Trump looks to assign blame for midair crash: ‘Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do?’
Summary
An American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair near Reagan National Airport, killing at least 18 people.
Trump initially expressed condolences but later questioned why the air traffic control tower or helicopter pilot didn’t prevent the crash.
The FAA identified the plane as a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700.
A Kennedy Center webcam captured the collision, and investigations are ongoing.
CNN’s Pete Muntean called the incident stunning, noting its proximity to a military base.
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-looks-to-assign-blame-for-midair-crash-why-didnt-the-control-tower-tell-the-helicopter-what-to-do/Open linkView original on lemmy.world237
Comments74
A few posts up on my feed:
FAA chief quit on Jan. 20 after Elon Musk told him to resign
🤔
Dumb oligarch in power, shoots self in foot
Shoots others in foot. Nothing happened to Elon or Trump.
Pretty sure his foot isn't one of the people that died
From their perspective, it is. They now have to deal with a pesky scandal over dead people they couldn't care less about.
What makes you think they care about a scandal?
Well they won't exactly, but they will get asked about it enough to feel annoyed
To be clear I think this one is a coincidence. The next ones are probably not...
Unless it comes out that the 3 people on the helicopter were newbies that only has that position because of trump.
I know it's a coincidence but I'm still going to blame trump because that's exactly what Trump did when Biden was president. He got on Twitter or whatever and blamed every single bad thing that happened in this country on Biden. Trump deserves the same treatment if not worse.
Ah yes, the presidency. The job to which we elect an official blame assigner for public tragedies.
The Instigator in Chief
The buck stops .... somewhere else.
Just this special snowflake. Can’t help but cause needless own goals
Wouldn’t be surprised if something ole rapey did butterfly effected into this
Appropriating blame is Congress's constitutional duty.
Have some respect for the office! That's President Dumb Piece Of Shit.
The questions he’s asking aren’t wrong to ask. The real problem, IMO, is that he’s the president and can’t simply post those questions publicly. He’s an idiot, though, so this is what we get.
But seriously, he also asks why the Black Hawk pilot didn’t do ANYTHING to avoid a known flight path and I’ve asked the same thing.
This is the kind of stuff the "deregulate everything" crowd never seems to think about.
This dumbass is in the process of removing all enforcement of agency regulations and then this prime example of why we have rules in the first place appears
Exactly. Firing half the government would lead to outcomes like this
You mean like last time with the train accidents?
"Nooo, we don't mean those regulations, only the bad ones!"
proceeds to blindly revoke regulations
"Whoopsie!"
Why was the army running a night flight training mission in DC?
Such a crowded airspace and I'm sure the military didn't coordinate their flight plans with the local air traffic control.
It’s a valid question, but I just watched a press conference where somebody explained that these aren’t rookie pilots but pilots looking to log the proper amount of flight hours.
You're sure? Why wouldn't they? Jumping to these types of conclusions is bad.
I wonder who was the point of contact on the FAA. Cause, if that happened to be the guy who was fired?
That said, I do realize speculation won't help. Apparently they've been overloading that airspace for a while now, allegedly just for the personal convenience of members of Congress. But of course they will find literally anybody else to blame.
I agree, the military is utterly incompetent and arrogant, so this wouldn't surprise me if it's the Army's fault.
Sadly the conspiracy theorist in me asks “who was on that plane that had a hit out out against them?” Latest was saying there were Russian figure skaters on board.
I hate that my mind goes there but with this freaking administration, anything is possible.
https://apnews.com/article/coast-guard-homeland-security-priorities-committees-trump-tsa-d3e4398c8871ada8d0590859442e092c
Republicans would have blamed Biden without a second thought, so I'm going to blame Trump for this.
I would be surprised if it did not.
If Biden was firing every government worker he could and then such a rare event happened, involving a military helicopter in DC, it would be fair to blame him. Not when it's trump tho! /s
The funny part is, the tower DID tell them what to do, the helo just didn't do it
Hey look at that, someone who actually listened to the ATC calls.
He's already had a hand in the deaths of over
1000001000000 Americans why would he care about 60 more?I think you need an extra zero in there.
You are right I accidently a zero. Tbf I was still right just not as accurate. 🤗
The bodies ain't cold yet and trump will already assign blame. Fuck actual investigation, who cares what really happened?
Also, he probably wants to preempt things like realmfacts that might implicate his own government
First of all, fuck you. Never wish a crash on anybody. Lives were lost.
Secondly, I believe AF1 carries an additional TFR to prevent that (although I’m not familiar with the SFRA)
no, fuck you and af1
Nah, fuck you.
Regardless of if President Doofus were involved in the crash or not, we would have lost helicopter pilots OR people on a civilian aircraft.
If you think helicopter pilots or civilians dying is okay, you are a terrible human being.
it did happen. it could have happened to somebody better.
Like I said in another comment, you can end the fascist line without innocent lives if you are going to rewind history.
And the author of the time line should probably put Die Fuhrer Musk into the mix.
Very true, just look at Hitler and Mussolini, famously defeated by strongly worded letters and no bloodshed
I was thinking more like a certain a super Mario brother
Okay call me a terrible human being I'm not gonna be shedding too many tears over the death of any member of the US army.
You are a terrible human being.
Thanks.
There are ways to discontinue the fascist line without needing to sacrifice so many other lives.
And fuck Trump.
TFR doesn't really mean shit if you can navigate a small drone into the flight path of the plane
Fair, but as apolitical as possible, I find it hard to believe that any escorts wouldn’t take out the drone if POTUS is on board. Regardless of who that may be
A shame, really
Too true, Donald, too true. I've been saying that a lot lately.
This was pilot deviation or pilot error for the helicopter. They were instructed to maintain visual separation and to cross behind the CRJ and then just didn’t.
Edit: The issue was also that they reported CRJ in sight. If they couldn’t find the CRJ, ATC should have routed them on a safe path. But they reported in sight.
Do you have any links to sources on this? I see a lot of people speaking authoritatively on this here but no links to sources.
Check out VAS aviation on YouTube
I don't have a link, but the conversation with ATC is online.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q21VlHlkMg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0
It's amazing how he always seems to have "the answer" AFTER something bad happens. But never the foresight to make changes before tragedy strikes.
Captain Hindsight, but wrong
Is the control tower also ran by illegal Mexican immigrants Donald?
In the press conference he's trying to pin it on DEI. Disgusting behaviour.
Illegal immigrants too busy doing fentenyl and black people smoking PCP.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SXfzj-oKmtY
Probably what led to this horrible situation
Is it just possible they got rid of a highly trained and competent trans pilot and replaced them with Private Cousinfucker from Dumbfuckistan?
A reminder of what a presidential attitude used to be :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing#%22The_buck_stops_here%22
The pictured President is one of those lazy left wingers who doesn't want to work.
I saw some of the press conference with the people investigating (it was on the news while getting ready for work) and one of the questions asked to them was this statement made by our glorious leader and I laughed. I laughed because it's absolutely the complete opposite of how to handle this type of situation. As someone from his background, you would think he knows never to make any statements about anything until you have the clear picture first. What he did will just cause more headaches for people actually doing their jobs now and feel bad they even have to deal with Mr. Wildcard, creating more havoc for them than they need.
I don't work in public facing affairs, but even internally it's known you don't make any statements to anyone outside your department regarding serious issues because every word can be taken the wrong way unless worded properly. If it's something serious, you consult as a team, and someone approves the statement sent out.
Maybe don't have training flights at night into one of the most congested airports in the country?
I dont know how often they run there but I wouldnt be surprised if the cheeto said he wanted all kinds of mil practice in the area after he couldnt have a huge mil parade where he waived at them in the last term, but this is just me jumping to conclusions.
As this is a route flown to transport VIPs, eventually you HAVE to train pilots on it, at night, during congestion. These would have been highly experienced pilots who would’ve flown the route previously. They knew what they were doing.
People make mistakes.
That’s why aviation relies on the Swiss cheese model. Unfortunately there was only one needed point of failure here, it seems.
I mean, we all know already that the control tower DID tell the helicopter what to do. How come HE doesn't know that?
Arrogance or tech failure?
BIDEN put the WINDMILLS in REVERSE.... and that blew the copter against the plane. SAD.
WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! Goodnight.
Ok, I'm sure it's because of incompetence but I do have to say it's weird AF that there was also a contingent of Russian civilians on the plane and that this involved a military helicopter. Granted, they were figure skaters, but my brain was like "Man, Putin must really hate those figure skaters" when I heard about this over the radio.
But again, it's likely incompetence--- even if you have to be at just the right altitude at just the wrong time to cause a mid air crash.