3 ms·

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 ad

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."
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
How well do you function days after the head of your company is unexpectedly pushed out in a hostile take-over, you have zero direction given from above, and you are sent an email from the person behind the hostile takeover, that doesn't work at your company and doesn't fit in the management structure in any way saying you should quit? Would you say you would function better or worse than prior to that occurring?

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."

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

How well do you function days after the head of your company is unexpectedly pushed out in a hostile take-over, you have zero direction given from above, and you are sent an email from the person behind the hostile takeover, that doesn't work at your company and doesn't fit in the management structure in any way saying you should quit? Would you say you would function better or worse than prior to that occurring?