Information promptly provided by Trump officials (information that we’d have never gotten from Biden’s FAA) shows, so far,
multiple points of potential failure.
For an as-yet unknown reason, the helicopter flew outside its approved flight path along the Potomac, twice as high as it should have, and hundreds of yards from its assigned path, far too close to the runways. The American Airlines pilots, adjusting to a last-minute re-route onto a super-short runway, were laser-focused on landing as they made the final, fatal turn toward the runway, and probably never even saw the blacked-out helicopter closing into their flight path.
The tower was the locus of lamentable tragedy. A harried air traffic controller, juggling two jobs at the same time, noticed the looming disaster — but inexplicably failed to
direct the helicopter and the plane to separate, offering instead something sounding more like an unhurried suggestion. The controller was handling
both helicopters
and planes —normally separate jobs— because their supervisor unaccountably let another controller go home early.
The F.A.A.’s preliminary report found tower staffing was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.” Presumably, the FAA meant the tower was understaffed, since who would complain about
overstaffing?
In the background of these instantaneous errors lies a fractured FAA having a slow-motion existential crisis. A class-action lawsuit continues grinding away in discovery, exposing the agency’s tragic 2014 decision to scrap merit-based testing when hiring air traffic controllers. Instead the FAA relied on a “biographical statement” that scored, you guessed it, totally irrelevant factors like skin color and ethnic background.
Reams of headlines over the last couple years have reported
growing numbers of close calls at airports and
an expanding crisis over staffing levels — a manpower crisis that festered even while the agency essentially refused to hire better-qualified white applicants, holding those jobs open for less-qualified minority applicants.
As bad as that sounds, it gets worse. The FAA’s critical staffing issues started —I am not making this up— with its mass layoffs in 2021 of controllers
who refused to take the jabs. The agency has never recovered from that horrible mistake. It remains currently 3,000 controllers under normal staffing levels.
Thus, it is unsurprising that in its last survey in 2023, Pete Buttigieg’s DOT reported that 77% of critical air traffic control facilities were understaffed. The truth is probably closer to
all of them.
In the same year, the New York Times reported that near-misses on airport runways (“incursions”) had climbed to an all-time high, and that overworked, burnt-out air traffic controllers were falling asleep on the job and
getting drunk at work. To put a number on it, the FAA self-reported 1,750 runway incursions for each of the past three years. By comparison, in 2014, the year the FAA changed its testing standards, the agency reported only 1,278 incursions.
Finally, I am aware of
widespread rumors on X that one of the three military pilots was a transgender ‘woman’ (biological male), and was possibly suicidal. Since I cannot confirm that rumor, I won’t further develop it, not until the DOD releases the crew’s names. If the rumor is true, then Trump knows it and the media doesn’t. Their ridiculous fact-checking might blow up in their faces.
Trump team's response to first tragedy humiliates Dems; more Trump EOs hit, hard; another lawfare test for Dems over spending freezes; foreign aid freeze exposes deep state; Dems bottom out; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Don't ask me to quote or list them, because my eyes glaze over with details like that, even though I heard them for the first 50 years of my life! *
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