Last night, a commercial airliner carrying 64 passengers collided with a Black Hawk Hawk helicopter from the American army over the Potomac river near Reagan international airport in Washington DC this morning, the authorities had shot 27 body of the accident. They do not expect to find survivors.
The plane was a 20 -year -old CRJ700 bomber on its way from Wichita, Kansas, and approaching its track at the airport. The Black Hawk was driving a training mission outside very Belvoir nearby. The night was clear and officials of the FAA and the army told the public that there was no indication of malfunctions or communication problems.
The jet was flying north towards its track. The helicopter came south of the fort. They collided with each other just after 9 p.m. Wednesday. The accident was captured on video and downloaded on social networks after its presence and the scope of debris spread in the water of the Potomac. Recovery efforts are underway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zui-zjwxnz4
Hunting for an explanation or someone to blame began. In an article on Truth Social last night after midnight, President Donald Trump suggested that air controllers were at fault.
“The plane was on a perfect and routine airport routine line,” said Trump on Truth Social. “The helicopter went directly to the plane for a long time. It’s a clear night, the lights of the plane flambé, why did the helicopter not mounted or lowered or turned around. Why did the control tower not tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that seems to have been prevented. Not good !!! “”
The tragedy comes less than a month after the start of its presidency and only a few days after the Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as a defense secretary. The Federal Aviation Administration is, for the moment, without leader.
Michael Whitaker assumed the post in 2023 and announced his intention to resign in December after Trump’s victory. Whitaker was a vocal critic of SpaceX and had reprimanded Elon Musk’s space program for security security regulations. The only way to bring them to the heel, he said, was to take massive fines. Musk told him to resign from the FAA in a post on X. Whitaker did exactly that, leaving his post on January 20.
For the moment, it is not clear that directs the FAA. The administrator is a position that requires confirmation from the Senate, but Trump did not appoint successor. The former FAA official, Chris Rocheleau, returned to the agency recently and sources inside DC told certain media that he was the chief of facto.
Thus, the FAA is officially without leader after the first major outdoor collision in the United States in 16 years. Adding to confusion is the federal hiring frost, which Trump promulgated by Dicton and was unevenly applied and widely misunderstood. Although the decree seemed to have a cup for “security” officials, there was a massive confusion as to whether or not it involved air traffic controllers.
On January 22, a week before the accident, the members of the Committee of the Chamber of Transport and Infrastructure called the freezing of hires in a joint declaration. “The hiring of air traffic controllers is the number one security problem according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation security and reduce costs for American families who work hard, the administration chooses to spread a false Dei claims to justify this decision, “said Rick Larsen (D-WA) in the press release.
“I am not surprised by the dangerous and divided actions of the president, but the administration must reverse the course. Let’s go back to air -safety and allow the FAA to do its job by protecting the flying audience. »»
On / R / ATC, a subredit dedicated to air traffic controllers, the members evacuated their confusion and asked for what was going on with jobs. “Someone else noticed that all job offers in ATC on Usajobs have been deleted in addition to DOD positions?” I was told that all the vacancy announcements closed before today will always go through the selection process. Has anyone else heard something? A Redditor said three days ago.
The conditions in certain aviation laps managed by the federal government are so bad that they will soon be completely unrivaled. According to a memo by the director of the airport Gretchen Kelly, the Federal Tower of San Carlos will have absolutely no ATC service from February. “The FAA has awarded a new contract for air traffic services in SQL in Robinson Aviation,” said the letter. “However, the contract does not include the salary of the locality to take into account the high cost of life in the San Francisco Bay region.” Consequently, none of the air traffic controllers decided to remain
The FAA was formed in 1958, in part, because a series of open -air collisions convinced Washington and the public that a federal agency was necessary to regulate the sky.
