1000 air traffic controllers ‘denied jobs’
Bombshell claims about air traffic controllers have emerged after the horror crash between a plane and a helicopter this week.
WARNING: Distressing content
The US’ Federal Aviation Administration is facing legal action alleging it denied 1000 would-be air traffic controllers jobs because of diversity hiring targets — as it was revealed that staffing levels were “not normal” at the time of this week’s deadly midair collision.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has denied the claims and has said all air traffic controllers have to go through 18-24 months of training no matter their background.
The FAA’s hiring policies were brought up by US President Donald Trump as he went on an anti-diversity tirade after an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, killing 67 people. There is no evidence diversity had anything to do with the crash.
Distressing new footage has emerged of the incident that could provide further clues as to how the tragedy unfolded.
The new video is significantly clearer than previous CCTV footage from further away.
While, on Friday, Mr Trump again posted on social media about his theories on the crash. “Not complex is it?” he wrote.
The new videos, obtained by CNN, were both shot on mobile phones.
One, from the banks of the Potomac, the river that flows through Washington, shows the American jet flying towards the runway, lights ablaze.
The Black Hawk comes in from the side with its lights on and ploughs into the Canadian made Bombardier plane. It does not appear to slow or change course.
An explosion follows. The helicopter, with its lights still on and its fuselage still recognisable, falls towards the water.
The American aeroplane appears to be in parts and spins before hitting the river seconds later.
Initial reports have said the passenger jet was sheared into three sections by the impacts.
The second mobile phone footage comes from a higher position with the airport itself. Delta and JetBlue aircraft can be seen taxiing as the American plane comes into land.
The helicopter zooms in from the left of the image, collides and a fireball takes place.
While both aircraft would have automated avoidance systems on board to warn of an impact, many of these don’t work at the very low altitudes this crash occurred at. That’s because the systems could distract the pilots warning them to avoid planes on the ground, for instance, that pose no risk.
Airline retires flight number
American Airlines has announced it will retire the flight number of the American Eagle jet which collided with the military helicopter.
“Flight AA5342 will not be used for any future American Airlines flights,” the airline said in a statement, NBC News reports.
The flight between from Wichita to Reagan International Airport on Friday night will now operate as American Airlines flight 5677, the airline said.
Airlines are known to retire flight numbers after serious incidents.
Father remembers wife and son, 11, killed in crash
Julia Kay and her son, 11-year-old ice skater Sean Kay, were among those killed in the crash, their family has confirmed.
The pair were returning from the US Figure Skating Championships and National Development Camp in Wichita.
“The plane was supposed to land at nine, and I called my wife and she didn’t pick up,” Ms Kay’s husband, Vitali Kay, told CBS. “I thought maybe it was on airplane mode and she forgot to switch it off.”
The couple share three other children who also skate.
“I had to deliver the news to them, right, and that was the phrase I used: ‘Hey, Julia would want you to do this, to skate,’” said Mr Kay.
Victim’s last-minute decision to catch early flight
Cincinnati woman Elizabeth Anne Keys has also been identified as one of 64 people on-board the American Airlines plane after she made a last-minute decision to fly home early.
The 33-year-old, who worked at law firm Wilkinson Stekloff in Washington, D.C, decided to come home early to celebrate her birthday with her boyfriend after a business trip, according to the New York Post.
“She was just the best partner and so special, had such a sharp wit, and just really pushed everyone around her to be the best version of themselves,” her boyfriend David Seidman, told the Enquirer.
College student Grace Maxwell has also been identified as one of the victims.
The 20-year-old was returning to a university in Ohio after attending her grandfather’s funeral in Kansas when the plane crashed.
“This is heartbreaking news for her family and for our campus community,” Cedarville University in Ohio said in a statement.
‘Still strapped in’
A firefighter has described the scene that confronted them as they raced to the crash scene on Wednesday night.
David Hoagland, President of the DC Fire Fighters Association, said his crews could see “debris falling from the sky” as they responded.
“It’s graphic. They encountered people inside the plane still strapped in their seats, and they weren’t able to remove them right away,” he added.
“Today, a lot of the effort has been focused on removing people from inside the plane who they were not able to remove last night, as well as just continuing to scan the entire area to see who they can locate.”
Trump tweets on crash again
On Friday morning, US time, Mr Trump took to social media to posit more thoughts about the deadly incident.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Mr Trump said the causes of the crash remained “unknown” but heavily suggested that diversity, in some way, could have played a role.
No evidence has so far emerged of this.
“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” wrote Mr Trump.
“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
The videos certainly show that at that location, the two aircraft were at the same height. Potentially, either the American plane was too low or the helicopter, as Mr Trump suggested, was higher than it should have been.
In the congested airspace near Reagan National Airport, passenger planes share space with military aircraft, tourism flights and indeed the President’s Marine One helicopter.
While all of these aircraft are in similar airspace, various rules, such as how high each type of plane flies, is designed to keep the area safe.
The victims have so far included a bevy of American and Russian figure skaters, a group who had been on an annual hunting trip and a Harvard educated civil rights lawyer.
Supervisor ‘left early’
On Thursday it was revealed that one of the air traffic controllers who should have been on duty at the time of the deadly crash was allowed to leave early by a supervisor.
That meant the air traffic controller was pulling a double duty, handling helicopters and also directing planes landing and departing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, according to a New York Times report citing a person briefed on the investigation.
Those jobs are normally done by two people between 10am and 9.30pm at the airport, after which the duties are combined when traffic lessens.
Reportedly, the reason the controller was handling dual roles at the time of the crash was because a supervisor had combined those duties some time before 9.30pm and allowed one to leave early.
Combining the duties is within the supervisor’s discretion, although it’s not clear why the supervisor chose to do so on Wednesday, the Times noted.
The FAA report said staffing at the air traffic control tower was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic”.
According to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress, the tower at the airport was chronically understaffed, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023.
The FAA and the controllers union call for 30.
The shortages have forced many controllers to work up to six days a week and 10 hours a day.
The report to Congress said the agency was “committed to maximum hiring for the next few years to recover from substantial under-hiring due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the lapse in funding in 2019″.
In 2023, the FAA exceeded its hiring target of 1500 by bringing on 1512 new controllers.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would not comment on the media report about understaffing.
“We have not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers at this time,” NTSB board member Todd Inman told reporters on Thursday.
Mr Inman said the NTSB intends to issue a preliminary report within 30 days.
FAA embroiled in DEI lawsuit
The revelations about staffing levels came as complaints about the FAA’s hiring policies resurfaced.
The FAA is fighting a class-action lawsuit alleging it denied 1000 would-be air traffic controllers jobs because of diversity hiring targets, reports The New York Post.
Andrew Brigida, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed in 2015, said diversity targets at the FAA had meant an accident was likely to happen.
The lawsuit claims that under the Obama administration the FAA dropped a skill-based system for hiring controllers and replaced it with a “biographical assessment” in an alleged bid to boost the number of minority job applicants. That assessment was dropped in 2018.
Mr Brigida, who is white, alleges he was discriminated against solely based on his race when his application was rejected, court papers state.
The would-be air traffic controller was turned down for a job even though he had scored 100 per cent on his training exam, the lawsuit alleges.
FAA response
Asked if he thought diversity hiring ensured that an aviation accident was bound to happen, Mr Brigida told The Telegraph, “Yes, that’s kind of accurate.”
Now working at the FAA as a program manager, he said he hoped Mr Trump would “immediately” work to fix the apparent staffing crisis within the agency.
“He obviously sees the issue at hand and if he didn’t, I’m sure people that work in the Department of Transportation and the FAA informed him that there is an issue with staffing and air traffic control and I’m hoping they can work on it immediately,” he told The Telegraph.
The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the ongoing lawsuit.
However when the issue made headlines in 2024, the FAA told Fox News that “every FAA-certified air traffic controller has gone through months of screening and training at the FAA Academy, and that is before another 18-24 months of training to learn specific regions and airspaces”.
The aviation agency and US Department of Transport are fighting the legal action.
— with NY Post
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