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By Akayla Gardner and Skylar Woodhouse
President Donald Trump provided little new information about the cause of Wednesday’s deadly air collision in Washington between an American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet and a military helicopter, and instead blamed diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The remarks immediately politicised the most deadly US commercial airline accident in over a decade even as Trump flatly and repeatedly said that he didn’t know the cause of the disaster.
Asked how he had concluded that diversity programs may have played a role, Trump credited his conclusion to “common sense.”
“I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t,” he said. “We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level, when you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time.”
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Trump did offer his opinion that there was “a pilot problem, from the standpoint of the helicopter” and conceded he did not “know that necessarily it’s even the controller’s fault.” Still, he repeatedly returned to criticism of FAA hiring practices and the administration of former President Joe Biden in his lengthy and at times profane remarks.
Trump has long attacked diversity and inclusion programs. He began his remarks on Thursday, by insinuating that the outcomes don’t produce the most qualified employees as well as mentioning natural intellect.
The Biden administration took steps to hire more people from diverse backgrounds, including individuals with disabilities and people of color. That included increasing FAA recruitment efforts in underrepresented communities.
But those practices haven’t been linked to recent accidents and near-misses. The consensus among safety experts is that one of the main problems is a shortage of pilots and air-traffic controllers, caused in large part due the Covid-19 pandemic when hiring and training were disrupted. At the same time, there’s been a huge resurgence in air travel since the pandemic, which has further strained the aviation system.
His comments ridiculing DEI programs were echoed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the briefing Thursday at the White House, while Vice President JD Vance suggested that when you were “not getting the best people in government” it puts “stresses on the people who are already there.”
Trump defended his approach, suggesting that raising the political issues would not make a difference to those who had perished in the crash.
The administration will be closely watched over how it handles the crash, with some top Cabinet officials only days into their roles. Hegseth was sworn into his post on Saturday, while Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — who oversees the Federal Aviation Administration — was sworn in Tuesday. Potentially complicating matters, the FAA does not have an administrator at the moment after Mike Whitaker stepped down on the day of Trump’s inauguration.
The FAA said it would launch a probe into the crash alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, which will lead the inquiry. Hegseth said the Pentagon has also launched its own investigation into the incident.
Trump had already expressed frustration over the crash, focusing his attention on the helicopter and questioning why it did not change its path away from the passenger jet. He called the incident a “bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented” in a social media post Wednesday night.
The plane operated by subsidiary PSA Airlines, collided with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter while on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport just before 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday night, according to the FAA. The flight, carrying 60 passengers and four crew on board, had departed from Wichita, Kansas, and was set to land at Reagan airport, which is in Arlington, Virginia, across the river from the nation’s capital and just south of the Pentagon.
The Army’s Black Hawk helicopter had three airmen aboard, according to an Army official who asked not to be identified discussing details that hadn’t been publicly disclosed. The helicopter was based at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The Army for years has flown night and day helicopter missions in the Northern Virginia skies near Reagan Airport, including missions that are sometimes classified.
Hegseth in a video message said the military crew was “fairly experienced” and that the unit involved was conducting a training flight. The new Pentagon chief has little experience managing an organization of the Defense Department’s size and complexity, and Trump’s pick for Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, is still awaiting confirmation.
DC fire chief John Donnelly said at a press conference Thursday morning that authorities did not believe there were any survivors from the crash. Rescue crews worked through the night — in heavy winds and frigid temperatures — to find any survivors but their mission turned into a salvage operation by early morning.
The crash is one of the deadliest US air disasters in decades, and adds to a growing number of deadly aviation accidents over the past year. The collision forced Reagan airport to suspend aircraft take-offs and landings, with authorities saying it would remain closed until 11 a.m. Thursday local time.
Duffy has echoed Trump’s remarks, saying he “absolutely” thought the crash was preventable and seeking to ease concerns about the safety of air travel.
