Maybe people hold him out as possessing special insight and knowledge because he does have special insight and knowledge. Just a guess.
From his wikipedia entry, which is heavily sourced, it appears that in addition to having been a line pilot, he was
- founder and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. (SRM), a firm providing strategic and tactical guidance to enhance organizational safety, performance, and reliability.
-involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
- an Air Line Pilots Association local air safety chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration advisory circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of airline crew members.
-Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation.
-He was an air accident investigator for an NTSB inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which “led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft.”