Was the Washington Plane Crash Caused by a Diversity Hire?
Is the DEI hiring policy within the FAA to blame for yesterday’s accident as was initially claimed by President Trump, or just a conspiracy theory as his detractors would have it?
A lot of the conspiracy theories which spread like a California wildfire during Covid have been proved to be right. I remember Toby and James Delingpole in those good old days of suppression and repression being vilified by the state apparatchiks and their MSM lapdogs as ‘conspiracy theorists’. Wiki is still at it, head down, into the winds of change. James kept going, over the edge of the world, and was last seen passing the Van Allen Belt. Where he is now in the conspiracy universe, we shall have to ask Schrodinger’s Cat, if it ever comes in for it’s tea.
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“As always, the deeper you delve into what happened leads to more nuance.”
Gem of a line, Captain Leary. In return, from S. Kirkegaard back in the 1800s, “The irony of life is that it is lived forwards but understood backwards.”
Another one last night. Small plane. Lots of footage being shared;
https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1885589933571891238
https://x.com/PopCrave/status/1885483434283589975
There was a crash soon after 9/11, in Jersey. I wonder if systems are compromised as investigations of the first crash take immediate priority for a time? Don’t know but it is odd seeing another crash so soon after.
Cluster effect. London buses – wait ages for one then three turn up together.
The mainstream Marxist media doesn’t notice that there are lots of smaller aircraft accidents in the USA every year. And, scarily, quite a few medical evacuation flights in fixed and rotary wing aircraft. They’re just paying more attention than normal.
Yes until they analyse the black boxes it’s all just speculation at the moment. It could well be that Trump is incorrect and DEI has nothing to do with anything in this tragic instance. By all accounts all pilots and crew were experienced and not rookies. I’ve not heard much about the ATC situation though. So as far as both aircraft go surely there’s more to it than mere ‘human error’. We shall see.
Here’s a clip showing the collision, with the helicopter on the left. All sorts of theories are being shared online but I’d prefer to just stick with the facts;
https://x.com/krassenstein/status/1885336942948110435
The point is: if the majority, ie White, able bodied, sound minded, well educated or experienced are being excluded (which they are, and indeed those other exclusions will apply to non-Whites too), the pool in which you fish has been significantly reduced. The number of best qualified from that pool will be small, and second/third best will have to be accepted. Overall it may not be possible to find enough people either suitable or wanting to do the job to fill vacancies. So there are two issues: the actual competance and suitability of hires; the number of vacancies that can be filled and the increased workload that results on personnel due to understaffing, or pressure on competent staff having to work next to incompetent staff. There have undoubtedly been an increase in the number of near misses, mistakes and failures around US airports over the last decade or so since “diversity hiring” was introduced. Correlation does not prove causality, but it’s a good place to start looking. However it really is unlikely that hiring based on skin colour, physical and mental disability, sexual orientation, sex rather than merit and competence won’t cause serious problems within any system or process up… Read more »
James, it has been reported that there was a last minute change of runway, from rw 01 to rw 33. If the helicopter didn’t know about the change, then the crew would be holding away from 01 almost exactly in the final path of rw 33. We will need to see if the helicopter crew acknowledged that there had been a runway change when the voice recorders are analysed.
I also think the ATC manning levels are going to come under great scrutiny.
ATC levels at the time of the crash are coming under scrutiny https://thenationalpulse.com/2025/01/30/staffing-at-reagan-national-was-abnormal-during-crash-says-faa/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email The FAA might try to claim that a few people were off sick at that time, but I don’t buy it. While the author said that incompetent DEI hires are unlikely to pass the stringent training regime, they would act as bottlenecks in recruiting and training competent controllers as the DEI hire has take the place of someone who, maybe, might have passed the training course quite easily. Consider it from the perspective of older and more experienced controllers. For years they would have seen themselves being overlooked for promotion because of their ethnicity or something, and only mediocre new trainees starting the job, as opposed to talented people with an aptitude for doing it. Meanwhile senior managers rant on about DEI when experienced controllers know what needs to be done to make their job more effective – and these senior managers are ignoring them. Who would want to stick around in a job like that? Couple that with mandatory vaccine mandates a few years ago – it wouldn’t surprise me if a few older and experienced controllers took early retirement or just quit. The seeds of… Read more »
I agree. The whole context and backdrop of DEI and related ideologies might well have created the perfect storm for this kind of catastrophe.
On one radar plot that I saw, it showed the CRJ flying straight and would pass to the left side of the helicopter, then it turned to the left – presumably because of the runway changes – which, if the helicopter carried on in a straight line, would intersect with its flight path.
That is why the helicopter was instructed to go behind the CRJ. It acknowledged it would, which would have required a slight turn to the helicopter’s left, but it carried on in a straight line.
The theory is, the helicopter was looking at a different plane which it would fly behind (there were about six other planes coming in and one just taken off) and had not seen the CRJ as it made its turn.
Route 33? That’s such a dodgy (suspect) number! (Haha!)
Excellent article, thank you, and as you say interim changes have already been made, specifically to heli routes.
“Without speculating too much, yesterday’s disaster is as much a product of the system as the people”
Indeed, there are reports of several recent near misses at that airport, likely to be system rather than people issues, but people are always a threat to good systems, every dollar spent on social engineering is a dollar unspent on systems engineering.
All pilots are humans, so far..
Thank you. Excellent article evoking many a memory of the 70s and Kai Tak’s visual chequerboard approach to runway 13. Shopping at ‘Stinkie’s Market, in the middle of the residential apartments over which the landing jets flew at about 200ft was an ‘interesting’ experience too. Happy pre-Chek Lap Kok days!
As per the clip showing the footage of the collision I shared above, the helicopter on the left appears to be making a beeline for the plane, which seems to be unmoving by comparison. How did the helicopter not have a visual on the plane, which obviously has lights on and is presumably clear, and deviate its course so as to avoid impact? But it just flew right into the plane, no signs of any efforts to change direction or anything. There would’ve been two crew sitting up front but neither clocked a plane?🤷♀️ And where were ATC during all this? Too many questions..🤔
Too many questions as you say Mogs, the answers to which of will doubtless shed light on the tragedy. Notwithstanding conjecture such as misidentification by the Blackhawk crew of the AA jet, or the influence of NVGs on what happened, bottom line for me is: what was the chopper doing at 300ft, one mile from the runway threshold? and what was ATC’s role? The jet had been cleared to occupy that precise piece of airspace in the execution of its approach prior to landing. Even if the chopper had been at it’s putative cleared height of 200ft, a separation of 100ft in congested airspace is asking for trouble.
One thing that is clear, the radar tracks that are shown in videos on places like the DT indicate that the helicopter was above the altitude limit for route 4, and perhaps slightly off the centreline of that route.
Expecting visual separation at night over a bright cityscape is a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s happened before quite recently in Texas with a helicopter colliding with a radio antenna tower while looking for the lights of another aircraft in close proximity.
I spent 42 years in defence aerospace, dad was a Lancaster pilot.
In air crash investigation, this speculation is unhelpful. Fact, data, are everything.
Here is the best source https://youtu.be/_3gD_lnBNu0?si=F1AH6D5DgGMT6Chq
Agree, Blancolino is very good, as is Hoover Pilot Debrief (former fighter pilot)
Thanks for that. Just under 12 minutes, and a useful analysis of it.
Fascinating analysis. And scary too.
Somehow, I don’t think a “special, deserving” actor – let alone Tom Hanks – will be making a film about this accident.
If this was the UK we’d be encouraged to light some candles, leave some teddy bears and move along …. nothing to see.
I very much doubt Trump is going to allow that. And he shouldn’t; people need to understand the consequences of the Didn’t Earn It policy. It this instance, it was DIE for 60-odd people.
Really interesting article. This was Biden and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s nomination for head of the FAA Phil Washington back in 2023. This is not a comedy sketch.. this is actually real.
https://x.com/SenTedBuddNC/status/1631053342314049536
WOW! Words fail me, except perhaps “Please collect your personal belongings as you leave the FAA building”…
I’m unconvinced that DEI was not fundamentally at the root of this. Ok, I can accept that competent people will always build in provisos and watch incompetents forcefully placed in their midst but they shouldn’t have to have their attentions distracted by such incompetents in the first place, should they? Especially when DEIs are puffed up by their own entitlement What a person to have to deal with in an extremely high pressure environment when lives are at stake. Another point is that even if said incompetent diversity hire was under scrutiny, DEI is not just about people but systems which are being wrecked. Apparently, a staff member involved clocked off early. How much did the work from home ideology feed into this decision? Was it a diversity hire who decided to swan off with no-one allowed to say anything under DEI rules and because of related ideologies? Also, why was the heli even there? Was it the decision by a DEI hire – a decision which sensible experienced people wanted to object to but couldn’t because, again, of DEI policies in the workplace? In short, DEI sabotages established tried and tested systems. Whether any of these factors fed in… Read more »
Chris here has a good point. These pilots are trained to way higher standards and have to be experienced at flying in all weather conditions and levels of visibility compared to we as car drivers, but most of us manage to avoid catastrophic collisions during our lives. It still beats me how they couldn’t see the plane on a clear night, irrespective of how high they were flying. And if there’s a pilot and a co-pilot, surely both of them couldn’t fail to see the aircraft ahead of them. Even with a possible communications failure, why couldn’t they just see what was up ahead out of the windscreen and avoid it? I’m sure we’re all keen to find out the answers; ”I’ve seen a lot of ‘experts’ trying to tell me how this collision could have happened because of this and that and this and that. I’ve been informed I am not an expert, and this is true. I do not know how to fly a helicopter. I am, however, very expert in looking out of windows. Been doing it all my life. Almost every day for over 30 years now I’ve avoided automobiles coming from all directions and I… Read more »
“My point is, it’s all very well stipulating DEI candidates must be accepted, but they also have to get past the trainers and checkers within the system who are all themselves practicing pilots and controllers.”
Really? You mean like how all those Pakistani serial gang-rapists of children going on for decades had to get past social workers, police, politicians and media?
Once the rot sets into any system it gets overtaken bit by bit. Remember, the language of multiculturalism and diversity: racist, neo-nazi, transgenderphobe, homophobe, Islamophobe, etc, law suits, bad publicity.
Those “trainers and checkers” are under pressure and ultimately will be replaced by DEI hires.
That’s how ideologies work – the slow march through the institutions replacing with the like minded.
You underestimate the people in this business. Remember – they all fly themselves as do their families. Putting your own neck on the line – or your children’s – concentrates your mind. A friend of mine used to fly the personal plane of a racist African dictator. All three of the crew were white.
Not convinced. DEI has been pushing its dire tentacles into high competence jobs for at least 20 years. The whole system from managers to training staff is infected. There may be many good people still trying to do a meritocratic job, but many more have been undermining standards for years.
UKC news from Friday is good on this: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-31st-january-2025
BTW, James Delingpole is right on the ball on what’s going on in our world, as ever.
Hands up on here if you’re happy for Stevie Wonder to pilot your aircraft to your overseas holiday destination??……crickets 👂….
Many ATCs left their jobs when Joe Biden made it mandatory to take the covid vaxxes, leaving those still working understaffed. Another variable to consider. The Biden DEI addition to the job description for an ATC is another extreme concern. The gov’t will get to the bottom of this. But will we, the taxpayer ever be told the truth?
The control room apparently was undermanned chronically anyway, with average of 19 of the 30 staff in place. Even without the DEI issue that is terrible.