American Airlines crash

DaveC426913 said:
Please tell me that is not a direct quote.
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Of course it's a direct quote. It's from Darren Beattie, the new undersecretary of State for public diplomacy. He posted it a few months back on Twitter.

That should come as no surprise; he also thinks Trump really won in 2020 and that Jan 6th was either just peaceful Trump supporters or violent Antifa false-flag activists. He's said both,
 
DaveC426913 said:
Indeed. This more than the usual blaming a specific person who is a minority. That's the way we usually experience racism.

But to state it explicitly to be "everyone but" white people is a level of white supremacy I simply can't believe exists.
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Not just that but white men.

Get back in the kitchen wegs! ;)
 
wegs said:
I’m not really as concerned about mechanical failure as I am the ATC situation. Whether it was Trump’s or Biden’s “fault,” they seem a little short staffed and that collision shouldn’t have happened.
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One of the things the National Transportation Safety Bureau is investigating is whether air traffic control was actually understaffed or not. It's by no means clear to me, yet, that they were understaffed at the time of the collision, and it's not clear to the NTSB investigators yet, either (based on their press conferences to date).
wegs said:
I don’t consider it “just an accident,” from the new info coming out about it. It sounded like they were communicating with the helicopter and airplane pilot, yet it still happened.
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The military helicopter was communicating with the tower on an ultra-high frequency (UHF) channel, while the commercial jet was communicating with the tower on a very-high frequency (VHF) channel. That meant that air traffic control had two-way communication with both aircraft. Each aircraft could hear what the tower was saying to the other aircraft, but it couldn't hear what the other aircraft was saying to the tower.

This can't have helped the situation, but whether it was a significant factor in the accident remains to be determined.

A bigger issue is that the helicopter pilot requested permission from air traffic control to make their own decisions about where to point the helicopter, whether to slow down or stop, etc., based on their own assurance that they had a reliable visual sighting of the jet. Air traffic control granted that permission. Whether, in the circumstances, the controller was right to do that, is another matter that needs to be determined.

The NTSB has an incredible level of expertise and experience in investigating airline crashes. They will get to the bottom of all the causes of this accident, and they will recommend changes to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again.

wegs said:
I do realize that it was rare, but if we have a staffing issue in ATC, will it continue to be rare?
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It depends on the factors that are causing the low staffing (if that is an issue).
 
James R said:
The NTSB has an incredible level of expertise and experience in investigating airline crashes. They will get to the bottom of all the causes of this accident, and they will recommend changes to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again.
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Agreed - usually. My fear is that Trump will issue an executive order that says something like "the NTSB shall determine that the cause of the crash was DEI, since that's what it was, and any NTSB member who proposes a false cause will be fired." Or something else along those lines i.e. if the determination is that military procedures were the main issues, then he will classify the report due to national security and never release it, while telling everyone it was DEI.
 
DaveC426913 said:
James, it's almost as if you're saying we should wait for the facts and trust the experts to do their jobs ...
-_O
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As a long-time viewer of the TV show Air Crash Investigation, I have high confidence that the NTSB is staffed with experts who know what they are doing and who are very good at their jobs.

I'm interested to see how this unusual mid-air collision investigation pans out. In the meantime, I'm as happy as the next guy to speculate on causes, but I hope I won't be jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
 
billvon said:
Agreed - usually. My fear is that Trump will issue an executive order that says something like "the NTSB shall determine that the cause of the crash was DEI, since that's what it was, and any NTSB member who proposes a false cause will be fired."
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I don't know if that would be within the bounds of Trump's authority.

Would be interesting to see if mass resignations from the NTSB followed such any such move. It's not a big organisation, however.

billvon said:
if the determination is that military procedures were the main issues, then he will classify the report due to national security and never release it, while telling everyone it was DEI.
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That's possible. It would go against the ethos of the NTSB (and possibly its statutory aims), because it exists to make air travel safer for everybody. It can only do that by publicising its findings and making recommendations to improve safety in the future.

Air accident investigations of this type typically have repercussions that transcend the national level, too, precisely because the NTSB publicises its findings and recommendations. (Not to mention that it also lends its expertise to many international investigations.)
 
James R said:
I don't know if that would be within the bounds of Trump's authority.
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That no longer matters. He has done several things outside his authority already and gotten away with it. His Supreme Court says he cannot be held liable for anything he does as president, and his right hand man now has the authority to stop any paycheck to any entity working for the US.

Would be interesting to see if mass resignations from the NTSB followed such any such move. It's not a big organisation, however.
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Exactly. Those people are easily replaced by FOX News commentators.
It would go against the ethos of the NTSB (and possibly its statutory aims), because it exists to make air travel safer for everybody
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Right. But a determination of anything OTHER than DEI would harm Trump politically. And his goal is to make himself more powerful politically, no matter what it takes.
(Not to mention that it also lends its expertise to many international investigations.)
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Given Trump's open objection to any aid flowing out of the US to any other country - again, he would see that loss as his gain.
 
DaveC426913 said:
...the U.S. Army helicopter had its automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) turned off."
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That's a fairly big deal. It's not TCAS, but it's how small aircraft ensure separation these days. Which means that the CRJ was missing out on that second level of warning.

And TCAS would have been muted anyway.

The only question is - how will Trump spin ADS-B out as "woke?"
 
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