NTSB Chair to WAI Attendees: Embrace Failure, Try Again

“Accepting failure is the price you pay for pursuing your dreams, and I promise it’s worth the cost every time,” NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said Friday during the second-day general session at the Women in Aviation International Conference in Dallas. Speakers at this session emphasized resilience, human connection, and the courage to try again after setbacks.

Air New Zealand COO Alex Marren, speaking weeks before her retirement after more than 40 years in aviation, traced her career to a childhood trip from Boston to Athens on a TWA 747. “Standing in front of that aircraft and then being wrapped in connection on the other side of the ocean made me feel, for the first time, like I was a part of something bigger than myself,” Marren said. “Aviation did two things at once: it moved people across the world, and it made belonging possible.”

Homendy shared some personal failures with humility and humor—including a D-plus in oral communications and an F in aerobics as a college freshman—before speaking about a career setback that shaped her path to leading the NTSB. In 2015, she pursued a board member position at the agency after nearly two decades of related career experience.

“I did everything in my power, really left my heart out there, but it didn’t work out,” Homendy said. “Was I disappointed? Yes. In fact, I was pretty devastated, kind of embarrassed, because everyone knew I was going for it and I didn’t get it.”

The rejection gave her more time working with members of Congress and helped implement NTSB recommendations. “Looking back now, I see I wasn’t ready for the NTSB,” she said. “Frankly, I probably would not be chair today if that happened earlier.”

When another opening appeared in 2017, Homendy spent three months wrestling with whether to try again. “The loudest voice was, ‘What if I fail again?’” she recalled. “Eventually, I started asking myself the right question, and there was only one: ‘What if I succeed?’”

She urged attendees not to eliminate themselves from opportunities. “Too many of us say no to ourselves long before anyone has a chance to,” Homendy said. “Let others tell you no, and when you do get that no—it’ll happen—try again, and keep trying.”

Homendy quoted Rachel Fesko from the book Deserts to Mountaintops: Our Collective Journey to (re)Claiming Our Voice: “If I continue to hold my failures, my hands will always be full of my past, rather than reaching forward to my future.”

Drawing on her work investigating aviation accidents, Homendy emphasized that human error is a symptom of systems needing redesign rather than individual failing. She cited the Boeing 737 Max door plug incident, noting that the final investigation report stated that “within a robust system, the introduction of a single error is almost never the only cause of an accident. Rather, several barriers of defense must fail for the error to lead to an accident.”

“Failure doesn’t define you or me,” she said. “It’s what you do next that matters.” She led attendees in repeating a mantra three times: “Failure does not define me.”

Marren joined startup People Express Airlines, then rose through operations roles at United Airlines, from working in the most humble roles to becoming the carrier’s first female country manager, assigned to Greece in her early 30s. She emphasized the importance of asking for help and hiring people smarter than herself, citing WAI CEO Lynda Coffman as an example of this.

“Sometimes simply walking into the room makes the path visible for someone else,” Marren said.

Marren concluded with a Mãori proverb: “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.”