As you have almost certainly heard by now, on Monday night, a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three U.S. service members collided with an American Airlines flight traveling from Witchita, Kansas to Washington, D.C. just above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), sending both aircrafts into the Potomac. Despite early false reports of rescued individuals, officials now claim there are no survivors, very likely making this the deadliest flight on U.S. soil since September 11. Though the names of all onboard have yet to be released, the flight is confirmed to have included multiple families traveling to Witchita for a figure skating competition.
On cable news and social media alike, people expressed their shock and horror at such an unprecedented tragedy.
“This clearly, Abby, will be a tragedy that will change aviation. Mark my words now. You are looking now at the incredible response there on the shores of the Potomac River…
This is really staggering that this has happened and there have been close call after close call involving commercial flights on the runways of commercial airports, major airports in the U.S., an incident, a spate of incidents that really took off in 2023. None of them ended up ending up occurring with a mid-air collision like we have seen here.
The fact that this involved not only a commercial flight, which is equipped from top to bottom with anti-collision technology, something called TCAS — Traffic Collision Avoidance System, mandated by the FAA in most commercial airliners since the early 90s, but also the pilots are well trained.
The aviation system — commercial aviation in the U.S. is the gold standard for safety. We are the example for every other country. There is not been a significant crash with fatalities, and we do not know if there are fatalities here in the U.S. involving a commercial flight since the Colgan air crash of 2009 led to sweeping changes in regulation and pilot experience requirements.
The fact that this happened in D.C. over near Reagan National Airport, some of the busiest airspace in the country and one of the single busiest runways in the national airspace system, is really pretty incredible.”
In the immediate aftermath of the crash DC’s WUSA interviewed one such waiting family member, a move widely decried for its insensitivity.
Some in the media and government rushed to blame President Trump’s recent hiring freeze, drawing blowback of its own.
Subject matter experts weighed in to say, in fact, the warning signs had been building for some time, with a “near miss” at DCA as recently as April 2024.
Kaine and Warner are among D.C.-area lawmakers pushing back against a plan to add flights at National, which is included in the Senate version of the measure to fund the FAA.
Their remarks drew strong pushback from Capital Access Alliance, which wants to add more flights at National. –The Washington Post
Trump’s federal hiring freeze and incentivized resignations aside, the country is already suffering from a shortage of air traffic controllers. (It should be said that the cause of the accident is unknown as of writing.)
Bad news for any Bay Area fliers:
San Carlos airport is an airport within 10 miles of San Francisco international airport, and it will have no air traffic controllers starting on February 1st.
Still, we got a preview of President Trump’s nuance-free reaction late last night when he posted to Truth Social.
The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!
This morning, he dialed the culture war up to nuclear when he took to the podium to blame the crash first and foremost on- you guessed it – DEI for lowering the standards of hiring.
COLLINS: We don’t even yet know the names of the people killed and you’re blaming Dems and DEI policies. Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of the investigation?
TRUMP: No, I don’t think so
C: Does it comfort their families to hearing you blaming DEI?
TRUMP: That’s not a very smart question
“We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brain power. You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden and Biden went by a standard, that’s the exact opposite.”
In echoing Trump’s statement attributing the crash to DEI, Vice President JD Vance provided early cover in the event no minorities are associated with this crash, claiming DEI “stresses the system” regardless.
Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg came into Trump’s line of fire for what Trump called his “good line of bullshit,” prompting a firm rebuttal from the rumored 2028 presidential candidate.
Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.
President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.
While we await more facts, what does seem clear is the FAA lacks clear leadership steering the ship in the wake of this crisis.
Whitaker’s departure came after he clashed with Musk, who is now in charge not just of SpaceX but has been named by Trump as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, which is not technically a real government department.
In September Whitaker had proposed fines of more than $600,000 for SpaceX, prompting Musk to demand his resignation and promise to sue. -The Daily Beast
And, of course, we all know how this would play out if the sides were reversed.
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