Summary
Trump is firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees despite recent fatal air crashes, CNN reports.
The AFL-CIO says terminations were issued Friday, with affected staff possibly locked out of FAA facilities after Monday.
Aviation safety union PASS calls the cuts “dangerous,” especially after four deadly incidents in the past month.
Critics argue these moves risk public safety amid ongoing air traffic controller shortages.
Confirmed - American aviation is now unsafe. American trains are now unregulated and their safety compromised. I guess it is time to find pleasure in the little things in my home city again.
Can’t even make the trains run on time.
That’s what the hyperloop is gonna solve, obviously
Back to the all time American classic, the automobile. It’s both what made America great and awful all in one useful machine.
With Teslas autonomously crashing into everything?
Four deadly crashes so far
And it’s only been a month.
And I’ve barely heard about the other three. It took us barely any time to treat plane crashes as we treat mass shootings.
It’s not that uncommon for smaller or private planes to crash, I think partially due to private pilots not having as much training and experience as commercial pilots, and the fact that smaller planes probably aren’t as stable in turbulent weather. Pretty sure the one in Alaska had more to do with the weather than traffic controllers. We tend to only hear about the small crashes when they have famous people on board.
And that month is February
I have heard of the Plane and Helicopter over Washington DC, killing some 70 or so people and another one with a small plane, killing 6 or so. Which other two have i been missing?
The move comes less than three weeks after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet that was about to land in Washington, D.C., killing 67, and an air ambulance crashed in Philadelphia, killing seven. Ten people died when a regional flight in Alaska went missing and was found crashed, earlier this month. Days later one person died in Scottsdale, Arizona, when a plane veered off the runway and collided with a parked aircraft.
How many are there usually?
Commercial crashes? 0 is the normal number. But generally aviation crashes are much less rare, sadly. They happen.
Yup, kinda like train derailments. Most of them aren’t huge, so you don’t hear about them, but they happen a lot.
Yeah, okay. I was unsure if it’s just that it’s not reported as much usually and being focused on because of the faa thing.
Time to stop putting our faith in flying.
I already decided I’m never going on another dangerous amusement park ride because I don’t trust the businesses to maintain them properly.
Gonna be living like native americans before long!
Fry bread is the perfect “I am desperately inhumanly broke” food. You can get a lot of calories out of a bottle of oil/tub of lard and a bag of flour.
Beadwork lets you make something gorgeous out of stuff you can get at the dollar tree.
I’m down for a powwow! Or *looks around*… twenty.
Do you have levels for your amusement park trust? Like would you go to Disney world but not a traveling carnival? Are they all out? Lol
They are all out.
It’s not worth putting my life in their hands.
Well good to know ahead of time to not fly for the next eight years.
Damn. Didnt think Trump would be the president to curb airline emissions but he just might.
The Gang Fixes the Climate Crisis
It will take more than 8 years to repair the damage done so far.
🤡
Basically, it would be safer to fly over Ukraine and fucking Russia. An over worked and stressed ATC is higher risk than a bunch of drunk Russian bastards manning a SAM battery.
Interesting to be cutting oversight during a time when Boeing was having so much trouble with its planes.
I mean did you see what oversight did to share prices?
Oversight didn’t do that; fucking up the manufacturing did that.
Yes, in reality. But in oligarchy fantasy land, it’s regulations that get in the way profits.
I mean, regulations do get in the way of profits. It’s just that the profitable behaviors being outlawed by regulation are the ones that create harmful externalities, and it’s only in oligarchy fantasy land that they’re entitled to cause others harm for their own benefit.
- Number of workers does not guarantee the quality of their work
- If there were more accidents, it actually is logical to fire some of the personell
Yes, no one will easily solve this
you understand ATC has been under staffed for years yes?
WCGW
And yet another plane incident today…
It’s worth noting that during President Obama’s eight year administration, there were no fatal accidents involving major commercial airlines in the U.S. And under a month of Trump we’ve had how many? Lost count.
He did change the rules for trains tho allowing much longer trains. That required electronic braking systems. He didn’t make that mandatory and gave the companies 14 years to install them. He allowed the companies to force their employees to work longer hours. He was certainly responsible for the Palestine disaster. (the chemical accident not thre genocide)
The Norfolk Southern crews nicknamed 32N as “32 Nasty.” They knew a derailment was inevitable.
You give trump too much credit.
There were none under Biden either if I remember correctly.
True. Even under Bush there was only this one incident in 2001.
Or three, depending on how you count it.
Oops, I guess I forgot to never forget.
Tbf, I think it was just the 1 in DC. There was a military one and a small aircraft as well, but only one involving commercial airlines to my knowledge. Still, the number is embarrassingly high.
Also, the one in DC really sounds like a fuckup by the helicopter crew. The ATC warned the helicopter crew about the incoming plane twice and the helicopter crew indicated both times they saw the plane and were maintaining visual separation (watching the plane and keeping their distance).
Don’t be that person, the one who oversimplifies an accident into a single issue instead of a chain of events - the circling maneuver, the NVG training, the other plane on approach further out, the discrepancy in altimeter readings between PiC/PM in the Blackhawk, stepped-on comms, the list of things that could easily contribute is already an arm’s length long.
Edit: you know what would be great? If the FAA had the resources necessary to implement NTSB’s recommendation backlog. Do you feel firing lots of FAA staff helps us or hurts us on that front?
I’m not saying Trump or what he’s doing aren’t terrible.
But he had zero impact on the DC crash, and every time we blame something on him that isn’t his fault the Republicans will grasp onto that and say we’d blame him for water being wet.
Just so we are good, I was being rhetorical in my questions, not targeting them at you.
But also I think I am coming around to the GOP approach: who cares if it’s perfectly true when it is essentially true?
Because the honest truth is there’s a double-standard. When they lie it’s no big deal. When we get out of line even the smallest amount the right-wing media machines will run with it for YEARS.
Was the military exercise being done in DC when the helicopter crashed being done as part of a normal schedule, or at the request of the Trump administration? From what I understand it was an excercise for having to potentially evac the white house
As an aviator with a degree in aviation I can honestly say this. It’s a miracle it’s taken this long for something this bad to happen. No administration, from Regan onwards, has done anything about the ATC shortage (nothing effective anyway). I’m friends with controllers, I’ve been to several ATC facilities, what they do everyday is a fucking miracle. While it’s easy to point at the DC crash and the other subsequent crashes and say “see, Trump did it” the truth is far more nuanced and systemic than that. Also, in my opinion, the DC crash is 100% on the helicopter pilots.
Is what Trump doing now going to help the situation? Fuck no. We need more controllers. Better pay, better benefits, and more slots at the ATC academy.
As if the shitty Boeings they are allowed make aren’t enough to cause crashes.
I propose having no covfefe available to neither pilots nor controllers. Also, all airplane flight alarms should call the pilot derogatory names.
That would help things tremendously. We are looking for ways to improve chaos right?
Of course, but the AmeriKan attitude is do more with less.
…The Capitalist attitude… FTFY. This isn’t an exclusively American problem.
The DC crash is interesting. Have you seen this video? https://youtube.com/watch?v=1IUJpRwzHZU
Seems like there were several factors. But we’ll need the black box analysis to know more.
The Helicopter pilot was certainly in the wrong place, but from their point of view, it’s understandable why they were in the wrong place.
The question is, did the controller give clear guidance?
And would a second pair of eyes on the situation have helped?
The Helo pilot said the words “traffic in sight…” In the world of aviation that is you saying “I am taking responsibility for traffic separation”. The controller isn’t in the cockpit, the controller has no choice but to take the pilot at their word. The pilot then followed that up with “…request visual separation.” Which is an even more assertive way of saying “I know what I’m doing, I am responsible for separation”. He said it twice. The ATC system is built on multual trust in eachother and professionalism.
The question “did the controller give clear guidance” is moot. The pilot took responsibility for traffic separation. At that point ATC is not responsible for traffic separation. If I want ATC to take responsibility for my safety I say “(Plane call sign) is looking for traffic” then ATC tells me desend, turn, speed up, slow down, etc…
Wait, so it isn’t trumps fault but we had 4 crashes since he’s taken office? Bro it’s his fault what the hell are you talking about? One of those is directly his fault.
Is it actually his fault? Not likely. None of his policies had really affected the ATC, at least for the first couple incidents.
But it’s something we can point to as a nice little factoid. And as president, the buck stops with him. Wether or not he directly influenced events is besides the point.
Yes. There are thousands of aviation incidents and accidents every year in the US. None of those have been scheduled carriers. General aviation, crop dustets, flight training, etc… The DC crash was notable because it’s the first fatalities due to mishap on a US SCHEDULED air carrier (called part 121 in the industry) since 2009. Emphasis on scheduled. Because of the notability Since then there has been increased scrutiny on aviation which is why you’ve heard about 2 of the other 3 at all. So 4 since trump took office isn’t remarkable. In fact, I’d wager there’s been a lot more.
Now does firing 100s of controllers make the ATC system more safe? No. That’s gonna be a disaster.
I don’t think ignoring a systematic issue can be put on the same level as actively enabling it. sure, previous presidents haven’t helped much, which is asking for a tragedy to happen, but trump has been pretty much forcing them to happen with these cuts.
True. It’s going to be bad. But it’s hard to pin the blame on trumpmfor the past incidents. The firings just happened
How to artificially impose a curfew by making people too afraid to fly. Is this what happens when you get King Musk mad about getting his flights publicly tracked? Gonna bet so, the guy is bitter and corrupt enough the he would want to replace the entire aviation system with one that won’t track him regardless of how many deaths it would mean.
You think “the government is intentionally crashing planes” is more likely than “the slow but inevitable collapse of a system pushed past capacity since Reagan fired the workers pushing for better pay and reasonable hours?”
Yes, nothing exceptional about Trump, all “slow but inevitable”. It’s all the government’s fault, don’t look at the rich oligarch that owns a personality cult creating social network behind the curtains…
No room in his senile agenda for any variables
LOL US planes are even crashing in Canada now. I think the invasion attack just started. Defend yourself!
