The dots don’t join
The Trump Administration is facing its first major test after a passenger jet and Army helicopter collided mid-air in the Washington, D.C. area on Wednesday night, in what officials are calling the most fatal aviation disaster on U.S. soil in more than two decades.
The collision quickly raised concerns about the state of air traffic control and oversight and sparked questions about recent leadership changes within the federal agencies charged with regulating air travel.
Just days before the crash, President Donald Trump enacted a sweeping shake-up of the federal agencies responsible for aviation oversight, removing the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), David Pekoske, and eliminating all the members of a key aviation security advisory group. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace, was also without permanent leadership at the time of the crash, as its top official, Michael Whitaker, stepped down ahead of the new administration’s transition after clashing with Trump ally Elon Musk.
Ok but still. It seems like a huge stretch to think that any of that actually caused the helicopter pilots to crash into the plane. It seems like a huge stretch to think that there were already fewer controllers at that extremely busy and crucial airport and that that’s why the helicopter failed to avoid the plane. Things aren’t that simple, even when they’re Trump things.
Realistically are Trump’s actions directly responsible for the accident? Unlikely. Potentially there may be additional stress on the ATC staff due to concerns about their jobs and organisation. We don’t know as yet, and given the way Trump and co are now running the Federal government there will be a shadow cast over any report that exonerates him. It’s without a doubt though that the actions Trump has already taken at the FAA and NTSB will weaken safety over time.
This YouTube video is very informative about the circumstances of this tragic accident. TL;DR – relying on visual recognition at night to maintain a vertical separation of only 100′ is cutting safety margins mighty thin.
Potomac Mid Air Update 1/30/25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0&t=7s
As J.A. said. However, possibly worth noticing that there was only one controller in the tower at the time of the accident. Normally there are two, with the second one being responsible for the helicopter traffic in particular. That second controller just might have spotted the problem in time and taken action to avert the collision. Big maybe.
For moire in-depth information, you might try the discussion about the accident on the professional pilots’ rumore network (PPRuNe). Beware though: The discussion is quite technical, jargon laden, and full of acronyms whose meaning you may have a hard time guessing.
It is clear that most pilots are highly critical of the way they handle the mix of helicopter and airliner traffic in the neighbourhood of that airport. Some say the big mystery is why this accident didn’t happen earlier.
I suggest watching this brief MeidasTouch video on the panic in the White House over the crash, and on how they settled on DEI as the cause::
link
https://youtu.be/mB-U-a0Sm08?si=xY1R17gDhfUKZ0HG
Incidentally, the attacks on DEI by the Trump regime are not motivated by a belief in ‘fairness’ and ‘merit’, but by simple racism & misogyny. The US armed forces were, by order of the demander-in-chief, required to remove courses that included the role of the black ’Tuskegee airmen’ who fought bravely and extraordinarily skilfully in World War 2’ as well as the roles of women in the armed forces. There was such an outcry that Trump & his WAM (White American Male) hire, Hegseth. had to reinstate these courses.
It is not long since ‘multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk endorsed a tweet suggesting Black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have lower IQs and shouldn’t become pilots.
“It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE,” he tweeted, intentionally mixing up the letters of the acronym for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”’ (from Forbes Magazxine)
And from the Bulwark (which can hardly be called a hotbed of wokery):
“By now you’ve likely heard about President Trump’s press conference yesterday, in which he blamed diversity programs at the Federal Aviation Administration for the tragic crash over the Potomac Wednesday—without a shred of evidence, naturally.
“Well, as if we needed a reminder that things can always get dumber, it turns out that the program to offer FAA careers to people with disabilities—the program Trump specifically decried yesterday—was a Trump administration initiative from 2019.”
That could not possibly be right, because it would logically follow that Trump does not know his own mind. Or, as President Harry Truman said of Richard Nixon: “I don’t believe that the sonofabitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
Trump proclaimed a belief that the 2020 election was ‘stolen,’ but without any evidence to support that claim. We have to believe that that was Trump’s sincere belief, because otherwise he, the present POTUS, would have to be accepted both as a compulsive and an unwitting liar, and also a dimwit.
That he does not know what he thinks does not bear thinking about.
Harald Hanche-Olsen #3
“For moire in-depth information”
So it’s a complicated pattern ;)
Ha! Should have spelled it properly (moiré).
Harald @3, that’s a useful link. The discussion contains some knowledgeable and informative info (as well as some that isn’t). In essence, hardware systems designed to prevent collisions were likely not functioning that close to the ground even if installed, and others lack the degree of precision for such close separation. As I alluded in other comments, the airspace is extremely congested and relying on visual separation at night creates the potential for things to go wrong in a stressed system. The alarming thing is multiple commercial pilots reporting similar events in their personal experience at other US airports – too much air traffic resulting in procedures that cut margins to the bone to enable capacity.
Probublica.org has a piece on how the federally funded Vera Rubin Observatory, which is named after the scientist who conducted extremely important research on dark matter, has been fiddling about with her biography on its website and removing references to programmes that are designed to encourage an interest in science among young people who belong to the wrong sex, the wrong demographic, or the wrong class..
Tim, here’s a link. Thanks for making us aware of the article.
https://www.propublica.org/article/vera-rubin-astronomer-dei-trump
I saw that NSF is freezing funds. CDC is scrubbing its web site. This is a disaster on so many fronts.
Thank you, Sackbut! I’m hopelessly incompetent where such things are concerned.