Bombshell Musk move before plane crash
Elon Musk made a massive demand of the aviation safety authority — leading to a major change just days before Wednesday’s disaster.
The head of America’s aviation safety authority had resigned just 10 days before Wednesday’s air disaster, leaving the agency leaderless after Elon Musk had demanded he step down.
On Wednesday night, local time, American Airlines flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk military helicopter on the approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport
At the time of the crash, the FAA was leaderless, its former chief having resigned 10 days earlier.
On Thursday, Mr Trump appointed Chris Rocheleau as acting FAA administrator. Mr Rocheleau is an Air Force veteran with 20 years’ experience at the FAA.
His predecessor, Michael Whitaker, who was unanimously confirmed as FAA administrator by the Senate in October 2023, resigned on the day of Mr Trump’s inauguration.
Mr Whitaker had announced his intention to resign after Mr Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris.
“As I conclude my time at the FAA, my confidence in you to meet our safety mission has never been stronger,” Mr Whitaker wrote in an email to staff in December.
Prior to the election, Mr Musk had called for him to quit.
“He should resign,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, and key Trump adviser, wrote on X in September.
Mr Musk had taken issue with the FAA under Mr Whitaker, alleging the safety regulator was slowing down his rocket launches with paperwork — and threatening SpaceX with fines of up to $600,000.
Meanwhile a transgender soldier has said she is “alive and well” after false rumours spread online that she was the pilot of the military helicopter that collided with a passenger jet killing 67 people in Washington DC.
Jo Ellis, a Black Hawk pilot with the Virginia National Guard, posted a video online on Friday morning, US time, saying it was “insulting to the families to tie this to a political agenda”.
The soldier’s response follow comments on Thursday when US President Donald Trump tried to tie diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to the tragedy in Washington DC.
Critics of DEI claim it places race, gender or disability, for instance, above merit for jobs. While DEI proponents have said it encourages unrepresented groups to apply for roles and recognises discrimination exists.
Mr Trump claimed that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had a “diversity push” that “focused on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” including for air traffic control roles.
When Mr Trump was challenged by reporters as to why he was focusing on diversity, when there was no information to suggest that was the cause of the crash, he replied: “It could have been, we don’t know, but it shouldn’t have happened”.
Asked to why he was blaming diversity, he added “I have common sense, OK, and unfortunately a lot of people don’t”.
The leading theories behind the crash are that the Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high and that the single air traffic controller on duty at the time was overworked.
Trans pilot rumours
Soon after, Ms Ellis’ picture and name began to be circulated online with scuttlebutt that a trans woman was at the helm of the Black Hawk helicopter.
Ms Ellis is a chief warrant officer and Black Hawk helicopter pilot who has served in the Virginia National Guard for 15 years.
She has also served in Iraq, reported Newsweek.
On social media, including Elon Musk’s X, there were suggestions she may have deliberately doomed the aircraft in anger at the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies.
The President seems likely to follow through on a plan to ban transgender people from the military.
A trans pilot being blamed for the disaster would have fit neatly into Mr Trump’s claims that DEI may have been a cause behind it.
‘Insulting’
However, on Friday, a solemn looking Ms Ellis, 34, took to social media to show she was still well.
“I understand some people have associated me with a crash in DC, and that is false,” she said.
“It is insulting to the families to try to tie this to some sort of political agenda. They don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve this.
“And I hope that you all know that I am alive and well, and this should be sufficient for you all to end all the rumours.”
Talking additionally to the Daily Mail, Ms Ellis said she was “shocked” by the online slander.
Three people were on board the helicopter, two men and one woman. Chief warrant officers Andrew Eaves and Ryan O’Hara, both from Georgia, have been identified. The female co-pilot has not.
Female pilot’s name withheld
The Army has drawn scrutiny for refusing to release the name of the third crew member.
Officials have told US media outlets only that she was a female pilot who had 500 hours of flying experience.
The Army is withholding the pilot’s name at the request of her family, NPR reported.
“The withholding of a name in instances like this is a highly unusual move,” the public broadcaster noted. “The identity of the third crew member has already drawn intense scrutiny online.”
Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth, a former Black Hawk pilot, told NPR she understood the family’s decision.
“We should be respecting the family’s wishes at a time when they have suffered an unbelievable loss,” she said. “I think it is a perfectly legitimate request the family would make. And I’m glad that the Army is honouring that request.”
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh said it was “totally unacceptable”.
“The helicopter was involved in, and may have actually caused, one of the worst airline disasters in American history,” he wrote on X. “We have a right to know the names.”
‘Disgusting’
Mr Trump had admitted the cause of the crash remains “unknown” but nonetheless signed a memorandum hours after his press briefing directing the FAA to examine all hirings in the last four years to see if standards had been compromised, a key claim of diversity critics.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, one of the most senior Democrats in the US, has slammed Mr Trump.
He said the President’s comments were “shameful”.
“It’s a very irresponsible statement that was made by the President,” Mr Jeffries said during a press conference in Brooklyn, New York.
“Bodies are still being pulled from the Potomac, children were killed, and future ice skating Olympians were killed, future leaders in Wichita, Kansas, and beyond were killed as a result of this tragedy.
“We don’t need misdirection and we don’t need misinformation coming from the highest office in the land. We need integrity, we need decency, we need leadership,” Mr Jeffries said. “There is not a scintilla of evidence that exists to suggest that women and people of colour are to blame for the tragedy that took place”.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy blasted Mr Trump’s comments about the FAA as “plain disgusting”.
“Nobody’s going to know today what caused that crash,” he said in a video posted to X.
“But what we absolutely know is that it is not women working at the FAA that caused that crash. We definitely know it is not black employees that caused that crash.
“President Trump forced out of office the administrator of the FAA. He’s been waging a regular assault on public employees since he came into office. He forced the entire aviation security advisory board to step down.
“We don’t know whether those things had anything to do with this crash, but we should take the time to get to the facts.”
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