Unintended consequences are unintended, and sometimes surprising.
It is not just right-wing whackos who are raising this possibility.
The control towere was understaffed and undertaffing among air traffic controllers has been an ongoing safety threat. The only question here is Is it fair to blame DEI hiring practices for the understaffing?
The New York Times reported in 2023 that nearly all air traffic control sites in the country were understaffed. The shortage, per the report, forced many controllers to work 10-hour days, six days a week, resulting in an exhausted work force susceptible to making dangerous mistakes.
The air traffic control tower at Reagan National Airport, as of September 2023, had 19 fully certified controllers when the targets set by the FAA and controllersâ union called for 30, per the Times.
Before the FAAâs 2024 hiring totals were announced, its latest workforce plan had said the agency was short 3,000 controllers to fill air traffic control stations and towers across the country as of May, according to Airlines for America. . . .
NBC,
The NY Times,
Yup, the following seemed pretty likely:
The control tower was understaffed,
The understaffing is a likely cause of the crash
The understaffing is not isolated it is hapening all across the country
The understaffing occured and continued during an era when the govât clearly had the budget, was rapidly hiring, rapidly increase spending in many areas.
Decorum requires that the president should have waited before blaming DEI practices, but blaming DEI practices is not much of a stretch. Logically, it is a likely culprit.
Regardless of what they saw or didnât see they were almost 200 feet in a higher altitude than where they should have been.
The fact that air control tower was understaffed will also be an issue.
DEI is indirectly responsible for incompetent staffing everywhere else so it may have done damage in this tragedy too.
Weâll have exact answers in a year or twoâŚtill then we can only speculate.
There were numerous near-misses in the last several years so changes will be made for sure.
Sadly nearly 70 people paid the ultimate price for someoneâs incompetence.
That says absolutely nothing about diversity in hiring - in fact, a more diverse workforce leads to a deeper pool of candidates, not the opposite. The DEI â â â â was complete fabrication and offering buyouts to virtually every government employee will make staffing shortages at stressful workplaces greater, not lesser.
Cockpit recordings have been released. Apparently the tower asked the chopper if they were aware of the incoming flight. They answered in the affirmative, then asked for visual separation. It was granted.
My guess, and itâs the only thing I think makes sense, is that the chopper was looking at the flight right behind the one they crashed into. How they didnât see the one they crashed into is beyond my understanding. Why the tower didnât tell the chopper to not be in the same altitude as incoming and outgoing flights is also beyond me.
Biden is probably the worst President since Jimmy Carter. I was too young to understand the Carter disaster. But I remember the adults talking about it.
Not a DEI discussion topic, even though many canât resist. And Trumpâs comments are best for a topic about his comments and penchant to put his mouth in gear before engaging his brain, not a discussion of the crash. (Official Moderatorâs opinion)
The understaffing of control towers across the country has been a topic of public discussion since I was a child (a long, long, long time ago). Even if standards have been lowered there obviously are not enough people applying to become ATCs to fill the demand. Now if you want to start a discussion on the dangers of the ATC shortage, and causes and solutions to same I would be happy to participate.
DEI and any similar programs do not apply to air traffic control hiring, though â no one is given preferential treatment for race, sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation, a former FAA official told ABC News.
Applicants must pass a medical exam, an aptitude test and a psychological test that is more stringent than that required of a pilot, said Chris Wilbanks, FAA deputy vice president of safety and technical training.
In 2022, 57,000 people applied for an ATC position, Wilbanks said, and 2,400 qualified to attend the academy. Of that 2,400, only 1,000 made it to the first day of training.
Wilbanks said 72% make it through the academy and roughly 60% of those will finish training.
According to the FAA, the training process lasts about three to four years from the hire date. Applicants must be younger than 31 and must retire by age 55.
Carter was the President when I graduated from high school and enlisted. He doesnât hold a candle to the rot of Biden and his administration. Carter was engaged and in charge, they didnât hide him and no one controlled him. Carter made some poor decisions on the foreign relations stage and didnât really know how to reassure and inspire the public, seeming to have knack for doing the opposite over tough times.
This thread is supposed to be about the crash. All this âTrumpâ and âDEIâ doesnât contribute anything to discussing the tragedy of the crash, its contributing causes and any solutions to decreasing the risk for future tragedies.
It does feed members on both sides appetite to throw snark at each other.