Trump blames D.C. plane crash on ‘obsolete’ air traffic control system

President Donald Trump connected Thursday blamed last week’s deadly collision of a rider pitchy and Army chopper connected what helium called an “obsolete” machine strategy utilized by U.S. aerial postulation controllers, and helium vowed to regenerate it.

Trump said during an lawsuit that “a batch of mistakes happened” connected Jan. 29 erstwhile an American Airlines formation retired of Wichita, Kansas, collided with an Army chopper arsenic the level was astir to onshore astatine Ronald Reagan National Airport adjacent Washington, killing each 67 radical connected board the 2 aircraft.

In the contiguous aftermath of the tragedy, Trump blamed it connected diverseness hiring programs. But connected Thursday, helium blamed the machine strategy utilized by the country’s aerial postulation controllers.

“It’s astonishing that it happened,” Trump said during a code astatine the National Prayer Breakfast astatine the U.S. Capitol. “And I deliberation that’s going to beryllium utilized for good. I deliberation what is going to hap is we’re each going to beryllium down and bash a large computerized strategy for our power towers. Brand caller — not pieced together, obsolete.”

Trump said the U.S. spent billions of dollars trying to “renovate an old, breached system” alternatively of investing successful a caller one. He said successful his backstage jet, helium uses a strategy from different state erstwhile helium lands due to the fact that his aviator says the existing strategy is obsolete.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Elon Musk said successful posts connected X that Musk’s squad astatine the Department of Government Efficiency is going to assistance rapidly upgrade the nation’s aviation information system.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been moving since the mid-2000s — agelong earlier Trump’s archetypal word successful bureau — to upgrade the aerial postulation power strategy done its NextGen program. Congress passed a instrumentality successful 2003 that prompted the upgrades due to the fact that of concerns astir mounting aerial question congestion and concerns that it would lone get busier.

Geoff Freeman, who heads the question manufacture radical the U.S. Travel Association, lauded Trump’s pledge to regenerate the existent system, saying the manufacture has repeatedly called for greater investments successful exertion and manpower.

Federal officials person been raising concerns astir an overtaxed and understaffed aerial postulation power strategy for years, particularly aft a bid of adjacent calls betwixt planes astatine U.S. airports. Among the reasons they’ve cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, agelong shifts, intensive grooming and mandatory retirements.

Trump said that if the federation had a newer system, alarms would person sounded erstwhile the Black Hawk helicopter, which was connected a grooming exercise, reached the aforesaid altitude arsenic the plane.

But an FAA study aft the clang said that the controller did get an alert that the level and chopper were converging erstwhile they were inactive much than a mile (1.6 kilometres) apart. The controller responded by asking the chopper if it had the level successful show and directed the chopper to walk down the plane. The chopper responded that it did person the level successful sight.

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An aboriginal absorption of the probe has been confirming the altitude of the level and helicopter. The jet’s formation recorder showed its altitude arsenic 325 feet (99 metres), positive oregon minus 25 feet (7.6 metres).

Data from the airport’s aerial postulation power strategy suggests the chopper was supra its 200-foot (61-meter) formation ceiling. The surface the controller was looking astatine that nighttime showed that based connected radar and different data, the chopper was astatine 300 feet (91 meters), the NTSB said, noting that the fig would person been rounded to the nearest 100 feet (30 metres).

To get much precise information, investigators request to beryllium capable to analyse the wreckage of the still-submerged Black Hawk to verify the data. The chopper isn’t expected to beryllium recovered until aboriginal this week.

This clang was the deadliest successful the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, erstwhile a pitchy slammed into a New York City vicinity conscionable aft takeoff, sidesplitting each 260 radical connected committee and 5 connected the ground.

There was interest aft the clang that Trump’s efforts to slash the size of the national workforce could worsen the shortage of aerial postulation controllers if immoderate of them accepted the deferred resignation offers sent to each national employees past week. But aerial postulation controllers were told by their national Thursday that definite positions wrong the Federal Aviation Administration, including theirs, were exempt.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said successful its email to members that further positions mightiness beryllium exempt based connected the employees’ “national information oregon nationalist information responsibilities.” The national had already recommended to its members that they cull the offers, which were extended the time earlier the midair collision.

–Associated Press reporters Aamer Madhani, Adriana Gomez Licon and Thomas Beaumont contributed to this report.