember it is either you were alive or you weren't. And you were okay. There was very little gray area there. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Something that I remember that was it was so weird because your mind your mind goes a million different directions at once. When I finally got into the air at three, four o'clock, they had these shuttle buses that bring the commuters into Manhattan in the morning, park for the day, and then bring the commuters home in the afternoon. And these buses were parked by the Wall Street Heliport. And we were flying by the Wall Street Heliport, and I see these buses taking off down the uh the FDR drive and clouds would look like of smoke coming off the buses. And I actually thought this was some kind of chemical weapon. I'm like, wow, what the hell's going on? Are they fogging? And what it turned out is all the dust from the World Trade Center settled on these buses during the day, and they were simply just driving to go back to their bus garage at night, and all of the debris was blowing off the buses. But it just you get into an almost a paranoid mode. Right. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. You saw so you got to witness something that wasn't uh wasn't in the playbook. And and to and to follow up on that, uh not to compare September 11th to other other disasters and things, because it's it's you can't really do it. This was an intentional act, but from a perspective of aviation assets preparing for the worst. I don't care if you're preparing for hurricanes, you're preparing for rooftop hoists, like a Katrina situation, whatever it is. Talk about the importance, Glenn, of having that plan, practicing that plan, but also understanding that that plan may go out the window in the opening minutes, and you better be able to think on your feet. Talk about you mentioned it, but take a deeper dive. Thanks to our sponsor, Traca Systems, with over 25 years delivering groundbreaking searchlights, stabilized DOIR cameras, mission mapping and downlinking solutions, track of products, improve situational clarity and coordination with ground crews, increasing mission safety and effectiveness. Visit Tracasystems.com. See clearly, act decisively. Well, it's it's very it's very interesting. It's about mindset. I I'll rewind to June of 1989. What the hell happened in June of 1989? I was a 27, 28-year-old emergency service cop. It was a Sunday morning, and we had permission to use a high-rise building in Lower Manhattan, a couple of blocks in the World Trade Center, for high-rise fire rescue training. And I was one of the repel masters and the instructors. And we were loading up on the aircraft to get out and go do our thing. And I remember just joking around with the other guys that were going to repel with me, going, This is we're going to have some fun today, but this is never going to happen. It's never going to happen. And then 1993 happened, and they executed the plan to the letter, to the T. And one of the courses and presentations I do when I travel around is high-rise fire rescue. And the first thing I I do in that course is tell people just because you have a hoist-equipped helicopter, you're not ready to do high-rise fire rescue. That unless you staff it, train it, and you're ready to do it at two o'clock in the morning in a rainstorm, you're not ready. And never sell a capability or advertise a capability that you're really not 100% prepared to do because fate has a weird way of biting you in the ass. Yes. Where the the town, the city, the county, the state just gave you $15 million for hoist-equipped rescue aircraft. And now the first time they ask you to go do a rescue, you let pride get in your way rather than say, we really haven't trained that mission set. Maybe we can take more of a command, control, communications role, crawl, walk, run the training. None of these things happen overnight. None of them happen by accident. They require a huge amount of training. One of the problems with 9-11 is in its aftermath, all these emerging counter-terrorism missions that I saw many agencies, including the NYPD, run headlong into with very little thought or planning. And so sometimes I was trying to be the voice of reason, like, whoa, let's slow down. I remember one night they got called to transport suspected anthrax to Fort Dietrich in Maryland. And these two unlucky patrol haircraft cops are like, you and you go to the heliport. The FBI is going to bring you this container. And they told me it looked like a glorified piece of Tupperware that they were terrified to put this thing in the bags car to Jet Ranger. Is there duct tape involved, Clinton? And there was no protocol, there was no training, there was no pre-planning. And it luckily it worked. You fake it until you can make it. But coincidentally, one of the crew members got the flu a couple of days later and was convinced, was convinced the Grim Reaper was on its way. That it wasn't the flu, that it was anthrax. That a lot of hastily assembled airborne use of force missions with very vaguely defined rules of engagement. And, you know, I I hate to be Debbie Downer and the buzzkill, but a lot of times I'm like, we've only the year before 9-11, we just started putting our toe in the water in the aviation unit to develop an airborne use of force program. It was nowhere near mature, but a four-star chief ordered my boss that every time a helicopter leaves Floyd Bennett Field, which is our base, it will have an ESU special weapons team in the back. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This person has never fired out of a helicopter before. This helicopter crew has never flown a mission where they're going to engage a ground talker. And I I'm not saying that it it wasn't going to possibly be useful. We were still dealing with a 9-11 mentality where under every rock is a bad guy. Yeah. So I'm like, we got to develop this. You just got to crawl, walk, and run this before you get somebody hurt. And When you deal with hazard and risk mitigation, a big thing is if you can't eliminate a hazard, mitigate it. And the best negotiated deal I was able to get was the ESU crew, one or two, would be in the back of patrol aircraft, chambers would be empty, magazines would be loaded, and guns would always be pointed in a safe direction. Be aware of target fixation and shooting your own rotor system or putting a round through the transmission. That was until we developed a mature airborne use of force program, which came afterwards, that was the sanity check on that. Because once a four-star chief told us to do that, there was it was like, how are we going to make this work and not get somebody, somebody, you know, wearing one of our uniforms killed? Yeah. Very important point. Because everybody, every unit deals with that at some point, at some level, whether it's airborne use of force or something else. Doesn't matter what the topic is, where a non-aviation and non-SWAT or ESU person is making a decision saying we need to do this. Well, hold on a second. You know, there's about 25 things that you don't know anything about, including FARs and all sorts of things. Uh I know I've got dozens of stories like that, you know, and John, yeah, I know you do too. And it it thankfully, uh people like you, Glenn, can stand up and say, hey, hold on a second, you know, and slow things down a bit. You were in a position where you're able to do that and at least slow it down a tad until it it got up and running. There's a role I took for quite a while was like the reality check between ESU and aviation, because I was prior ESU, prior rappel master, prior tactics instructor. They would come to aviation and want to do XYZ, which sounded outrageous to the aviation people who were very set in their way. And Bill Wilkins was the commanding officer at the time, he was the captain who brought me into aviation as a sergeant. He would come to me and say, look, ESU wants to do this. What do you think? I'm like, we can do this, but we got to do these things first to work up to it. They're not asking for something unreasonable, but it has to be crawl, walk, run, trained to do it properly. To do that, I'm going to need this amount of flight hours, this amount of range time, this amount of personnel, and willing people that want to do it. Because, you know, it's dirty little secret. There are police aviators, and then there are police aviators. And some people want to get involved in special missions, and some people want to get ratings, retire, and go fly billionaires and S 76s and S-92s. Got it. Yeah, absolutely true. John, anything else on this uh before I ask him my final question about uh September 11th? Yeah, I just want to kind of highlight things you've already talked about. In a lot of our conversations, we talk about the need to discuss uh capabilities in advance of something actually happening, but most of our conversations that we have those in surround natural disasters, fires, floods, you you name it, a natural disaster. We haven't really had the conversation surrounding being attacked. You know, the US has been fairly well insulated throughout history uh from being attacked in the way that New York City was when when that happened. Look at today and the geopolitics of of the world, the ch the odds and chances of something happening in the US and the homeland is is going up with with each passing day. So I think the advice you you offer as far as you know looking analytically at something versus emotionally is the most sound advice that could possibly be be given. I think we talk about you know tr selecting for no, selecting somebody that can say no, and that's how important that is. I imagine in a situation like 9-11, the the emotions of everybody on the ground, everybody in the air has got to be really high. Oh, it was off the chart. It was it was off the chart. So how do you mitigate those emotions with common sense and rationality? If there's there's no great answer, but for a lot of for a lot of human fact we're talking human factors, we're talking emotions, the greatest defense to human factors that are going to lead you down a bad place is SOPs, SOPs, and protocols. And you fall back on your SOPs and your training the best you can. We had a high-rise fire SOP on the morning of 9-11, and it was executed, and then it was adjusted accordingly. Well, but a lot of times you'll be tasked with things, and they intentionally give you ambiguous tasking. I remember one of my last flights before I retired from the NYPD, the Queen Mary, the new one, the Queen Mary 2 or 3, I forget which iteration it is, was coming to New York for its first port call. And we were going to put armed response helicopters to escort it in, and also the NYPD Harbor Unit. And I'm never forget, I was in the pre-brief, and they tell us, you know, go out and fly by the ship and keep an eye on things and look, you know, for bad guys and watercraft. And, you know, foolish me looking for some direction. I raised my hand and said, what are our rules of engagement? Oh, you know, you always got to bring up this stuff, and you're you and your you you and your you and your safety nonsense. I mean, I believe those words are actually even spoken. I believe it. I'm like, you may think this is a worthwhile mission, and it's a worthwhile mission, but there's also something called the district attorney's office of Manhattan and Brooklyn who indict cops for bad shootings. Yeah. And what happens if I see a speedboat approaching the Queen Mary that looks like it's getting a little too close, a little too aggressive, and we engage it. What are my rules of engagement? Don't worry about it, just make it happen. And they wouldn't answer that question. Incredible. It's incredible. The circumstances surrounding that environment is completely different than the normal everyday operations. I'd imagine what you're saying, you've got to have some rules in place in advance of something to understand what your rules of engagement may be, not trying to come up with those SOPs in the in the moment because nobody knows. You know, just go get it done. Well, what does that mean to me? You know, that's that's an incredibly challenging position as a shooter in the back of an aircraft to understand, and as an aircrew, putting that shooter in position to engage, right? Well, I'll tell you an interesting sidebar story that kind of resulted from all of this. On July 4th, 2002, so the first July 4th after 9-11, we were on a super heightened state of alert. There was an uh an Air Force cap overhead with fighters. We were full court press, all aircraft in the air, everyone is super vigilant. And I remember this cop, I'm trying to remember the exact details. Her child was hit by a car on Long Island, and he was in bad shape. And we had to task a helicopter with flying this female cop out to Long Island to be with her son. And this is the we post-9-11, we had shooters in the helicopter because they had to get full fuel to make this mission happen and take pay take this police officer, they had to disembark the shooters. So the helicopter went without shooters, delivered the cop, the kid was okay, everything works out good. They're flying back. We get a phone call from Kennedy Tower saying there were two aircraft squawking standby, flying right by Kennedy, not talking to Kennedy on the Class B frequency, not talking on the tower frequency. They think they could be hostile. And I'm the lieutenant in charge of the air operations center. And of course, I'm the guy to field this phone call. So we launch an aircraft, and that just coincidentally, as the this aircraft is getting back from this run to take the cop out to Long Island, we vector them onto these two helicopters, these two fixed wings. They pull up next to him, wag their wings. One of them, I double-verified this at both crew members, tried to ram the police helicopter. I asked them afterwards, I said, if you had the shooters on board, would you have engaged these two aircraft? They were absolutely definitely we would have. Now they turn into New York Harbor. There's a cruise ship going out on a cruise. They turn towards the cruise ship. Now I have NORAT on the phone. I've got two F-16s, got them locked up on their fire control radar. And usually I like being in charge. This day I didn't like being in charge. They're like, Lieutenant, you say the word, we're gonna splash these aircraft. I'm like, is there anybody here with a higher rank than me? Please. I'm just getting ready. At the last minute, they they swerve away from the cruise ship, they go to an uncontrolled airfield in New Jersey. We have an aircraft land. We call ahead to the local police, they detain these two. The FBI, we fly the FBI down there to talk to them. Something was wrong, but it couldn't be proved. So they're getting ready to let these guys go. I said, New York State penal law still states the crime of reckless endangerment, this felony reckless endangerment. They tried to ram a police helicopter, put them in handcuffs, fly them back here, take them to the New York Central Booking, and put them in the system. They may not be terrorist masterminds, but that just shows you, though, how this all came out and not really having rules of engagement at all. I'm having the NORAD ask me, should we shoot these two aircraft? There was a low-wing piper and a high-wing sester. And I'm like, am I going to be responsible for killing these people? They turned out they were banned towers. But it was just like everything came together at once in a really awkward way. Yeah. Which kind of goes back to what you were saying, how when you're asking the powers that be, well, what's the rules of engagement? And they're going, hey, just do it. You know how how dismissive they were about that. You have great foresight, and you were trying to help them actually in the big picture. And then you were thrown into that. I mean, that crew told me unequivocally. They go, boss, if we would have had the issue in the back, we would have tried to shoot those two planes down. Because they made eye contact with me and tried. Why they did this, I have no idea. Because when the FBI talked to them, they they were like, We we have we want nothing to do with these people. We do not think they're terrorists. Wow. Something was askew, but I have no idea what it was. Yep. Could be just really bad airmanship. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It could be. They were startled and and you know, I and just reacted, you know. Last thing I'll bring up is something you did that I thought was was genius. You know, with fly-ins, we talk about and we we do this. Uh we we all fly into one location, you know, and and all the aircraft we shut down, we do our training, and we we depart. That's how we train. So how we train is how we're gonna react in a in a catastrophic situation. Transport ourselves to 9-11 and uh had we had all those aircraft in one location and there was some intent to target those aircraft, those are all those aircraft would have would have been decimated. You had the fourth the the forethought to move those, disperse those aircraft. So if that did happen, the whole fleet wasn't taken out. Talk about your decision to do that and some of the forethought that that went into that that decision to do that. Thank you to our sponsor, CNC Technologies. CNC Technologies, serving law enforcement, government, and military markets with tailored mission solutions, system training, and live 24-7 support with CNC.live platform. Explore more at CNC Technologies.com. I just remember looking out the window, and we're still getting these reports that there are 10 unaccounted for airliners. They're inbound to New York. We have the fighter cap over New York. Now they show up. We had a big IFF friend or foe problem. Like our aircraft were flying, we were the only people not grounded. Everybody else is grounded. And Kennedy Towers like, you can launch, you should be okay. I'm like, I don't think that should work. And when we had aircraft over Manhattan when two F-15s showed up, and they're like, boss, uh, are these people going to shoot us down? I says, I don't think so. I hope not. Those aren't words I like to use. And then while this is all going on, two or three Blackhawks from the Sikorsky factory show up unannounced. These are production aircraft pre-delivery to the Army that they took it on themselves as a corporate good neighbor. They went to the local hospital, loaded these three Blackhawks up with all types of medical supplies, and without communicating, flew into the Wall Street heliport, which was right adjacent to Grant. And I'm getting calls like, who are these Blackhawks? I'm like, I have no idea. I'm looking at my flight line here. I got Army Guard, Air Guard, Coast Guard, right guard, left guard. I'm like, they're not ours. And everyone's like, well, who are these people? And it took a while to like satisfy ourselves these are just Sikorsky factory pilots doing uh, you know, good Samaritan mission, but with very little coordination. That wasn't the day to be flying around without real positive idea on you. Yeah. Well that speaks to the emotion that exists in those situations. You you see that in natural disasters, folks, like the hurricanes we just had. A lot of good Samaritans were flying small aircraft, small helicopters in to do things. And I I think there was some coordination there with Operation Hilo and some other organizations. That's not always the case, you know. And uh I I think some thought and and and planning needs to go into how do you identify these folks and and what do we do with them, you know, when we do it, identify they're in the area. So interesting that you bring that up because it it could be a, or I imagine it's it's a problem with just about every incident. Yeah. One of the first tenants of the high-rise rescue plan, absent 9-11, the rescue plan that was always in place was have the responding aircraft not go to the scene, have them come to NYPD base. So we're not cluttering the scene with aircraft until we're sure we can use them and how we can use them. And then again, check them in. When an aircraft shows up, what com capability do you have? What Medevac capability do you have? What hoist capability do you have? Or are you just someone we're going to plug into patrol if we can get you on our radio frequencies, you know, while we're doing with the dealing with the disaster to go chase bad guys in Brooklyn? Did you guys utilize an Airbus type type system to control the airspace airspace in and out of the congested areas? Not really, because everything was closed. The airspace was completely closed. Unless you were military or law enforcement, and then we had everyone respond to our base, and then we dispersed the aircraft. But it was it was it was eerie for for for days and days after. Normally you launch out of Floyd Bennett Field, which lies in the Class B area of JFK Airport. You can't lift base without talking to Class B at JFK. And for days and days after that, we'd lift Floyd Bennett and Kennedy would go, that must be you, PD-12. That must be you, PD-14. Cleared anywhere you want to go, you own the airspace. It was it was it was odd. It went from being the most congested, crowded airspace like to today. If you'd go on ADSB and look at what Manhattan looks like in Brooklyn and Queens, it is a sea of radar returns at all altitudes. For days after that, I forget how long it was till the airspace was reopened. I know it was almost a week. Oh yeah. It was we we own the airspace. We talked to Kennedy when we lifted, they'd hand us off to LaGuardia. We try and stay with one or the other if we could. The two rivers in New York are always uncontrolled, but he just for IFF problem reasons, we would try and stay with somebody at all at all times, either newer Kennedy or LaGuardia. They were more than happy to work us because they were bored out of their mind because those airports would close down tight. Yeah. I remember I remember flying about 0,300 one one night that week, and their controller in LA saying, Hey, uh, hey PD, you're curious about how many aircraft are in the air nationally right now? I said, Yeah, I am. About a dozen. 12. You know, and I'm like, and he goes, Yeah, you're one of about a dozen in the entire country. And you know, normally that would be what's on final, you know, short final at LA would be about a dozen. Incredible. That was a that was a very interesting week. And we got calls, you know, I have to tip my hat to airborne law enforcement in general. We got calls from every agency you can imagine saying, what do you need? LAPD, you guys called us and said, Yep, if you need a couple of helicopters, we'll start flying east now if you need a relief. That's right. One of our aircraft was equipped with a breeze eastern hoys at the at the height of the morning of 9-11. Breeze Easton called us and said, if you're gonna run that hoist to rescues, we're gonna put a pallet of every spare part you can use, because they're right in New Jersey, on our loading dock. Tell us where the nearest LZ is, and we'll and it turned out I'm like, I wish I could tell you we were doing a lot of hoist rescues, no need. Yeah, that was I'm 99.9% sure that was Mike Hillman, by the way. Yes, that definitely was. Yeah, Mike called uh called you guys and said, listen, if you just need us to come help with handling the patrol side, you guys handle all the counter-terrorism, all the rescue, all the everything that we'll handle the the the bad guy stuff for you. We're we'll we'll we'll start east right now. I remember him doing that, and uh I thought that was incredible. That I wasn't surprised. I mean, he's he's an icon in law enforcement and airborne law enforcement and SWAT, ESU, every background I've been in, he was like literally the go-to guy at the other end, the other side of the country. Yep he is he is legendary and a well-earned legend. Yep, he is. Uh, and he uh just talked to him recently. He's doing great, and uh he's he's pretty special. He's pretty special. He was a get things done guy, he didn't just talk about it, and uh that was one of the things. I mean, when I heard that, I went, I'm not surprised that we did that, but that's incredible. And I remember NYPD being very, I mean, almost stunned and thankful and grateful, didn't need it, but the the the fact that that came up as an offer, that was uh an important, an important thing to do. Uh good for Mike. Love him. Hey, Glenn, talk about the the tempo that the the flight operations had on the maintenance staff. You know, how did you guys support all those flight hours? Yeah, that was that was a real accomplishment. You know, we always talk about flying in the missions, but supporting them with maintenance. Our 206s were flying literally 24 hours a day the first week. And we had a uh we put a protocol into effect that we would we would hot swap, we weren't shutting down and starting up, we would hot fuel and hot swap. But every time a patrol aircraft would land, one of our maintenance technicians, and for those who aren't aware, an NYPD, the entire unit is sworn. Every technician, every mechanic on a ladder working on a helicopter is a is a sworn law enforcement officer. That every time we would recover from a patrol, when the crew swapped, a maintenance technician would go out and check all the fluid levels, check the leaks, give it a leak check, give it a once over, thumbs up, and back on patrol, just to have an extra buffer of safety. And though those 206s flew, we were talking at the time, three 206 B3s and one 206L4, 24 hours a day with little stop. The entire unit, we shifted into a 12-hour tour where there was a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. platoon and a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. platoon. I was the platoon commander on the PM platoon. I worked 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Probably better part of a month. Wow. And coincidentally, my my wife was in the police department, and where she was working, she had the exact opposite. She worked 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So it was like a hot racket on a submarine. You would get home and the bed would still be warm, but you'd never see the other person because they would start the minute you ended, and we would literally pass on the highway. And that one I guess the better part, the dog loved it. He was never alone. Oh my gosh, what an incredible, incredible time. The last question I have, Jack. Sorry to interject here, but the last question I have uh is regarding lessons learned. And maybe this is something that we're gonna go into later, but uh when you got when you look in the rearview mirror after the debriefs and everything that you guys were a part of, is there anything that you guys identified that you could have done better or a lesson learned for for agencies that are listening now that may have to respond to something like this in the future? I I'm trying to think w just in my own hindsight, what could have been done better? Um try to resist haphazardly accepting emerging missions that you're not really prepared. We discussed that already. Trying to put a a sanity check into these things, not offhand turn them down, but diplomatically and professionally saying we can do this, but we have to do this first. That was a big thing. And a lot of times the commanding officers of the aviation unit are more political animals than aviators, and they're very reluctant to tell somebody with stars on their shoulder, no. Yeah, they don't want to be that that person. Yep. Um the the the greatest lesson learned was going back to that twenty something year old emergency service cop, me, going, This is a lot of fun. We're getting the rappel out of a four twelve on a Sunday morning, but this is never gonna happen. Never say never. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. Was the comms plan uh good in in terms of you know, was it sufficient with all the responding Resources that were outside agencies? Well, most of the comms were good. Some of the aircraft, at the time, the popular police portable radio was the Motorola Saber. And a lot of, well, not all of the NYPD aircraft had a pigtail where you could put your Motorola Saber on. But a lot of the aircraft that responded also had that. So we could simply hand them one of our portables, give them a short class on how to get onto the, let's say, the 7.5 precinct frequency, if we were using them for just the law enforcement mission and how to communicate. A lot of them had Texonics or Wolfsbergs that are a radio nerd could get out and reprogram with just not too much difficulty. But the comms and also NYPD has a VHF company frequency that they've had since the beginning of time. Everybody knows if you're trying to talk to an NYPD helicopter, if you come up on 123.10, you can talk to them. Not the greatest, it's not secure comms, which now everything is encrypted and high uh specialized, but that was the the number one lesson with all of the help we were getting, plugging the right aircraft in for the right mission. We were we weren't misusing the help we were getting. Wow. Lots. We could spend hours talking about this day. I know. It's incredible. Blink of an eye. And a lot of people have forgotten a lot of things they shouldn't forget. Yeah. That's for sure. That is for sure. Let me end this segment with this question. Personal question. How did that day change you personally, Glenn? I don't know if it changed me, but it was the first time I observed and people I were responsible for as a leader suffering from PTSD. And it was clear. I had, you know, cops that flew for me that were always the laughing joke guy, always, you know, this practical joker with this long face, withdrawn, not engaging. And normally I would be one of these, you know, John Wayne types where, you know, suck it up and we uh we don't need this. And I like they had more, they had the NYPD in the New York City had more help from around the forget aviation assets. We had Mike Hillman's brother, an LAPD chaplain. He was at our base. Yep. Steve. We had mental health workers. I forget where they were from, but they came in and they came to my office and they go, Lieutenant, you know, we're here for we do grief counseling and trauma counseling. Is there anyone we should talk to? And I'm like, yeah, those two guys over there. These were the people that, again, were the normal practical jokers that all of a sudden became really sour uh dour and quiet and withdrawn. That I pay a lot more attention to things like that, post-traumatic stress issues. Wow. And you know, they did they just don't emerge from the big cataclysmic events. You know, you could go on a you know a SIDS death call on a patrol cop and be affected the same way. That's right. I'm not saying you should wear your heart on your sleeve and be boo-hoo as me, but you know, every everyone needs someone to talk to every now and then. Yeah. I'll never forget. Years later, I was at an Ailia regional conference in Texas. Usually I'm really good with years and dates, but I can't remember when. And I never had the slightest bit of PTSD from 9-11. I wasn't there that day in the air watching the mayhem unfold. I dealt with the aftermath. And somebody put a video on, it was just one little scene of one little moment of 9-11, and I saw this, and I started first time ever, I started to choke up. Well, so much so where I I wasn't the one speaking, I was in the audience. I left the room for a couple minutes. But it it's it's I you know, you you if you talk to me prior to me, like this is all bullshit, toughen up, get you put, you know, get your cowboy on and get the job done. Yep. I was a little more attuned to looking into that. Wow, that's that's a great answer and uh very important. I will point out that one of the people that came to New York City after September 11th was Deb Dickerson as a peer peer uh counselor. She was part of the peer team with LAPD. They sent a contingent to uh to New York and uh she she when we talk about that, she still gets emotional. Uh when we had her on the podcast, she got emotional when I brought it up. But she was part of that team. Uh so thankfully that happened because, like you said, people that never needed it suddenly needed to talk to somebody, and I'm sure that that long term that helped uh a lot of people. Tanya Glenn was there as well. Yep. The SOPs you guys had in place to support them, you know, as as far as resources coming in to help you, was what made that their job doable. So we had we had one night I recall, it was weeks in where one of the sergeants that worked with me, I was a lieutenant at the time, he came to me and says, All the local restaurants where I live want to contribute dinner, and they want to send their sexiest waitresses to deliver dinner. And the dust has settled, we're still in a very high up tempo, and it was up to me to say, we're gonna take a break for two, three hours and have dinner and let very attractive women serve us dinner. And partly through this dinner, uh an over-serious cop asked if he could see him talk to me outside of the room. He goes, This is disgraceful. This is this is this is not honoring the memory of our I said, look, lighten up Francis. Yeah. I says, these guys have been working their butts off for weeks and weeks and weeks now. It's the first time I've seen some of them smile. And if they want to be served dinner by the best waitresses in these wet restaurants for a two, maybe three-hour break, one night of one day of one tour of a couple of months of disaster, it's perfectly okay. And I'll take full responsibility for this. Good. It never went anywhere, but yeah. But the fact that somebody brought it up, it's like they don't understand. I mean, uh, that was a good call. I mean, that was it. Are you gonna are you gonna stand by and watch this happen? I says, No, I'm gonna get involved in uh I'm gonna have a plate of baked ziti along with them. Thank you to our sponsor, Metro Aviation. Metro Aviation, the world's largest family-owned aeromedical operator, offers comprehensive aircraft services with 160 plus aircraft in over 25 states. The completion center installs medical and law enforcement kits in avionics, serving diverse aviation needs including offshore, utility, VIP, and corporate sectors. Great, great conversation, Glenn. As I knew it would be. Thanks for sharing all of that about that day. I know it's it's difficult, challenging, emotional, but it's part of our history, and we need to talk about that stuff. And we got some good information out of that. So now let's let's uh switch gears a little bit. First influences for law enforcement and aviation. How how did that happen for you? Well, like you, we all grew up on Atom 12 and Dragnet and all of the TV shows. And that was like something you wanted to aspire to. And I I I became the local annoying kid at the local volunteer firehouse. I'm sure these guys were like, oh, here comes Glenn again. Why does this kid go find something else to do? And me and my circle of friends all joined the volunteer firehouse as soon as we were of age. And within a year or two of being in the volunteer firehouse, we all took the tests for the for the NYPD. And sure as sure as shooting, we all got on the NYPD and we all started careers in the NYPD. Backing up a little bit, I always knew I wanted to be in law enforcement, and I always wanted to be a pilot. And I thought it was just completely unattainable to do both of these. Right. I listened to a lot of naysayers, and I'll never forget I was 12, 13, I was at a Boy Scout camperie where they get all the troops together, and you know, everyone, you know, sings campfire songs and roast marshmallows. And the Nassau County police, this is how long ago this was, this was March of 1974. A Fairchild Hiller, an FH 1100 police helicopter landed and did a static display. And I was sold. I'm like, I've got to do this. And that happened to you know, 12, 13-year-old Glenn. And then time goes on, I go on the NYPD. And May of 83 comes up, and I'm uh I was initially in the New York City Housing Police for 18 months, and then rolled over, they called it, transferred to the NYPD proper after 18 months. And my buddy from housing, the two of us were said, you know, because there's only a few of you to place, you can have any precinct you want. So I said, Well, let's go to Midtown North. That's like the marquee precinct of the New York City Police Department. It's busy with crime in certain parts, but it's very, very nice in certain parts. You have Trump Tower on one side and Hell's Kitchen on the other. You can be a very well-rounded cop and you can go chase bad guys for four hours and then go to a really nice restaurant and then go back and chase bad guys. And that was a place you really wanted to be. Long story short, six months goes by, and we're told you guys are great, we're keeping you here, you you're you're a good fit, you guys lead the unit, the rookie training unit on arrest. It's all great. Cool. So the next day they came out with assignments for all the people in the training unit, whether he was staying in this really coveted precinct or going somewhere else. And my partner's name was Richie Fagan. And they have the roll call and they're like, Daily, and I'm ready to hear Midtown North. You're going to the 7-5 precinct, which at the time was led the city in homicides, worst crime stats, it was the Wild West. And then they get to my partner, Richie, and he went to either the 6-1, other than the 6-7 or the 7-1 precinct, both were just below the 7-5. It was the Wild West. So we're we're like devastated that we're not staying in Midtown North. So we we go on patrol and we had a foot post in Times Square, just like you see in the movies in Times Square. And the movie Blue Thunder just premiered. This was May of 1983. Yep. So he looks at me, he goes, What are we gonna do? The hell with the transfer. We're going to the movies. He goes, What are you talking about? We're gonna go and watch Blue Thunder. He goes, What what if we get caught? I says, They'll send us to the ghetto. Wait a minute. We're going to the ghetto tomorrow. What are they gonna send us to the double ghetto? There's no worse place than they're gonna send us. They send us there on a bicycle. So as an impressionable 22-year-old, I see the movie Blue Thunder and I'm like, this is it. This I gotta scheme, figure, connive some way of doing this. Yeah. And then, long story short, I get a couple of commands. I go to the 7-5 precinct just for a month. Then I go to something called a tactical patrol force, which is like a citywide disorder control unit. Then I go to another task force in the Bronx. Then I end up in ESU. At a in-service training at ESU, they they have cops from all of the specialized units to get it's basically administrative box checking training. You have people from the mounted unit, the harbor patrol, the uh emergency service unit, the aviation unit, you all get together for this training. And I see a guy, I mean, I'll never forget, he's wearing a Bell Jet Ranger belt buckle. So I wasn't a detective, but I figured out he was in the aviation. So I said, let me ask you a question. Are you in aviation? Yeah. How do you get in there? He goes, You need to, as a pilot, you need a commercial fixed-wing rating, and then we take you and train you to be a helicopter pilot, and it's very competitive. And be honest with you, a lot of these places go to people whose uncle is so-and-so chief so-and-so on a phone call. I said, How do I get a commercial fixed-wing rating? He goes, Well, we have a CFI in the unit who has airplanes at the local airfield out in Farmingdale. Let me give you his phone number. So I put it away and I I didn't do anything with it. And I was always obsessed with aviation. And I'll never forget, dragging my girlfriend, probably for the 30th time, to go to the airport and sit by the fence and watch planes take off and land. And I will never forget, she lit a fire under my ass. She looked at me, she goes, rather than looking at these goddamn things, why don't you go learn to fly them? People do it every day. It's not unattainable. The next day I called this, he was a sergeant or a lieutenant in the unit at the time. I said, What do I have to do to take flying lessons? And that's how it all started. And I got my aviation background. It took me, I applied, I got my private fixed-wing rating and a commercial rating in the summer of 88. It took me to 1993 to get an aviation unit. And that's a weird story, too, how that all happened. I don't know if you have time. We kind of do. Um I'm uh a sergeant now in Midtown South, which is another very coveted precinct, Midtown North, Midtown South, and I'm an what they call an anti-crime supervisor. We would go out in plain clothes every day, and the best way I can explain it is my job was to mug muggers. Oh, that's a good job. It was strictly street crime and guns. It's all we did. At night we drove around in a yellow cab. During the day, we'd walk around with construction worker outfits on, find people getting ready to rob people, wait till they didn't take them down. Yeah. Long story short, it's a weekend, and there's an air, and I'm married now, and there's an air show at the local airport, and I'm just like I dragged my girlfriend, I'm dragging my wife to another aviation exposition, you know. And we pull into the airport and I see an NYPD helicopter landing. And I didn't know why they were landing at the time. What happened was this sa a sergeant and a police officer was out doing training they shouldn't have been doing in a helicopter. And let's let's not use the crash word, let's use the hard landing word. But euphemistically, they had a hard landing. So much so that they had to go get the FAA at the airport I was at and fly them to investigate the hard landing. Yeah. We get home. This is my my hand to God. This is one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me. I like most cops, I keep a lot of patches on hand. So when I travel and you trade, and once it got me out of a speeding ticket in Virginia, we walk into the house, and out of my den comes my cat with an NYPD aviation patch in his mouth. I swear to God. My wife looks at me and says, I don't know what's going on here. But if you don't call, this is a Sunday, uh Saturday or Sunday, she goes, if you don't call him up on Monday and see what's going on with your application, you're crazy. Yeah. So Monday comes, I call, I said, you know what, I put my application in as a police officer in this was 93, 85 years ago. I said, I need to update it. I'm a sergeant now. And then there was a pause on the phone, like, you're a sergeant. Due to something that just happened this weekend, the hard landing, we may be needing a sergeant sooner than later. Long story short, that sergeant gets launched and bounced. They open up interviews for sergeants. They interviewed me and two or three other people. And I was lucky enough to get the job because I happened to be at the airport when they were landing to pick up the FAA to investigate a crash caused by a sergeant who's opening one to me. And this stupid cat, of all the things he could come running out of the bedroom with, was carrying an NYPD. Where he got it, I don't know. But you want to talk about fate tapping you on the shoulder and go, hey schmuck, pick up the phone and call them. And then the rest, as they say, is history. Oh, that is priceless. That is that's a good one. And what one other thing that jumps out of me there, verify this information. You got out of a ticket in Virginia? I've never heard that before, first of all. Uh you really did? That's unheard of. It was the scaredest. I'm a copist. This was driving to an ALEA national convention when it was in uh Nashville, Tennessee. It was 1997. And of course, we took our dog everywhere, so we couldn't fly. We had to drive because of this dog. And I got pulled over by the Virginia State Police. And he looked at me. At the time I was a sergeant, I show my credentials, and I'm expecting the NYPD treatment. Hey, have a nice day. You know. Oh no, you're in Virginia. He goes, We got a problem here. I go, okay, what's the problem? He goes, You were doing 25 over the limit, which is a misdemeanor in this state, and I already called your play-in. And there's a pregnant pause, and I'm like, okay, what do we do now? He goes, I'm just gonna say I couldn't catch you. The state, the state line is five miles to Tennessee. If you pass another cop before you get there, they're gonna think you evaded me and you're gonna get locked up. Good luck at the next five, 10 miles. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. So I'm driving like I'm at the driver's ed course in high school, the next five, ten miles, you know, 56 miles per hour, not too further, too slow, hands are ten and two. I get pulled over in Tennessee by the reincarnation of the sheriff from the James Bond movies. Oh, yeah. You for T, Jackie Gleason from Smoking in Abandon. This guy was the antithesis. Oh, he goes, NYPD, she's NYPD too. She's a police officer, I'm a sergeant. He's I can't believe you're NYPL, y'all. He goes, You have a really nice day. Drive safe. I go, here, have a an aviation patch, an ESU patch, an NYPD patch. Oh, that's great. That is so good. I want to go back to some just for a minute because I'm curious. Um, and I'll I'll lead the question with my own experience. When I worked in Central Division for a short time in San Diego, I remember responding to to calls in high-rise buildings. I thought it was really odd for me. I'm one, not used to the city, but one call I'm in particular I remember responding to is a domestic violence call. So we drive to the address, which is a high-rise apartment complex. We get out and then get in this elevator, and the way the call came out made it seem like there's this wild fight going on the 20th floor of this apartment complex. I just thought it was so weird getting into an elevator with elevator music playing, going up 20 floors and opening the door. In my mind, the door's gonna open, there's just gonna be this wild chaos that is ensuing outside of the door. Talk about your experience, you know, as a police officer in patrol, responding in in high-rise environments. What was that like? Well, the first thing, if you're a smart cop, you should have gone to the 19th floor and walked a flight. Never ever take the elevator to the floor you're responding to. Yep. For a myriad of reasons. And I I was I remember I said before I was in the housing police and I was rolling over into the NYPD. My last day in the housing police, I was on the 14th floor of a housing project and got into a fight where if it would have happened a week later when I was safely ensconced in the NYPD, I would have shot the guy. Wrestled my nightstick away. It was me and other cop. I've never felt so alone because once help gets there, they still have 14 floors to go to. You are in a very compromising position. On a moving subway train or in a high-rise building, you have a level of isolation that people don't appreciate. And you should take every every tactic and put it in your favor. Namely, number one, never go to the floor. And sometimes you know, you get lazy cops. They're like, What do you mean we're going to the 19th floor? The calls on the 20th floor. I'm like, humor me. Walk the last floor. You you can use the calorie burn. That's great advice. You know, but but it I think what struck me was just the elevator music and this like very soothing music going on. All the housing projects I worked in didn't have elevated music. Yeah. There were muffled screams in the distance coming from apartments. Gunfire screams, dogs barking. We had a guy one day in the housing project who this was this was March. He had a Christmas tree left over from Christmas. So, how dry is this Christmas tree? He takes it in the elevator on the top floor of the housing project to go down to the basement and makes the mistake of lighting up a cigarette, and the tree went on fire and immolated him before he got to the lobby. Oh my. Unbelievable. We were there with ashes that were a tree and it completed third-degree burns over 90% of his body. Dead is a doornail person. Elevators and housing projects are very dangerous space. Oh, yeah. Heck yeah. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Hanger Z podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe to hear more stories that promote the personnel and equipment behind the missions in public safety aviation. Lastly, stand by for a message after a word from our sponsors. Cheers. Thank you to our sponsor, Metro Aviation. Metro Aviation, the world's largest family-owned aeromedical operator, offers comprehensive aircraft services with 160-plus aircraft in over 25 states. The completion center installs medical and law enforcement kits in avionics, serving diverse aviation needs including offshore, utility, VIP, and corporate sectors. Thanks to our sponsor, Track A Systems, with over 25 years delivering groundbreaking searchlights, stabilized DOIR cameras, mission mapping and downlinking solutions, track of products, improved situational clarity and coordination with ground crews, increasing mission safety and effectiveness. Visit Trackasystems.com. See clearly, act decisively. Thank you to our sponsor, CNC Technologies. CNC Technologies, serving law enforcement, government, and military markets with tailored mission solutions, system training, and live 24-7 support with CNC. Explore more at CNC Technologies.com. We hope you enjoyed this episode with Lieutenant Glenn Daly. Learning about the behind-the-scenes activity on September 11th with NYPD Aviation was captivating. That day required outside the box thinking, and there was no playbook that had all the answers. Glenn has shared his knowledge and experience with law enforcement aviators around the world. His passion for teaching on topics like inadvertent IMC and distracted flying is saving lives. All three of these episodes should be shared with every pilot you know. Thank you for joining us, Glenn. You continue to make a positive difference in the aviation community. John and I are continuously grateful for being able to bring these conversations to all of you. Thank you for listening, and we would appreciate you sharing, clicking that like button, and subscribing and giving us a positive review. These little actions make a big difference to keep this podcast growing. Thanks again to all of our sponsors for the support. Stay safe, and we'll catch you the next time on the Hangers E podcast.