I will speak in behalf of the president since he missed an important information and lacks empathy. Our condolences and prayors to the 67 victims of this unimaginable tragedy.
Listen r****d, I'm not following what's posted about it. Go jump off a bridge with your rainbow flag.
The DC airspace is one of the most complex anywhere and doing the work of an air traffic controller is one of the most complex and stressful jobs you can have--the suicide rate for those folks is significantly above the national average. For those of you pushing an insane conspiracy theory, have you thought that for that to work, the helicopter pilot had to intentionally fly to their death? Or, perhaps, the ATC had to intentionally give wrong information over a system that records their every word? Nonsense. Furthermore, this was a flight from Wichita, KS and not some conspiracy-laden hellhole like NYC or Epstein's island. Let me repeat: Wichita, Kansas. Kansas! Sometimes in complex systems you have bad outcomes. Understanding what produced the bad outcome often takes time and in some systems, the complexity is so high you can't ever be sure. Of course, we'll be able to say human error or mechanical failure--that determination of a simple cause will certainly make us all feel better. But understanding the systemic pressures that contributed is really tough and understanding how humans operate and make tradeoffs in those systems with those particulars is extremely difficult. For anything like this, keep in mind hindsight bias. The people involved did not want to die, they had multiple inputs with uncertain outcomes, and made decisions based on what their experience told them was important. Everyone else has the benefit of hindsight and cannot help but be influenced that the accident happened. We start with the bias that the accident happened and that imposes a linear approach to the accident, makes it static--but in real time, it was dynamic, complex, and uncertain. Resist the urge to simplify.
Some people probably like viewing the D&D without getting half of their pages full of your Twitter algorithm. I’m sure if one could divide ignores by forum sub sections that more would be able to see this thread and your bbs posts.
No, of course not. There have always been close calls (the NYT has an article about it today). Understaffed and overstressed air traffic controllers (human errors) have been an ongoing issue in these close calls, according to the NYT article, though that might not be the reason here at all. During a tragedy like this - where the federal government is responsible for figuring out what happened and making recommendations or changes to prevent future incidents (in case people don’t know how it works, both the military and the FAA are part of the federal government) - a real leader’s job isn’t to cast blame, lie, start/spread conspiracy, or speculate while the investigation is ongoing. Instead, it’s to assure the public that they will prioritize safety, do whatever they can to understand what happened, and take action to prevent it from happening again. One step in that might be to reverse the policy change from the last 10 days and restore the agencies that were congressionally tasked with providing recommendations for preventing aviation tragedies like this.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/0...e_code=1.tE4.WP9B.hajeXam2J6Th&smid=url-share Control Tower Staffing Was ‘Not Normal’ During Deadly Crash, F.A.A. Says 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.
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.
