Former air traffic controller says Donald Trump's comments about the FAA's staffing policies were 'ill-informed'

The plane crash in the Potomac River in Washington D.C. is still under investigation, with rescue workers still recovering the remains of the victims. This crash is the deadliest in the United States in nearly 25 years, and as the families of the victims mourn, political finger-pointing has already begun.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been criticized by some Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, for its diversity hiring policies. According to initial internal reports on the incident, the Reagan National Airport tower was "abnormally" staffed on the night of the crash. At that time, an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger plane, killing 67 people in the U.S. capital.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Sunday, "I'm going to trust what the FAA says, that the situation was indeed abnormal." He also pointed out that air traffic controllers had been consolidated an hour before the crash, "so was it appropriate to do that?" Staffing issues are just one aspect that authorities are investigating, but across the U.S., the FAA is indeed facing a shortage of approximately 3,000 air traffic controllers.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance claimed that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies have led to the staffing crisis. Vance stated on Fox News, "There's a direct line between the policies of the previous administration and the shortage of air traffic controllers, and that has to stop." However, the shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States can be traced back to the Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan.

In 1981, just over six months into his presidency, Reagan had 7,000 flights canceled due to a strike by thousands of air traffic controllers. Salary and working condition negotiations between the FAA and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, representing 13,000 people, had broken down. Two days later, Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers and banned them from ever working for the FAA again.

Todd Yerry, whose father was among those fired that day, and who himself served as a controller for 13 years, told the 7.30 program, "You created an immediate situation where you needed to fill positions quickly, and those air traffic controllers were no longer working." "It took more than a decade. I was probably in the last third of the people who filled those positions after the 81 strike, I was hired in 1989." Air traffic control is a highly specialized job with a mandatory retirement age of 56.

Yerry says the mass firings in the 80s created a cycle. "Also, the industry has expanded...from commercial to just transporting people on vacation, you have a higher reliance on aviation, but now you not only have to keep staff levels up, but also stay technically proficient when technology is changing every day." The day after the deadly crash in Washington D.C., Trump speculated, without evidence, that diversity policies may be to blame.

When a reporter questioned how the President "came to the conclusion that diversity had anything to do with this crash," Trump replied, "because I have common sense." Todd Yerry said the President's comments were "unhelpful," and said a diverse workforce had always been a feature of his time as an air traffic controller. "I was trained by men and women. I worked alongside Black, white, Asian, Hispanic colleagues," he told the 7.30 program. "Once you demonstrate the ability and qualifications to do the job, you don't get to choose who you sit next to when it comes time to do what we call 'moving airplanes'...so I think the President's message is ill-informed."

"I think (Trump's comments) are disrespectful to the families of the victims, 67 people lost their lives in that accident...lives were at stake." "Even as he was making his comments, the air traffic control system was operating over his head." The FAA was a frequent target of Trump's criticism before he ran for President, and on his second day back in the Oval Office, he signed an executive order to immediately terminate diversity policies within the agency.

Federal investigators are working to figure out what caused the mid-air collision, and they have recovered the black boxes from both aircraft. They are also analyzing recordings, including "verbal responses" from the helicopter. The National Transportation Safety Board says the three soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter were conducting routine training, and would have been using night vision goggles, but it is unclear if they were wearing them at the time of the incident.

Former Black Hawk pilot Elizabeth McCormick told the 7.30 program that the area around the Washington D.C. airport is surrounded by obstacles, and lighting could be an issue. "There's a lot of buildings, bridges, a lot of light reflecting off the water, so the light is very dense," McCormick said. "The passenger plane has a large spotlight in front of it as it's landing...so if they were wearing night vision goggles, would it have impacted their vision?" "They were in a training environment; did they think they were safe and then at that moment look inside the helicopter? These are questions we may never know the answers to."

Recordings between the traffic control tower and the helicopter show the helicopter pilots acknowledged they could see the passenger plane and requested a "visual separation." "It's a procedure in air traffic control where the pilot can say, 'I will take responsibility for avoiding the aircraft,' but something happened after that...and then we tragically saw the result of that," Yerry said. McCormick says the minimum crew requirement for a Black Hawk helicopter right now is two pilots and a crew chief, but she thinks that needs to change.

"When you're flying visually, you're responsible for your own clearance, you're responsible for seeing everything, but with only one crew chief, it's impossible to see everything at once," she said. "The optimal crew is four, two pilots and two crew chiefs - but it's not mandatory." "I think it shows we need to increase the crew to four when flying visually, for safety reasons."