If a suicidal pilot is circling overhead and the only way to reach them is through an air traffic control tower… what does your team actually do?

This 8-hour advanced course is built for crisis and hostage negotiators who want to be ready for one of the most complex scenarios out there. Negotiating with someone in the air is a completely different problem. You are dealing with distance, limited communication, multiple agencies, and a subject who may have no clear path to a safe outcome.

We are going to break that down in a way that makes sense and gives you something you can actually use.

You will learn how to:

• Establish communication with a pilot through air traffic control

• Adjust negotiation strategies when your subject is airborne

• Work through jurisdiction issues across local, state, and federal levels

• Understand how agencies like the FAA, Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration, and North American Aerospace Defense Command fit into these incidents

• Approach situations involving private aircraft, charter flights, and commercial airlines

This isn’t theoretical. We’ll walk through real incidents like the 2018 Horizon Air Q400 incident and the 2022 Tupelo plane theft incident to show what worked, what didn’t, and what negotiators can take from them.

If time allows, we’ll run scenario-based training so you can apply what you learned and see how your team operates in this environment.

This course is intended for current crisis/hostage negotiators. If seats are available, it may be opened to active law enforcement and federal partners working in or around aviation.