On January 29th, 2025, the United States suffered its first hull loss of a passenger airliner since the Colgan crash of 2009. Tragically, 67 people appear to have perished after a mid-air collision between a CRJ-700 regional jet operated by PSA (contracted by American Airlines) and a military UH-60 Blackhawk.
SEE: President Trump, other Officials Respond to Fatal Air Crash Over the Potomac
The CRJ was flying a circling approach to runway 33 at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA), which sits directly across the river from the nation's Capitol. In layman's terms, they were flying down the Potomac with the end of the approach being a low-altitude left turn onto short final to land (about 500 feet above the ground). There's nothing unusual about that, and from all the tracks I've seen, the CRJ was exactly where it should have been, with the caveat being that we won't know for certain until the NTSB releases its preliminary report.
The Blackhawk was a routine military training flight. As to why the helicopter was so close to DCA, military, government, and law enforcement helicopters routinely fly at low altitudes along a corridor following the Potomac River. Without the NTSB weighing in yet, we are left to speculate about what went wrong, but I'll try to answer a few basic questions.
People have noted how bright the landing lights were on the CRJ and asked how the Blackhawk managed to hit it. You have to understand, though, that the video that went viral of the crash was not the angle the helicopter was seeing. It was approaching from the side, and position lights, strobes, and beacons can very easily get lost in a city's lights.
Secondly, because helicopters climb in a nose-low attitude, the Blackhawk likely did not have a direct visual line of sight to the CRJ. Why did the military crew tell air traffic control they had the traffic in sight? It appears they misidentified a regional jet that was departing, further undermining their situational awareness. For more context, the Blackhawk crew was flying under visual flight rules, which means it was their responsibility to see and avoid any traffic.
To summarize, it appears (though nothing is certain) that the Blackhawk called the wrong traffic in sight and then mistakenly climbed into the regional jet without ever seeing it. That would make this a very tragic case of pilot error.
Unfortunately, Democrats and press members have decided to abscond from the above fact pattern and instead play politics. Multiple posts were put out on social media attempting to blame the Trump administration for the crash.
Praying for the families and demanding answers. https://t.co/uY0EzWj2s1 pic.twitter.com/I8agtUnM8b
— Norma Torres (@Norma4Congress) January 30, 2025
“Principles First” means baselessly insinuating that an aircraft crash is the fault of the SecDef who has had the job for five seconds pic.twitter.com/QFxNF8UhKv
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) January 30, 2025
— The List of Accounts that Need Their Phone Taken (@ListComesForAll) January 30, 2025
I wanted to avoid getting political about this topic, but Democrats are leaving me little choice. So, for starters, the Trump administration and its policies had absolutely nothing to do with this crash.
Is there an ATC shortage? Yes, there is, and we'll get to that. Was it caused by any action of the Trump administration instituted eight days ago? There's no planet on which that's true. You don't train to be an air traffic controller in eight days, much less would you be assigned to what is one of the most senior sectors in the country.
But if Democrats want to go down this road, we can. What caused the current ATC shortage? The Biden administration, which took its cues from diversity programs created by the Obama administration, rejected over 3,000 qualified applicants who didn't meet DEI standards. How do we know this? Because it led to a major class action lawsuit that is still ongoing.
Huerta announced plans to “transform [the FAA] into a more diverse and inclusive workplace that reflects, understands, and relates to the diverse customers.”
— Patrick Casey (@restoreorderusa) January 30, 2025
In other words, the FAA was hiring too many white guys!
You’ll never guess what his proposed solution was… pic.twitter.com/ptpirhGktk
Huerta announced plans to “transform [the FAA] into a more diverse and inclusive workplace that reflects, understands, and relates to the diverse customers.”
— Patrick Casey (@restoreorderusa) January 30, 2025
In other words, the FAA was hiring too many white guys!
You’ll never guess what his proposed solution was… pic.twitter.com/ptpirhGktk
In other words, Democrat presidents put DEI above safety, purging thousands of people who could have solved the shortage because their skin color didn't match up with the left's political wants. That's what the Trump administration is trying to fix by eliminating diversity quotas at the FAA. So again, if Democrats would like to go down this road of trying to place blame, Republicans should be happy to do so. It won't work out well for the former.
With that said, it does not appear that ATC was primarily at fault here. There may be questions about how much separation was allowed to begin with, and an investigation will figure all that out. In the meantime, these attempts to blame a presidential administration that's been in office for eight days are laughable. Not only that, they are ghoulish and disgusting.
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