There was a terrible air crash in Washington D.C. last night between a small commercial passenger airplane and a military helicopter.
Night flying is difficult. Washington's airspace is busy and flight paths are restricted -- nobody flies over or near any of the important buildings except a few government flights, just as you might expect. In air traffic generally, there are rules about who gives way to whom, based on type of vehicle and activity, but an airplane on final approach and a helicopter complicate sorting it out, and around a busy airport, air traffic control has the final say.
Ultimately, all airplane crashes come down to pilot error, mechanical failure or external action, and the worst ones most often have more than one cause -- things like an inadequate de-icing system and a decision to fly through bad weather rather than avoid it and so on.
But around a busy airport, pilots (who do not have 360-degree vision from the cockpit) rely on air traffic to keep them safely clear of one another. FAA's got radar, with transponder data to ID each blip, and a lot of eyes on screens.
FAA is, of course, a part of the Executive Branch. Their Administrator resigned a few days ago, under pressure from Presidential advisor Elon Musk. FAA employees, like all Federal employees, have lately been whipsawed by a series of memos and e-mails warning them to end all "DEIA" efforts (with threats of dire consequences for holdouts and tiplines for informants), a clampdown on external communication, "buyout" efforts of questionable legality (and warnings not to accept them), and so on, creating a lot of buzz and uncertainty. It's not impossible that some of those eyes on screens were distracted.
It's one thing to make airy campaign promises about lowering the price of eggs, only to take office and waffle that lowering prices is difficult to do; that's the usual politician bait and switch. It's quite another to bring so much chaos and worry to vital agencies that planes collide, leaving scores of citizens dead. This tragedy is Donald Trump's doing, an albatross he will wear as surely as Joe Biden took the blame for an economic recovery that left the middle class worse off while billionaires rolled in booming profits.
Sixty-seven people are dead, thanks in part to President Trump's addlepated "war on woke."
Update: Already had a couple of "Wait until all the facts are in, you just hate Trump" comments. Tell me, did you say that before you slapped a Biden "I did that!" sticker on a gas pump when prices were high? Sorry, charlie: Mr. Trump is in the worry seat now and he gets the blame.
Update
1 month ago
3 comments:
He's already working on whom he can blame for this.
From the AP:
"“The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” Trump said. He added that the program allowed for the hiring of people with hearing and vision issues as well as paralysis, epilepsy and “dwarfism.”...Trump said he had no evidence to support his claims that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and hiring preferences played a role in the crash, allowing that “it just could have been.” He defended doing so “because I have common sense.” "
Blame has already been dispensed. The crassness and stupidity are breathtaking.
Even if this was utterly unrelated to his policies, it's foolish for him to start throwing around blame this early.
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