Tonight on CBS NCIS: Los Angeles returns with an all-new Sunday, October 30, 2022, season 14 episode 4 called, “Dead Stick” and we have your weekly NCIS: Los Angeles recap below. In tonight’s NCIS Los Angeles season 14 episode 4, as per the CBS synopsis, “When Aiden Hanna’s plane crashes and he is accused of being at fault for the accident, the NCIS team must investigate to clear his name.
Also, Rountree considers how he wants to handle the aftermath of the incident with the LAPD and Sam finds a new caretaker for his father.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 10 PM – 11 PM ET for our NCIS Los Angeles recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS: Los Angeles recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS: Los Angeles recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates
In tonight’s NCIS: LA episode, Sam’s son Aiden was involved in a plane crash. He was forced to abort before it crashed and so he wasn’t physically injured. But he at least was much better off than the plane. The plane was ruined. It went down in a blaze of glory. There went millions of dollars wasted. The Navy wanted someone to blame for their destroyed plane and naturally they thought the black guy seemed the perfect culprit. It didn’t matter that he almost lost his life. Or that Aiden was way too skilled a pilot to have put his aircraft in jeopardy. The Navy wanted to tick that boss and they only opened an investigation into what happened to protect themselves.
Everyone knew who Aiden was. Who his father was. The Navy demanded that Sam not be a part of the investigation into the crash and Lt. Commander Hirsch had said she would interview Aiden. She questioned about what he was doing before the crash. She seemed to imply that he was showboating again. Aiden was known as Sonic because he broke the sound barrier over the United States. He did that during a moment of showing off. He’s also done a lot of stuff that would fall under the same umbrella as the sound barrier stuff. He was considered problematic by his bosses. It was Hirsch’s opinion that he was doing something again when a 94 million dollar plane crashed.
Hirsch was questioning Aiden when Sam intervened. Sam and his father the Major were both at the hospital to see Aiden. They believed him when he said he couldn’t remember. Sam also tried to defend his son against Hirsch’s idea that the crash was a pilot error. Hirsch ultimately told both men to wait outside while she interviewed Aiden. Hirsch tried to get his answer on why the plane was taken off autopilot, but Aiden didn’t remember doing so and the few things he can remember is that that the plane was in trouble. He felt he would have radio that in. Hirsch said they never got that distress signal.
The plane seemed fine until Aiden took it off of autopilot. She wanted to know why he did it. He couldn’t remember and so his career as a pilot was at risk. He could potentially never fly again. Something he didn’t even want to think about. Aiden was out of it because of his concussion and all signs of the plane indicated everything was fine until it went crashing over the city. It was lucky it didn’t hit an apartment building. Or else Aiden might be under arrest. Aiden was able to piece together a few things after he followed his grandpa’s advice and worked backwards. He remembered the engine going out. And how that knocked out the autopilot.
Aiden told his father what he felt happened. Sam told the rest of the team and they were able to confirm with an eye-witness that the engine went out and it came back on right before it crashed. Aiden began remembering more stuff when another pilot got into trouble. This other person was named Kegger. Kegger’s plane got taken off of autopilot. He also wasn’t responding as the plane was crashing and so Aiden’s memories came back when he was told. He was able to talk Kegger through rebooting the system. And he saved Kegger’s life with what he did, which proved his own crash wasn’t pilot error.
Someone deliberately hacked both planes. There was a flaw in the system. The manufacturers knew about it and they tried to fix it. But anyone with the know how could overrule their safeguards. The manufacturer told the team all about it. The team went looking into anyone who could have been bought off by a foreign power. They didn’t find anyone like that in the manufactures company, Starling. Only they did find someone in the Navy who matches that description. His name was Frazier. Frazier was later cornered by Sam, Callen, and Shyra. They asked him why he did it. He said he only did it to show the Navy that the there was a flaw in the system.
No one was supposed to get hurt. Or at least that’s what he’s claiming. Frazier just wanted to stop the manufacturer. Frazier pretended like it did all of this for a noble reason and the real reason was money. Frazier was paid off by the manufacturer’s biggest rival. They wanted to tank Starling. Then take over the contract. Frazier only did what he did for the money. He eventually turned himself in. He was going to be facing prison for a long time and the company that paid him now weren’t going to get a contract despite the Navy never trusting Starling again. And so it was all for nothing.
The only thing the incident did was bring the Hanna men closer together. The Major talked to his grandson about all the head injuries he received back in the day and Sam talked about his own. Things were different in the past. They were told to walk off their injuries, but Aiden was getting help for his. And that thankfully showed overall improvement in the military.
THE END!