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The FAA's Troubles Are More Serious Than You Know
- bigfatkitten 2y agohttps://archive.is/6SA8T https://archive.is/6SA8T
- exabrial 2y ago> by blaming the disaster on diversity programs, a pronouncement that baffled many in the agency’s workforce Fascinating, because the FAA has one of the largest scale DEI programs that limited hiring of qualified individuals. I think this criticism is completely valid.
- hhh 2y agodo you have a source?
- malcolmgreaves 2y agoOf course not :)
- thatguy0900 2y agoThere is a source posted, and it's pretty damning. You should genuinely read it. It includes a test with questions like what was your best course in college, and what is your best course in high school, that have different correct answers. The answers to the test were also given out to groups of interest. You can take the test yourself, it's genuinely baffling.
- MyOutfitIsVague 2y agoDidn't that program end nearly a decade ago?
- bberenberg 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42944203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42944203 is the broader discussion on this claim from a month ago. I’m not taking a position here, just sharing the rabbit hole if people want to burn their day.
- phonon 2y agoThat was in effect from 2013 to 2016, until Congress stopped it. Hard to say those three years are still to blame...
- skyyler 2y agoFrom that discussion: >Taking old, resolved scandals - slapping a coat of culture war paint on it - and then selling it as a new scandal is already a popular MO for state-sponsored propoganda, so we should be extra wary of stories like this being massaged. I think legitster is right here.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- RandomBacon 2y agoand the top reply to "legitster"'s comment with that quote says: "The article actually shows that dei considerations were central to the original changes, not just recent framing." User "legitster" is not very legit. They wrote nonsense including something about a "secret racial kabal" elsewhere that I took apart and they didn't have any reaponse to because they were so wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936278 Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.
- skyyler 2y agoAlso from the link, >Congress stopped the shitty behavior quiz 9 years ago Your attempts to discredit someone you clearly have beef with have fallen flat. Have a good one.
- malcolmgreaves 2y ago[flagged]
- haswell 2y agoI support DEI initiatives in general and think they’re important. But please educate yourself about the situation at the FAA. There’s a failure mode that DEI opponents point to regarding deprioritizing actual talent for the sake of the DEI goals. This failure mode is often a red herring because the two goals aren’t mutually exclusive (find talent, build a diverse team). But the FAA by many accounts did the thing people were worried about. This is not an indictment of DEI efforts in general, but is an issue with a specific implementation.
- exabrial 2y agoPlease don’t call me a racist, that’s incredibly ignorant, you don’t know me, and hate speech in its own right.
- Tadpole9181 2y agoCalling someone racist isn't hate speech.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoCalling someone racist is not hate speech my lord. If you don't want to be called racist don't say racist shit it's not hard. But if saying racist things on the tech news site is important to you then you're going to have to stand up for your values and take a little heat about it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Yeul 2y agoThe anti DEI crowd forgets that not long ago people got hired because they had a penis or white skin.
- DaSHacka 2y agoTwo wrongs make a right?
- giraffe_lady 2y agoActually sometimes yes.
- Our_Benefactors 2y agoIs this one of those times?
- giraffe_lady 2y agoNo. There's only one wrong here and it's the segregationist revanchism.
- johntitorjr 2y ago[dead]
- lithos 2y agoThe FAA also pulled a Trump University on people in FAA college programs, destroying their recruitment pipeline in the process. Pulled the rug on students on a very specialized program, that transfers nowhere, and that had near guaranteed placement.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI mean what I saw is that planes started falling out of the sky the moment the war on diversity was made official policy. It certainly gives the impression DEI is what was keeping this country running.
- jayGlow 2y agowere there significantly more plane crashes or significantly more media coverage of the plane crashes? this seems similar to the train derailment a few years ago where they seemed more common due to more media exposure.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI don't actually believe DEI policies were why our air safety was good. I'm drawing attention to the fact that OP doesn't think DEI was why it was bad either, because it wasn't. They want segregation again and this is their most sympathetic case for it. One that journalists and HN commenters are happy to "steelman" into a policy that sounds like it makes sense even though it does not.
- malcolmgreaves 2y agoIt’s almost as if Regan illegally firing FAA workers when they strikes for better pay and working conditions in n the 80s created some sort of systematic issues…huh.
- mc32 2y agoIncreased traffic and outdated systems plus more recent idiotic passing over qualified individuals over less qualified individuals is a much greater cause than faint and distant echoes of Reagan.
- malcolmgreaves 2y agoYes, the Trump administration’s polices are definitely passing over even basically qualified folks at all positions in government.
- RandomBacon 2y agoThe firing caused understaffing. More staff would mean less traffic per controller. Understaffing allowed the hiring issues in question, to have a larger impact. A lot of the current problems are consequences of Reagan's mass firing. Opinions are my own do not necessarily reflect those of the FAA.
- Our_Benefactors 2y agoYou do realize that Reagan was president well over 30 years ago? Many people working in the FAA today were not even born when this happened.
- RandomBacon 2y agoYes. Most of everyone who was hired to replace all of those fired controllers are now retiring or have retired within the past few years which has impacted the understaffing we are now facing. Because of the surge of controllers leaving the workforce (being fired), there was a surge of controllers to replace them, and now there is a surge of controllers retiring. If I had to guess, most controllers retire between ages 50-56: from when most are eligible (annecdotal to people I've asked), to when forced out by age limit. So not slowly spread out over time as to allow for a more gradual replacement. If you take a steady state and make a drastic change, it's not going to correct itself instantly.
- K0balt 2y agoI have another perspective on Elon/trumps hate for the FAA. In my experience as a pilot, sometimes the FAA makes rules that are frustrating, and sets limitations that for one reason or another you might want to circumvent in one specific case or another. Mostly, those are bad ideas, but it does limit your ability to fly to different places sometimes. As a user/passenger of private luxury aviation, this sometimes makes for considerable frustration and people are always trying to talk their pilots into doing stupid things like overloading their aircraft, not requiring people to stay in the seats where the wieght and balance of the aircraft is safe, flying into airports below weather minimums, things in general that are somewhat likely to get you killed. Pilots often deflect judgment on this by saying “it’s FAA regulations” so they don’t seem like “the bad guy”. Ultimately, in many cases, the relationship of the pilot to the client is a lot like a waiter in food service. Consequently, many wealthy private flying people that are used to getting whatever they want in life end up feeling like the FAA is this overbearing, freedom hating bureaucracy that enforces ridiculous rules for specious reasons and makes their lives more difficult for no reason. This impression may be true in very narrow cases with very specific individual FAA employees, just like with some traffic cops. But by and large, the FAA, when left to its own devices, does an admirable job of keeping people safe and alive despite some very vexing physics, as well as human nature, colluding to make that improbable… while facilitating the safe travels of millions of passengers per day. Also, the FAA sometimes makes life a little harder for musk because they don’t want metal falling out of the sky on peoples heads around launch sites. I believe this is behind the hate. It’s spite.
- toss1 2y agoAnd those regs really DO keep people alive. Kobe Bryant's pilot had to get special permission to fly that day [0]. Too bad it was granted. If he'd been grounded for the fog, all nine people would have missed their morning's scheduled events but would still be alive. All take-offs are optional; landings are not optional. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/us/kobe-bryant-crash-timeline/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/us/kobe-bryant-crash-timeline...
- rogerrogerr 2y ago
- 6stringmerc 2y agoThe cold hard truth about the FAA going the “DEI” emphasis route is because middle and upper middle class people won’t do those jobs anymore. The FAA requires drug testing and too many people in those classes smoke weed or take prescription medications that render them ineligible for the roles. That and the whole making people go where they’re told right out of training isn’t appealing compared to alternatives available. Why go into ATC when it’s easier to go into Finance or even Healthcare jobs? DEI is a boogeyman for the aviation industry, and I remember back before 2010 the CEO of Sabre constantly harping on the neglect in the aviation infrastructure (spending to modernize) that would’ve alleviated the issues we’re facing today. The deregulated US airlines have had zero accountability to pay into a public utility they rely upon. Numerous administrations of both sides have passed the buck…it’s the Baby Boomer way…that and destroying pensions! DEI didn’t dump airline pensions on the PBGC, get your head out of your asses with that ish. Source: aviation family and witnessed several decades of this industry getting to where it is today
- tim333 2y agoThey had to discriminate against white males because there weren't enough applying?
- 9283409232 2y agoOnly people in privileged positions see equity as discrimination.
- sc68cal 2y agoThe ruling class in this country considers the FAA and other regulatory agencies to be an impediment to them, so they have started to destroy it. In their minds, they don't really care because they have their own planes, and think that they can use their wealth and prestige to make sure their planes get preferential treatment all the way from taxi, takeoff, to landing. They don't care what happens to the rest of us.