4 ms·

I know I shouldn't get my news from Reddit, but the consensus there is that the entire FAA crisis (and both recent crashes in the US), is Trump's fault. I don'

by tac19 2y ago

I know I shouldn't get my news from Reddit, but the consensus there is that the entire FAA crisis (and both recent crashes in the US), is Trump's fault. I don't know the details, but apparently he "gutted" the FAA last week, on the first day he took office, leaving the FAA unable to protect the flying public.

readthenotes1 2y ago
"I know I shouldn't" --> then don't
CrazyStat 2y ago
The air traffic controller shortage long predates Trump; here [1] for example is a statement about it from 2015. [1] https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic-controller-staffing-shortage-at-congressional-roundtable/ https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic...
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  The so-called "DEI" hiring policies currently in effect, however, were instituted under Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-t... The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears...
- lumost 2y ago
  I'd argue that in our quest to maximize income inequality, we've made many necessary careers non-viable from a living standards perspective. These non viable careers include pilots, atc, teaching, and a large portion of the skilled trades and more. While a non viable career path will still have some individuals in the field due to sunk cost, passion, or inertia - a shortage is inevitable. Supply and demand should rationalize this - but if training is long, wage visibility is low, and sunk cost is high, and negotiation power is low - its entirely possible for a employers to collectively push the prevailing wage below the level which makes the job worth it to enough individuals.
9283409232 2y ago
This sounds like mixed messaging. The head of the FAA was forced to resign because he fined SpaceX for safety violations and President Musk did not like that. However, I've been hearing about ATC problems my entire life so around 40 years.
jml7c5 2y ago
No, that was only ten days beforehand and focused on people at a high level. There's no good reason to believe it had an effect on this crash.
- boothby 2y ago
  This "quit or risk getting fired" email was sent to federal employees on January 28, the day before the crash: https://www.opm.gov/fork https://www.opm.gov/fork and that includes air traffic controllers and their supervisors [1] If you don't think that could have had an impact on morale, and therefore attentiveness, I can only wonder if you've never witnessed large-scale layoffs first-hand. They're pretty common in tech. From what I've seen in our industry, first and second hand, almost nobody gets any real work done for several days after getting such an email. The ATCs don't have such luxury, but instead, they continue their life-and-death job with an elevated level of stress. And we know that one of the ATCs was dismissed early that day. Was it because undue stress, caused by that email, was impacting their performance? If so, will their supervisor be brave enough to say so in public? We don't know. But this is a substantial reason to suspect that the administration's actions could have had a direct impact on the people in that control tower. [1] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2025/01/federal-air-crash-responders-all-got-the-resign-email/ https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2025/01/...
fabian2k 2y ago
There wasn't enough time for Trump to affect his specific incident. But longer term it's certainly not a good idea to send traffic controllers a letter asking them to resign (the letter went to all federal employees) and to interfere with staff for purely political reasons this way.
- namaria 2y ago
  I don't know about you, but weird emails about a mass voluntary resignation program would take my focus out of any work. If suddenly I have to worry about my job security and the possibility of losing a bunch of colleagues and becoming overworked there's no way I'd be able to be all there.
Handprint4469 2y ago
Reddit comments seem reasonable until they talk about something you're an expert on. Then you realize the "Reddit consensus" is worthless: uninformed at best, actively misleading at worst. A corollary to this: people who don't have expertise in any field might never realize this, and will believe whatever Reddit (or HN, Twitter, etc) tells them that matches their previous-held beliefs. I recommend people become technically proficient at at least one thing in their lives. It gives you an anchor to reality (you can easily recognize bullshit), and it will cure you of the illusion that most people know what they're talking about.
- AceyMan 2y ago
  relevant citation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov...
- duxup 2y ago
  Even worse when you run into those folks who a surface level knowledge and sound knowledgeable but somehow come up with the worst possible conclusions. Then the rest go around repeating it ad nauseam.
zerocrates 2y ago
There's definitely a purposeful political effort to string together true facts -- Musk pushed out the incumbent FAA administrator, they didn't name an acting administrator until after the crash, there's a government-wide hiring freeze, Trump disbanded an aviation safety committee, the controllers like everyone else got the resignation "fork in the road" emails, the new transportation secretary is a guy who got semi-famous being on "The Real World" -- into a narrative that Trump caused the DCA crash. The reality is that most of this either had no effect or not enough time to have an effect, but whether it has bite politically remains to be seen. My view on it is that it's an explicit attempt to use Trump's own tactics against him. From what information is currently available, the actual investigation will likely blame pilot error on the part of the helicopter pilot, but also decades-old systemic problems with ATC understaffing, crowded and awkward airspace at DCA squeezed too much by increased traffic and no-fly zones, and years of "accepted practice" that normalized an unnecessarily dangerous situation, all of which are solidly bipartisan problems. (The Philadelphia crash I haven't read much about; I would guess it probably won't have as much in the way of broadly applicable takeaways for the aviation system, but it coming in such quick succession certainly helps build narratives.)
- roland35 2y ago
  I think it may be unfair to pin each of those factors individually on the crash, but I do believe that collectively when you have an administration reaking havoc and chaos across all federal agencies, things are gonna happen.
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    To say I'm not a fan of Trump and particularly of his wrecking-ball approach to his new administration would be a severe understatement. Still I'd have to say the narrative I outlined above is more of an attempt to hang the crash around his neck than something that reflects the truth particularly well. Of course Trump for his part as always immediately tried to hang it around Biden's and Obama's necks (neatly skipping over his own prior administration) with no evidence, so turnabout is fair play. Now, whether the Muskification of the whole government will be the cause of problems going forward, that's another story. I was writing something here about having great confidence in the NTSB to perform a thorough investigation and account for various factors if they're allowed to remain independent and operate without interference... and then I saw a post from the NTSB today that they'll no longer be sending out email to media and instead only posting updates to their Twitter account... so put a lot of emphasis on that "if."
Spooky23 2y ago
Any accident like this is an accident - none of the pilots or ATCs woke up and decided to kill dozens of people. (Including themselves in the pilots case) That said, conditions in the ATC facility were likely a contributor, and the overall management and control environment of the FAA created those conditions. Frankly, the Elon stuff is insane, and who knows if the people who approve the overtime, etc exist anymore. Trump deserves blame for the circus and harm created by his administration’s irresponsibility and recklessness. But he didn’t crash a plane.
nineplay 2y ago
reddit is all rage bait at this point and if the big subreddits aren't over 50% propaganda I'll eat my hat. The recent election shows how out of touch the front page is and you can conclude that the average poster is hopelessly out of touch or that the 'average poster' doesn't really exist or that the 'average poster' is there to make people feel complacent or make people feel indignant or make people feel superior. You are supposed to be outraged. You are supposed to think that the 'dumb libs' have no legitimate points, that they only believe 'orange man bad' and therefore everything they say can be completely disregarded. Stop reading, sit back, and figure out what you think without feeling like you have score points over some imaginary opponent.

by tac19 2y ago

readthenotes1 2y ago

"I know I shouldn't" --> then don't

CrazyStat 2y ago

The air traffic controller shortage long predates Trump; here [1] for example is a statement about it from 2015. [1] https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic-controller-staffing-shortage-at-congressional-roundtable/ https://www.natca.org/2015/12/09/natca-discusses-air-traffic...

CamperBob2 2y ago
The so-called "DEI" hiring policies currently in effect, however, were instituted under Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-t... The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears...
lumost 2y ago
I'd argue that in our quest to maximize income inequality, we've made many necessary careers non-viable from a living standards perspective. These non viable careers include pilots, atc, teaching, and a large portion of the skilled trades and more. While a non viable career path will still have some individuals in the field due to sunk cost, passion, or inertia - a shortage is inevitable. Supply and demand should rationalize this - but if training is long, wage visibility is low, and sunk cost is high, and negotiation power is low - its entirely possible for a employers to collectively push the prevailing wage below the level which makes the job worth it to enough individuals.

9283409232 2y ago

This sounds like mixed messaging. The head of the FAA was forced to resign because he fined SpaceX for safety violations and President Musk did not like that. However, I've been hearing about ATC problems my entire life so around 40 years.

jml7c5 2y ago

No, that was only ten days beforehand and focused on people at a high level. There's no good reason to believe it had an effect on this crash.

boothby 2y ago
This "quit or risk getting fired" email was sent to federal employees on January 28, the day before the crash: https://www.opm.gov/fork https://www.opm.gov/fork and that includes air traffic controllers and their supervisors [1] If you don't think that could have had an impact on morale, and therefore attentiveness, I can only wonder if you've never witnessed large-scale layoffs first-hand. They're pretty common in tech. From what I've seen in our industry, first and second hand, almost nobody gets any real work done for several days after getting such an email. The ATCs don't have such luxury, but instead, they continue their life-and-death job with an elevated level of stress. And we know that one of the ATCs was dismissed early that day. Was it because undue stress, caused by that email, was impacting their performance? If so, will their supervisor be brave enough to say so in public? We don't know. But this is a substantial reason to suspect that the administration's actions could have had a direct impact on the people in that control tower. [1] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2025/01/federal-air-crash-responders-all-got-the-resign-email/ https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2025/01/...

fabian2k 2y ago

There wasn't enough time for Trump to affect his specific incident. But longer term it's certainly not a good idea to send traffic controllers a letter asking them to resign (the letter went to all federal employees) and to interfere with staff for purely political reasons this way.

namaria 2y ago
I don't know about you, but weird emails about a mass voluntary resignation program would take my focus out of any work. If suddenly I have to worry about my job security and the possibility of losing a bunch of colleagues and becoming overworked there's no way I'd be able to be all there.

Handprint4469 2y ago

Reddit comments seem reasonable until they talk about something you're an expert on. Then you realize the "Reddit consensus" is worthless: uninformed at best, actively misleading at worst. A corollary to this: people who don't have expertise in any field might never realize this, and will believe whatever Reddit (or HN, Twitter, etc) tells them that matches their previous-held beliefs. I recommend people become technically proficient at at least one thing in their lives. It gives you an anchor to reality (you can easily recognize bullshit), and it will cure you of the illusion that most people know what they're talking about.

AceyMan 2y ago
relevant citation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov...
duxup 2y ago
Even worse when you run into those folks who a surface level knowledge and sound knowledgeable but somehow come up with the worst possible conclusions. Then the rest go around repeating it ad nauseam.

zerocrates 2y ago

There's definitely a purposeful political effort to string together true facts -- Musk pushed out the incumbent FAA administrator, they didn't name an acting administrator until after the crash, there's a government-wide hiring freeze, Trump disbanded an aviation safety committee, the controllers like everyone else got the resignation "fork in the road" emails, the new transportation secretary is a guy who got semi-famous being on "The Real World" -- into a narrative that Trump caused the DCA crash. The reality is that most of this either had no effect or not enough time to have an effect, but whether it has bite politically remains to be seen. My view on it is that it's an explicit attempt to use Trump's own tactics against him. From what information is currently available, the actual investigation will likely blame pilot error on the part of the helicopter pilot, but also decades-old systemic problems with ATC understaffing, crowded and awkward airspace at DCA squeezed too much by increased traffic and no-fly zones, and years of "accepted practice" that normalized an unnecessarily dangerous situation, all of which are solidly bipartisan problems. (The Philadelphia crash I haven't read much about; I would guess it probably won't have as much in the way of broadly applicable takeaways for the aviation system, but it coming in such quick succession certainly helps build narratives.)

roland35 2y ago
I think it may be unfair to pin each of those factors individually on the crash, but I do believe that collectively when you have an administration reaking havoc and chaos across all federal agencies, things are gonna happen.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  To say I'm not a fan of Trump and particularly of his wrecking-ball approach to his new administration would be a severe understatement. Still I'd have to say the narrative I outlined above is more of an attempt to hang the crash around his neck than something that reflects the truth particularly well. Of course Trump for his part as always immediately tried to hang it around Biden's and Obama's necks (neatly skipping over his own prior administration) with no evidence, so turnabout is fair play. Now, whether the Muskification of the whole government will be the cause of problems going forward, that's another story. I was writing something here about having great confidence in the NTSB to perform a thorough investigation and account for various factors if they're allowed to remain independent and operate without interference... and then I saw a post from the NTSB today that they'll no longer be sending out email to media and instead only posting updates to their Twitter account... so put a lot of emphasis on that "if."

Spooky23 2y ago

Any accident like this is an accident - none of the pilots or ATCs woke up and decided to kill dozens of people. (Including themselves in the pilots case) That said, conditions in the ATC facility were likely a contributor, and the overall management and control environment of the FAA created those conditions. Frankly, the Elon stuff is insane, and who knows if the people who approve the overtime, etc exist anymore. Trump deserves blame for the circus and harm created by his administration’s irresponsibility and recklessness. But he didn’t crash a plane.

nineplay 2y ago

reddit is all rage bait at this point and if the big subreddits aren't over 50% propaganda I'll eat my hat. The recent election shows how out of touch the front page is and you can conclude that the average poster is hopelessly out of touch or that the 'average poster' doesn't really exist or that the 'average poster' is there to make people feel complacent or make people feel indignant or make people feel superior. You are supposed to be outraged. You are supposed to think that the 'dumb libs' have no legitimate points, that they only believe 'orange man bad' and therefore everything they say can be completely disregarded. Stop reading, sit back, and figure out what you think without feeling like you have score points over some imaginary opponent.