Trump blames diversity hires, Biden for fatal aircraft crash without evidence

Washington: In comments that have been labelled “despicable”, US President Donald Trump has sought to blame diversity and inclusion policies and the Biden administration for a midair collision in the US capital that killed 67 people, while admitting there was no evidence yet to support his claims.

As bodies were being pulled from the frigid Potomac River in Washington, the president and members of his cabinet used a press conference to suggest Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hiring policies were a causative factor in the crash, despite the investigation being only hours old.

President Donald Trump implied diversity hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Administration were factors in the accident.Credit: AP

Asked how he knew diversity played a role, Trump said: “Because I have common sense.”

He later signed a presidential memorandum ordering an immediate assessment of aviation safety “in light of the damage done to aviation safety by the Biden administration’s DEI and woke policies”, as described by the aide who handed him the document to sign.

Trump also blamed the pilots of the US Army Black Hawk helicopter involved in the accident, saying it “obviously was in the wrong place at the wrong time” when it crossed the path of an American Airlines regional jet that was coming in to land just before 9pm Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).

“The people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going,” Trump said. “The helicopter had vision of the plane … You could have slowed down the helicopter substantially. You could have stopped the helicopter. You could have gone up, you could have gone down, you could have turned. For some reason, it just kept going. And then made a slight turn at the very end, and by that time it was too late.”

Trump implied air-traffic controllers should have prevented the two aircraft from being in the same place at the same time and suggested, without evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices could have been a factor. He accused his predecessor Joe Biden and former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg of watering down entry requirements for traffic controllers in the name of diversity.

“You can’t have regular people doing that job, they won’t be able to do it … they have to be at the highest level of genius,” Trump said. “[Buttigieg] is a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit … He’s run it [the FAA] right into the ground with his diversity.”

Pressed by reporters for evidence that DEI played any role in the crash, Trump acknowledged there was none. “It just could have been,” he said. “We don’t know, but we do know you had two planes at the same level. That shouldn’t have happened.” He later added: “My original order [on FAA hiring policies] should have never been changed and I think maybe you wouldn’t have had this problem.”

Search and rescue efforts on the Potomac River have turned to recovery.Credit: AP

Buttigieg, who contested the 2020 Democratic primary against Biden before dropping out, said Trump’s comments were “despicable”.

“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he said.

“We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,” he wrote on X.

“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”

The leadership of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus criticised Trump for his attempts to blame DEI policies for the collision, also calling it despicable and linking it to racism.

“President Trump has made baseless claims that seek to blame people of colour for this horrific tragedy. It is despicable,” read the statement from the caucus that currently comprises only Democrat members of Congress. “We don’t need racist lies, we need answers, and a leader who will put aside partisan politics to unite our country. President Trump has failed to meet this moment. The American people deserve better.”

A group of black lawmakers issued a statement mourning the lives of those killed and also blasting Trump’s comments.

“It is our hope that the outpour of condolences and support from people across our nation will bring solace during this season of bereavement,” said Yvette Clark, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “However, the opportunity to fully focus our sympathies on those who are in mourning and who may not have even retrieved their dearly departed was marred by a truly disgusting and disgraceful display of racist political prognostication.”

Pete Hegseth, the newly-confirmed Secretary of Defence, said an apparent “elevation issue” was being investigated.Credit: Bloomberg

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where the collision occurred, is next to the Pentagon and just across the river from central Washington, and commonly deals with helicopter traffic in the area. The Black Hawk was undertaking a routine nighttime training operation but “a mistake was made”, Trump’s new Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said.

“There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investing at a Department of Defence and army level,” he said, before noting that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defence Department”.

There were no survivors, Trump said, affirming an earlier announcement from officials that the rescue mission had become a recovery mission. The 67 people presumed dead comprised 60 passengers and four crew on the American Airlines flight, and three helicopter crew. At least 28 bodies have been retrieved from the river.

Footage from a security camera at Ronald Reagan Airport shows the collision.Credit: AP

Officials said the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas – a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by a regional subsidiary, PSA Airlines – was making a standard approach to the airport on a clear night with good visibility.

“On final approach into Reagan National it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom said. “At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the … aircraft.”

The National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) said it planned to present a preliminary report on the crash within 30 days, and it would not speculate on causes.

Asked whether Trump’s speculation was helpful while the investigation had barely commenced, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said the media also liked to speculate about the causes of crashes. “What I’m going to say is: you need to give us time,” she said at a press conference at the airport. “We do have a lot of information, but we need some time to verify that.”

Homendy said all crash investigations looked at the machines, the humans and the environment, “so we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident … that is standard”.

One air-traffic controller was responsible for co-ordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the FAA obtained by The Associated Press (AP).

The configuration was “not normal,” the report said, but a person familiar with the matter told the AP that staffing in the control tower on Wednesday night was at a normal level. The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, are in the process of a shift change, or air traffic is slow, the person said on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.

Passengers on the flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members, returning from a development camp after the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

Two of those coaches were Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, two-time Olympians who won the pairs title at the 1994 World Championships. Trump confirmed the administration had been in contact with Russia and the bodies would be repatriated. Their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the US.

The two Russians were coaches at the Skating Club of Boston, which confirmed six members were on the flight: Shishkova, Naumov, two athletes and their mothers.

“Our sport and this club have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy,” the club’s chief executive Doug Zeghibe said. “We are devastated and completely at a loss for words.”

Several American skaters were also aboard the passenger jet, according to US Figure Skating, the sport’s governing body.

Once the death toll is confirmed, the midair collision will rank as the worst US air disaster since 2001, when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed shortly after take-off from New York, killing 265 people.

with Reuters

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