Too lax
Trump says it’s all the fault of the women and other worthless kinds of human.
President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax. Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.
Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet that was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital.
Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and then saying that an investigation was necessary.
Aka he made a display of his own stupidity. Well, he can’t do anything else, can he. If he could fake being not stupid, he would.
His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not.
It is something he has done before: After a terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.
When asked how he could say that diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the midair collision were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”
“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said.
Right. Will you be leaving today, or first thing tomorrow?
Mr. Trump appeared in the White House briefing room with Vice President JD Vance; the newly sworn-in transportation secretary, Sean Duffy; and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. All three men began their comments by praising Mr. Trump’s leadership and repeating that they would eliminate diversity requirements and focus on competence.
Do they know competence when they see it?
My wife thinks she heard the explosion—says it sounded like a garbage truck passing.
I posted this on Facebook:
A few thoughts about last night’s horrific crash:
National Airport (aka DCA) is located right on the river, on the Virginia side (about a mile from our house). It’s a very complicated approach, with the Pentagon on one side of the river and the White House and other government buildings on the other, and just across the river there’s a joint military base. Andrews Air Force Base is just a few miles away, and jets from there often fly right over the area. So there’s a lot of restricted airspace, and a lot of helicopter traffic.
From the graphics I’ve seen, the plane was approaching from the south; however, it was not set to land on the main runway, which would have taken its path along the river. Instead, it was approaching the smaller, lesser-used runway, so its flight path took it over the Maryland side, right over the military base. I have no idea if helicopters use that base, or if this particular helicopter took off from or was landing at that base.
There will be a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories over the next few days, weeks, years; I’m not going to contribute to those. My one semi-political comment: DCA is a convenient and very popular airport for Congresspeople and their staff, and there has been a lot of pressure from both Congress and the airlines to increase the amount of flights into and out of the airport. These days it’s busier than the much larger, and more remote, Dulles International Airport. That doesn’t mean that an accident like this was inevitable, but it does make the area less safe.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1027691059401898&set=a.460019476169062
Why is the military doing a ‘proficiency training flight’ in a very busy, highly restricted airspace, in a highly populated area, at night? Why is that necessary when unpopulated areas with virtually no civilian aircraft are available for training exercises? Is putting the civilian population at risk part of the training?
Of course Trump is barking up the wrong tree as usual.
Mick West did a preliminary analysis. It may be that the helicopter mistook a different plane landing on the main runway for the one it crashed into. It was supposed to fly behind it, and looks like it was heading to fly behind the bigger plane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IUJpRwzHZU
Obviously a kulak plot…
twiliter, this isn’t ab initio training. Pilots receive layers of training including site and activity specific training. A maxim is that the training should never be more dangerous than the activity being trained for. Since these pilots are expected to fly in this specific airspace at night (while transporting VIPs), they need to train for that in that specific environment. The fact there has been an accident is tragic. What is needed is a routine and dispassionate investigation conducted by experts. Politicians should ensure the investigation is properly resourced and the recommendations are enacted. Anything else is unhelpful.
The fact the Trump, Vance, and others have left to blame DEI is disgusting and deeply unhelpful.
At this point I see the GOP screaming DEI as the equivalent of yelling ‘Nigger!’, and just as disgusting.
Do they? Seems to me they could find similar environmental situations and be able to reproduce busy airports and train for different scenarios entirely within military bases. I don’t buy it. Using highly populated civilian airspace to conduct (even advanced) pilot training only makes sense by some logic I’m not privy to.
twitter, I can assure you, as a pilot and instructor, that you are wrong. Pilots are required to undertake not just general training, but specific training to demonstrate currency. Some training can be conducted in simulators, some cannot. Also, I’ll say again, this was not ab initio training. The military pilot and crew were part of a detail that flies VIPs. This accident could just as easily have happened on a non-training flight.
It is now widely reported that ATC and aviation safety groups considered the flight loading at this airport to be unsafe. Members of Congress and Airlines had been pressing for additional flight spots for some time and those had been implemented. On top of that the tower was understaffed at the time of the accident. Night, high levels of traffic, understaffed controllers (and possibly stressed by job uncertainty as well) is a very bad combination.