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Rescue boats search the waters of the Potomac after a plane and military helicopter collided on Wednesday night. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
As information trickles in regarding what caused a plane and a helicopter to collide in Washington DC, all eyes are on air traffic rules and regulations. An investigation of the crash is under way, but few are waiting for its results to jump to their lines of attack.
Aviation security and the air traffic control industry have been subject to partisan wrangling for years, and the American Airlines jet crash, which left no survivors, comes amid much upheaval in the aviation world. On Thursday, Donald Trump blamed diversity in the ranks of air traffic controllers and jumped quickly to criticizing his predecessors for lapses in aviation security.
The crash also comes as Trump’s new administration is cleaning out the facets of government it disagrees with – including freezing hiring and requiring in-person work arrangements.
At a press conference on Thursday morning, Trump said “we have very strong opinions and ideas” about how the accident happened, then took political swipes at Barack Obama and Joe Biden over air traffic controller standards.
He complained about diversity and inclusion measures, and called the former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg a “disaster” who has a “good line in bullshit”.
Notably, when the Trump administration came in on 20 January, it started swiftly firing federal employees, meaning the Federal Aviation Administration’s leadership is now dotted with vacancies. There is no Senate-confirmed administrator leading the agency.
Michael Whitaker, the administrator under Biden, left the agency after Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump supporter, demanded he resign, the Daily Beast reported. Trump nominated Chris Rocheleau to lead the agency in the aftermath of the crash.
Also of note: there has been a years-long shortage of air traffic controllers, which the FAA has been working to address. Alongside the shortage is an increase in near misses.
A New York Times investigation in 2023 found “potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes – a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress”.
The Washington DC airspace is also crowded, seeing a high volume of commercial planes and military aircraft – a cause for concern for many years. The 2024 FAA reauthorization bill added five incoming and five outgoing flights to Washington national airport each day, which Democratic senators from Maryland and Virginia warned would be a safety risk. Supporters of the bill in part wanted more direct routes to their home states.
“The very title of the ‘Direct Access to the Capital Act’ gives the game away that this bill is written to maximize the personal convenience of a comparatively small number of powerful, well-connected individuals at the expense of safety and efficiency of flights – which should be our top priority,” Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia told the Washington Post at the time.
The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze and return-to-work mandates could have affected federal aviation employees, though it’s unclear to what extent.
The blanket hiring freeze said that “no federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created”, but exempted public safety positions, which could include air traffic control.
Democratic lawmakers believe the hiring freeze applies to air traffic controllers. The ranking member of the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, Rick Larsen, issued a statement saying the freeze would contradict the 2024 FAA reauthorization bill that requires the agency to hire the maximum number of controllers.
“Hiring air traffic controllers is the No 1 safety issue according to the entire aviation industry,” Larsen said. “Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision.”
Trump forced out the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) administrator, David Pekoske, as well, and gutted an aviation security advisory committee. A prior division leader at the TSA warned that the effort to end remote work would lead to attrition and a loss of knowledge at the agency.
Conservatives often blame the air traffic controller shortage on diversity measures, a line of attack so frequent that one of Trump’s executive orders specifically focused on ending the FAA’s diversity programs, part of a government-wide push against these programs in the new administration.
A factsheet about the order alleged that the FAA under Biden had “specifically recruited and hired individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis over other individuals who sought to work for the FAA”.
Aviation groups have pushed back against the assertion that diversity programs make the air less safe.
Tennessee Garvey, a pilot and the chair of the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals, told NBC News that DEI had been inappropriately “weaponized” and blamed for safety issues without any proof.
“There’s never been any proof that DEI causes any safety issues, because it doesn’t,” he said.
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to an outside observer, it feels as if Trump is a WASP
and everybody else is never good enough
The Buck Stops Here was a sign on Harry Truman's desk
or was thrown out in the trash
If Trump guts everything, then the fabric of society breaks down
Trump’s peace proposal for the war in Ukraine includes three conditions.
The aim is to achieve a definitive peace by May 9, a symbolic date for Europe and Russia.
The first of these conditions concerns Ukraine’s membership of NATO, one of the main ones being that it renounce its aspiration to become a member of the Atlantic Treaty, an explicit Russian demand.
The second condition is the cessation of hostilities, a clear ceasefire across the whole of Ukraine by April 20, followed by a withdrawal of troops from certain regions, to be detailed. A call between Trump and Putin is expected in February.
Finally, Russia would also benefit from the gradual lifting of sanctions, which would be phased out from the signing of the peace agreement and over the following three years. The movement of goods, money, Russians’ residences abroad, their ships, etc. would be freed.
The key date would be May 9: Europe Day and Victory Day in Russia would be the date set for the end of the war, after which Ukraine would have to suspend martial law and military mobilization.
