The Federal Aviation Administration’s preliminary report on the D.C. plane crash contradicts everything the president has said so far.
Preliminary reports from the collision of a plane and helicopter Wednesday night near Washington, D.C., contradict Donald Trump’s favorite DEI scapegoat.
An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration found that, in fact, tower staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) was “not normal for the time of day and the amount of traffic,” according to The New York Times. There was only one air traffic controller to handle both helicopters and planes around the airport, a job usually assigned to two people.
Handling both types of air traffic can be complicated, the Times reports, because air traffic controllers may use different radio frequencies for helicopter and airplane pilots. In such cases, while the controller is communicating with pilots of both types of aircraft, the pilots may not be able to talk to each other.
Staffing levels at the airport’s control tower have been below adequate levels for several years, as at many other airports in the U.S. According to a congressional report, DCA’s tower was slated to have only 19 fully certified controllers by September 2023. That’s well below the FAA and the air traffic controller union’s preferred number of 30, according to the Times, and is due to staff turnover and budget cuts.
As a result, many air controllers at the airport work 10 hours a day, six days a week. Those levels probably haven’t been helped by Donald Trump’s federal hiring moratorium, the elimination of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee and the resignation of the FAA chief at the behest of Elon Musk. As much as Trump and the right wing try to blame DEI or some other ridiculous thing, maybe they should look in the mirror.
