How Trump and Musk put pressure on air traffic control – blue News
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Who is responsible for the collision over Washington D.C.? A pilot, an air traffic controller? One thing is certain: US air traffic control has been struggling with various problems for years.
Air traffic control in the USA has been in crisis for years. Trump has not alleviated this with a hiring freeze. Musk has also urged the head of the responsible authority to resign.
The causes of the tragedy in Washington D.C. have not yet been found. It will be weeks or months before it is clear what led to the collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter.
While those responsible do their work on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board, aviation experts are using the available information to analyze what may have happened at that fateful moment on Wednesday evening.
Plane crash near Washington D.C.
At a media conference, the CEO of American Airlines, Robert Isom, emphasized that the approach of the aircraft was normal and according to regulations. According to "CBS News", however, the military helicopter had moved outside its designated zone – instead of climbing to a maximum of 200 feet (approx. 61 meters), it was moving at around 400 feet when it collided with the passenger jet.
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According to CBS News, at least nine near-misses have occurred near Ronald Reagan National Airport since 2005, based on Nasa flight safety data. Two pilots tell how they would have avoided a collision with a helicopter.
Why the military pilot flew twice as high as he was allowed to is likely to be one of the central questions in the investigation.
Another unanswered question is what role air traffic control played in the minutes before the crash.
The state of air traffic control has been a hotly debated topic in the USA for years. It is underfunded, has too few staff and employee morale is low, writes the New York Times in a detailed report in 2023. Some of the towers are also in a precarious condition. Due to staff shortages, some air traffic controllers work ten hours a day, six days a week, the NYT states.
The fact that some did their job drunk or under the influence of marijuana or fell asleep while doing so are probably extreme isolated cases.
Expert classifies accident
According to various media outlets, the fact is that air traffic control in the USA has been running at full capacity for years; which, according to "Politico", led to a series of leg-high crashes "until the luck finally ran out over the Potomac River."
The Trump administration has not helped to ease the situation here either. And it is unlikely to do so within a week. However, it has had an influence.
On his first day in office, President Trump ordered a hiring freeze for air traffic controllers. While the towers already had too few staff, he prohibited them from filling positions that had become vacant.
Two Democratic members of the House of Representatives therefore called on him on January 22 to rescind this order, which they described as both dangerous and ridiculous.
Two Democratic members of the House of Representatives are calling on President Trump to rescind the executive order prohibiting air traffic control from filling vacancies.
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Whether the tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. would have had more air traffic controllers on duty without the president's executive order is speculation. It is even doubtful, given the reports from previous years.
Various US media outlets are certain that more staff would have been necessary. The air traffic controller, who was in contact with the pilots in the accident aircraft, was working two shifts at the same time on Wednesday evening – one for helicopter traffic and one for aircraft traffic around the airport. This is customary from 9.30 p.m. onwards, when movements slow down.
For undisclosed reasons, however, one air traffic controller had already taken over both jobs beforehand so that another person could finish their duty, writes the "New York Times", citing a person who was informed about the occupancy and had access to a preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Administration FAA (US aviation authority). The jet collided with the helicopter shortly before 9 pm.
Trump himself announced shortly after the accident that it could have been avoided. He subsequently described a mistake by the helicopter pilot as obvious. In addition, the air traffic controller had issued a warning very late, although he did not hold him responsible for the accident.
On the same day, President Trump also described diversity programs as the cause of the accident. This is why the most capable people were not selected for the job.
When asked by ABC News, a former FAA official replied that there was no diversity program that applied to the recruitment of air traffic controllers. "No one is given preferential treatment based on ethnicity, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation."
The tragedy in Washington D.C. has brought another personnel matter to the fore: even before Donald Trump's election, Musk called on Michael Whitaker, the long-serving chairman of the FAA, to resign. On the day of the inauguration, he complied with the Space X owner's request.
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The Trump administration has appointed an acting administrator and the leadership of the FAA is officially vacant. The Reuters news agency writes that the aviation authority has refused to answer the question of who runs its business for 10 days.
Musk's demand for his resignation stems from the fact that Whitaker proposed a fine of 600,000 Swiss francs against Space-X in September 2024 because the company had allegedly violated its state license during two rocket launches, as the Guardian writes.
As early as 2022, Musk claimed that the FAA was harassing Space-X and needed radical reform. The Guardian suggests that this is also about competition from Boeing, which also receives federal space contracts.
Musk's anger at the former FAA boss is not directly linked to the accident in Washington D.C.. The fact that many are now pointing to is that the aviation authority is without an elected leader at this particularly challenging time.
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The National Transportation Safety Board is in charge of investigating the cause of the accident. However, the FAA is still responsible for the work of air traffic controllers and thus for ensuring that an accident like the one in Washington D.C. does not happen again.
"Does the USA still have the safest airspace in the world?" a journalist asks the new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy at a media conference on the air accident. He answers without hesitation: "Yes, absolutely."
