Did I miss the part where it became normal to focus on the race and sex of the pilot when planes crashed? I don't recall people blaming white men for the overwhelming majority of plane crashes. What is this country coming to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way Trump hadn't been told one of the pilots was a black woman before he ranted about DEI. What a disgusting pig.

Can you ever think of a plane crash when a political leader blamed the dead? F*** him for blaming a blameless black woman pilot. and F*** him for not having the morals or brain to say something comforting rather than adding to the misery that we have a ghoul for President.

He doesn’t have it in him. I remember a news conference early into COVID and a reporter asked him the easiest softball question in existence: What would you say to Americans who are scared of the virus? Again this was early and we were all looking for reassurance. The easiest question he could’ve gotten. The answer should have been, “we have the best scientists, full resources of the federal government” blah blah. Simple. Instead, because he’s a vile sack of sh!t who can’t even pretend to conjure empathy, he sneered at the reporter and said, “what a nasty question” and moved on. He’s incapable of behaving like a normal human being.

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Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare#staffing-was-not-normal-at-airport-tower-according-to-a-preliminary-faa-report

Staffing was short last night at DCA

Not sure that is relevant. ATC saw both planes and communicated with them- no whether the right words were said, I don’t know, but present staff attempted to intervene.

Horrific

I wonder if the plane could have pulled up and aborted the landing approach at any point.

Terrible.

The helicopter could have.

But not the plane. Which is why ATC simply confirms that the helicopter has visual on the plane and directs it to fly behind. That is not a particularly challenging maneuver for a BH whereas trying to change the course of an airplane at 400ft, descending to a runway, would take heroic effort and may not be successful.

Something went wrong with the helicopter. Why was it flying at 400ft when 200 is standard? Why had it crossed into the middle of the river when standard flight path would keep it on the east bank at least until it had passed DCA airspace? Why do they confirm visual on the plane but maintain path? Why don't they turn East when directed to pass behind the landing plane?

Nothing ATC or the plane does here is particularly notable. Yes it's bad ATC was short-staffed and that one controller had to handle plane and helicopter traffic. But he does so. The plane is doing a standard landing, no deviations. But the helicopter is deviating from the norm in several ways. It raises questions about what was happening in the aircraft.

Wonder if we'll ever get the data from the helicopter black box. I hope so, but am not counting on it.

None of this makes sense to me either. Can we keep the discussion to the incident and not to the speculative race/gender of the various pilots please? Pilot error is pilot error.

Happy to let it go. But our country won’t forget the former transportation secretary obsessed over the race of transportation workers for FOUR YEARS.

He would not let it go.

An internal report suggested that the controller on duty during the late-night accident was doing a job usually handled by two people. The collision between a jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people, whose bodies were being recovered from the icy Potomac.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc?smid=nytcore-android-share

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read multiple comments on Fox News and 80% say that Trump should not have said anything other than offering condolences, this is not even sitting right with his base.

Finally, they are regaining some clarity.

I am not holding my breath.

+1 Don't you remember when Trump was awful to all the Gold Star parents during his first term? He told one that their kid knew what he had signed up for, and another one his kid would have been alive if he had been President earlier. He still got re-elected last November.

I can't link to it right now because I'm on my phone, but Washington Post has a visual that is an aerial shot if the area and shows the flight path of both aircraft.

The plane approaches from the South and banks gently west toward the airport, what seems like a very typical approach for anyone who has flown into National.

The helicopter path is bizarre. Travels SE past Hain's Point, the turns SW toward Alexandria, then adjusts to a course that is due South. Then just before the collision, turns fairly hard SW and straight into path of the plane, which according to ATC was on a steady, normal descent.

Why does the helicopter turn hard toward National right before collision? Why do they turn toward the middle of the river at all? Even if flying higher than normal, if they had just maintained that due South course, they would have missed the plane (still too close for comfort and would require review, but without the tragic deaths of nearly 70 people).

I don't get it.

The pilots: Robert Isom, the chief executive of American Airlines, said that the pilot of the jet was experienced. Two Army officials confirmed that the two pilots of the helicopter — one woman, one man — and a male staff sergeant were killed in the collision. At midday Thursday, the pilots’ bodies were still in the fuselage, in eight feet of water, while the sergeant’s body had been recovered, the officials said.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc?smid=nytcore-android-share

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare#staffing-was-not-normal-at-airport-tower-according-to-a-preliminary-faa-report

Staffing was short last night at DCA

Not sure that is relevant. ATC saw both planes and communicated with them- no whether the right words were said, I don’t know, but present staff attempted to intervene.

Horrific

I wonder if the plane could have pulled up and aborted the landing approach at any point.

Terrible.

The helicopter could have.

But not the plane. Which is why ATC simply confirms that the helicopter has visual on the plane and directs it to fly behind. That is not a particularly challenging maneuver for a BH whereas trying to change the course of an airplane at 400ft, descending to a runway, would take heroic effort and may not be successful.

Something went wrong with the helicopter. Why was it flying at 400ft when 200 is standard? Why had it crossed into the middle of the river when standard flight path would keep it on the east bank at least until it had passed DCA airspace? Why do they confirm visual on the plane but maintain path? Why don't they turn East when directed to pass behind the landing plane?

Nothing ATC or the plane does here is particularly notable. Yes it's bad ATC was short-staffed and that one controller had to handle plane and helicopter traffic. But he does so. The plane is doing a standard landing, no deviations. But the helicopter is deviating from the norm in several ways. It raises questions about what was happening in the aircraft.

Wonder if we'll ever get the data from the helicopter black box. I hope so, but am not counting on it.

None of this makes sense to me either. Can we keep the discussion to the incident and not to the speculative race/gender of the various pilots please? Pilot error is pilot error.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read multiple comments on Fox News and 80% say that Trump should not have said anything other than offering condolences, this is not even sitting right with his base.

Finally, they are regaining some clarity.

I am not holding my breath.

Anonymous wrote:I read multiple comments on Fox News and 80% say that Trump should not have said anything other than offering condolences, this is not even sitting right with his base.

Finally, they are regaining some clarity.

Sure let's fire more feds. Let's kill more people.

Staffing was ‘not normal’ at airport tower, according to a preliminary F.A.A. report.
Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate the job. One reason is that the controllers can use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.

Like most of the country’s air traffic control facilities, the tower at Reagan airport has been understaffed for years. The tower there was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels. The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers’ union call for 30.

The shortage — caused by years of employee turnover and tight budgets, among other factors — has forced many controllers to work up to six days a week and 10 hours a day.

The F.A.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone else posted this about the passengers on the American Airlines plane? There were skaters from Boston. Fourteen members of the figure skating community were killed in the plane crash, six of them from the Skating Club of Boston.

Yes and several from local VA skating communities.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way Trump hadn't been told one of the pilots was a black woman before he ranted about DEI. What a disgusting pig.

Assuming a black female pilot is automatically unqualified and a "DEI hire" goes beyond being a disgusting pig.

+1, imagine being the family if that pilot and finding out your child/sister/wife/mother died in a tragic accident and then seeing the president ranting about "DEI" being to blame

He always does his. Trump hates people who are suffering, unless he can pick their pocket. He has no respect for anyone, except temporary respect for anyone he get a buck off of.

I would add that he also "cares" when he can get credit for providing something to someone, and get lauded. I am convinced his pull "all federal funding" EO was in part so he could take credit for restoring certain things. Oh, gee, I decided to restore funding to XX, to save lives. I am so great.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard the pilot of the helicopter was a woman. Trump, Hegseth and MAGA are getting ready to ramp up their “I Told You So” tour.

You heard from Fox or maybe one of the MAGA nuts?

It is clearly a male voice from the radio.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r90Xw3tQC0I

Man, the male helo pilot (or copilot) said at both ATC warnings that yes, they have visual separation and then went and crashed into the underside of the jet.

W T F.

They could have been watch another plane. It is in the video. Though he could have stopped. Helicopter can hover.

No. Look at the radar. If the helicopter pilot was looking at another plane, he was staring out the side window of the helicopter.

The plane he crashed into is directly in front of him. Even accounting for the fact the plane is descending in altitude and the dark, there is no plausible way the helicopter pilot though they were talking about one of the other planes. There was only one other plane in the vicinity and it's to the side and behind the helicopter.

Also the ATC identifies the aircraft by call sign, which presumably should have shown up on helicopter radar as well.

Dude, they have navigational tools and fly off those most of all! They know an approaching aircraft’s altitude, speed, angle.

If pilot was “looking out since wrong side window” at a different jet farther away, that’s malpractice, malfeasance, negligence and pure idiocy.

They look at both the navs and outside visuals.

Guess which one is most accurate? To the point that in a white out or black out situation they only use it? The Navs!

Something dumb happened here.

And if it’s a cascade of substandard DEI admittances and promotions, so be it.

We need to know.

If it turns out she was piloting, it was the man who radioed they saw the plane. So, it can't entirely be her fault. I mean if you're headed straight for a plane, aren't the other two people on board going to start shouting? If this is going to be some DEI thing, I think we have to be honest that likely all of them are at fault, and perhaps whoever ordered them to be flying then.

Don’t let yourself be manipulated so easily.

NO ONE was focused on the race or gender of the pilots before Trump out that in your head.

Has anyone else posted this about the passengers on the American Airlines plane? There were skaters from Boston. Fourteen members of the figure skating community were killed in the plane crash, six of them from the Skating Club of Boston.