As an aviation insider, I've been tracking the decline of the FAA, professional pilots, and ATC for years! "Where DEI goes to die! (and maybe kill you too!)" Flooding the critical roles of aviation, with low IQ idiots, because of "diversity" is already DEADLY! Air Traffic Controllers that don't have the wits, focus, determination, clarity of mind, and spatial understanding to do the job well, has resulted in countless "near miss" incidents over the past few years. Add DEI pilots, and you've got a recipe for death and destruction!
If they want to corrupt the DMV with incompetent diversity hires (nothing new), well, that's one thing, but doing it in the life or death industries of aviation, healthcare, nuclear power, steering ships, etc., that will have disastrous consequences!
Yesterday's mishap is 100% on the H-60 pilot though!
Thank you, I'm flattered! I'll withhold guessing for now, until we get details about the helo pilot, but right now, it almost looks like "suicide by midair".
Last year the NY Post ran a story. I thought at first it was satire; but it was real:
“The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.”
“‘Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,’ the FAA’s website states.”
“They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
Great. Just what everyone has been waiting for. Blind, deaf bipolar, suicidal paralyzed dwarf epileptic Controllers.
Ya just can’t make it up. How anyone in the Biden administration thought this helped the public is beyond me.
There are lots of jobs people with disabilities can do that do not compromise safety. Jobs such as clerical, cafeteria, janitorial, computer related, etc. The federal government has a program to hire those with "targeted disabilities".
It's better to employ people with disabilities that can do the job than to pay them SSI benefits. They can contribute and become taxpaying members of society.
Of course. But for ATC applicants (not the jobs you listed), Obama’s new FAA head replaced a skills test with a “Biographical Questionnaire,” claiming the existing standards didn’t promote diversity.
The BQ actually gives more points to applicants who answer that they’ve not been employed in the previous three years than it does to those who respond that they have been a pilot or a veteran with air traffic control experience.
The FAA discarded its difficult cognitive assessment test, replacing it with an unmonitored take-home personality test: The BQ. It is ambiguous for a reason: Its purpose is to select for “diverse” applicants.
Questions include:
“The number of high school sports I participated in was…”
“How would you describe your ideal job?”
“What has been the major cause of your failures?”
“More classmates would remember me as humble or dominant?”
In 2015, Peter Kirsanow, a US Commission on Civil Rights member, wrote a letter to the FAA.
He accused the FAA of diluting its “objective standards of evaluating competence” because it “didn’t like the racial and gender composition” of its ATC applicant pool.
Later in 2015, a lawsuit was filed by more than 3000 very qualified applicants who had been rejected by the FAA.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said, “We have a statement from a leading FAA official…that they made this decision in order to increase diversity."
There is of course no problem in hiring diverse candidates. The problem is when diversity concerns outweighs competence.
This is what happens when an ideology (Leftism) that hates personal responsibility is pushed on us. "It's not my fault that I am a criminal or violent or antisocial or being intoxicated at work and completely irresponsible. I have ADHD / ADD / BPD / ASDLFJLQWER Disorder! You're White, so you must be oppressing me by asking this question."
The NYTimes wishes to create a world where merit is nonexistent. Minorities & LGBT & women Democrats are automatically a victim of something (hey, they themselves count as "something", right?!) Criminal behavior and lack of self-discipline are treated as symptoms of suffering, rather than proof of character.
However, if the person is on the Right or is White or Jewish, they are the oppressor or stooges for the oppressor. All valor and accomplishments are stolen goods & privilege.
P.S. Anybody who is reading this post now... while being free... can do so because of the "privilege" of people who work hard and are creative enough to build Western Civilization.
In a previous life, I got to tour various ATC facilities in the Northeast while working for a Member of Congress. At the time, I toured the JFK tower, a TRACON, the Islip NY Tower, and the Oceanic ATC facility. Because I am nerdy, when I used to fly United, I would listen to the ATC channel (not sure if they still have that). My benign theory is that the helicopter pilot's visual contact was with the plane taking off and not the one landing. So the big mistake is that the controller should have specifically ordered the helicopter pilot onto a course to avoid the Jet and/or instructed him to reduce speed. Essentially something like implement heading of 240 and reduce speed to 110 knots (and perhaps increase or decrease altitude). A helicopter does not need to maintain a specific speed to fly so even slowing it down could have avoided the collision. I have heard many times AT controllers tell pilots to do such things because there was oncoming traffic or traffic crossing ahead or some other reason and then looked at the window and saw the jet we were avoiding. Instead, the controller basically said, "you see that plane? OK, turn behind it." But that did not take into account that the military pilot was seeing a different Jet than the one that concerned the controller. Otherwise from the video, it looks like the chopper was on a suicide mission to collide with the Jet. But I really think it is that the controller needed to be specific in the instruction, not what happened.
Watching the replay of the radar and sound, it looks like the Blackhawk (PAT25) makes a sharp turn just as the plane taking off emerges on radar (JZA789). PAT25 is at 300 feet at this point. PAT 25 is warned that there is traffic at 1200 feet (JIA 5342) or the CRJ on final approach. PAT drops below 300 feet. At this point the two aircraft are heading straight for each other. The CRJ is descending the whole time 700, 600, 500 as PAT 25 rapidly closes in still somewhere between 200 and 300 feet. I think it is safe to say the CRJ never saw the helicopter because it was below it the whole time until they collided. An order to the PAT to reduce speed and establish a heading of 90 degrees due east could have avoided this (I realized that the video perspective was not what I thought initially so I adjusted my headings accordingly). Instead, the controller asks if PAT has the CRJ in sight seconds before the collision. The two planes are almost on top of each other in terms of distance and vertical separation. At the time he asks, they are well less than a mile apart and 200 feet or less apart vertically with the plane descending on approach to the level the helicopter is at. As an aside, I remember from my visit that they like to keep aircraft a thousand feet apart vertically. The CRJ is probably going around 150 miles an hour at this point and the PAT seems to be moving at similar speed. They are closing are at 400 feet per second or more. There was no time left to spot the CRJ at this point and take action.
“But it’s not their fault they smoke pot during breaks or show up to work drunk! They’re exhausted.”
I remember reading a blurb and a cartoon that read: the government estimates that countless man hours of work are lost due to alcohol consumption. But it is even worse when these drunks show up to work!
I'm sure The New York Times will find a way to excise the part about drinking, smoking marijuana, and sleep on the job in the aftermath of yesterday plane crash over the Potomac River. They'll find a way to make it about Trump who's been in office less than a week. The New York Times where the truth goes to die.
I saw a helicopter go down like a ton of bricks in mid-air when it lost altitude because of strong winds coming up underneath it. I believe the operator of the Blackhawk had 6 years of experience, but that doesn't seem like a lot when it comes to a sophisticated military helicopter. Memory eternal to all who perished.
Near misses had doubled according to a (possibly different) 2023 NYT article. Pilots said the ATC in Austin (where a FedEx cargo plane almost landed on an accelerating Southwest passenger jet) was trying to kill them. Yesterday's disaster, however, seems to have been caused primarily by the helicopter pilot rather than ATC.
I disagree. In my other post I relayed my experience that ATCs are often very specific in these situations. Instead of saying "turn behind them" they say change heading to X, reduce speed and/or reduce or increase altitude. They will even give additional details like alter heading to 240 degrees, reduce speed to 110 knots to avoid American XYZ on DCA approach. Helicopters can do these things fairly quickly without risking stalls or loss of altitude. This ATC was not very specific and assumed that the helicopter and the ATC were looking at the same plane.
I said the helicopter seemed primarily responsible, but you may be right about contributing weak performance from ATC. Unclear, though. I've heard on the radio in the last couple of hours that the helicopter wasn't responding to ATC. Pilots have also echoed what you say about helicopters--that they can stop or even reverse, and also that visibility from a Blackhawk cockpit is excellent. Also, it seems the helicopter flew straight and level into the rear fuselage of the brightly lit Bombardier. One pilot even said it looked like a suicide attack by whoever was controlling the helicopter .
It was so weird watching the coverage late last night. Everyone was acting like any minute all these survivors were going turn up. I am talking about roughly 1 AM. Four hours after the crash. No one dead? No one alive? Where the F are they, I kept thinking. They were in 7 feet of water, not 700 feet. I mean they could have said, "we've yet to rescue a survivor and with every passing moment at this point, the chances are less likely we will." It was like basic logical information was top secret or something. There is way too much needless obfuscation. Sometimes I think it is just stupid people trying to sound smart.
As an aviation insider, I've been tracking the decline of the FAA, professional pilots, and ATC for years! "Where DEI goes to die! (and maybe kill you too!)" Flooding the critical roles of aviation, with low IQ idiots, because of "diversity" is already DEADLY! Air Traffic Controllers that don't have the wits, focus, determination, clarity of mind, and spatial understanding to do the job well, has resulted in countless "near miss" incidents over the past few years. Add DEI pilots, and you've got a recipe for death and destruction!
If they want to corrupt the DMV with incompetent diversity hires (nothing new), well, that's one thing, but doing it in the life or death industries of aviation, healthcare, nuclear power, steering ships, etc., that will have disastrous consequences!
Yesterday's mishap is 100% on the H-60 pilot though!
"Where DEI goes to die! (and maybe kill you too!)"--a line good enough to have been written by Ann herself!
Thank you, I'm flattered! I'll withhold guessing for now, until we get details about the helo pilot, but right now, it almost looks like "suicide by midair".
As a physician I have to laugh at working 10 hour days six days a week. They get a day off?
Last year the NY Post ran a story. I thought at first it was satire; but it was real:
“The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.”
“‘Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,’ the FAA’s website states.”
“They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
Great. Just what everyone has been waiting for. Blind, deaf bipolar, suicidal paralyzed dwarf epileptic Controllers.
Ya just can’t make it up. How anyone in the Biden administration thought this helped the public is beyond me.
For more idiotic blatant discrimination, read these threads:
https://x.com/restoreorderusa/status/1884928714506440746?s=46
and
https://x.com/ian_mckelvey/status/1784799669849129094?s=46
There are lots of jobs people with disabilities can do that do not compromise safety. Jobs such as clerical, cafeteria, janitorial, computer related, etc. The federal government has a program to hire those with "targeted disabilities".
It's better to employ people with disabilities that can do the job than to pay them SSI benefits. They can contribute and become taxpaying members of society.
Of course. But for ATC applicants (not the jobs you listed), Obama’s new FAA head replaced a skills test with a “Biographical Questionnaire,” claiming the existing standards didn’t promote diversity.
The BQ actually gives more points to applicants who answer that they’ve not been employed in the previous three years than it does to those who respond that they have been a pilot or a veteran with air traffic control experience.
The FAA discarded its difficult cognitive assessment test, replacing it with an unmonitored take-home personality test: The BQ. It is ambiguous for a reason: Its purpose is to select for “diverse” applicants.
Questions include:
“The number of high school sports I participated in was…”
“How would you describe your ideal job?”
“What has been the major cause of your failures?”
“More classmates would remember me as humble or dominant?”
In 2015, Peter Kirsanow, a US Commission on Civil Rights member, wrote a letter to the FAA.
He accused the FAA of diluting its “objective standards of evaluating competence” because it “didn’t like the racial and gender composition” of its ATC applicant pool.
Later in 2015, a lawsuit was filed by more than 3000 very qualified applicants who had been rejected by the FAA.
An attorney for the plaintiffs said, “We have a statement from a leading FAA official…that they made this decision in order to increase diversity."
There is of course no problem in hiring diverse candidates. The problem is when diversity concerns outweighs competence.
Was very afraid you would never recover from TDS. So happy to get you back.
Times article not accessible unless you ‘submit’ to their request for info ~ this will not happen.
Sorry, I won't pay the NYT. They are under my radar.
This is what happens when an ideology (Leftism) that hates personal responsibility is pushed on us. "It's not my fault that I am a criminal or violent or antisocial or being intoxicated at work and completely irresponsible. I have ADHD / ADD / BPD / ASDLFJLQWER Disorder! You're White, so you must be oppressing me by asking this question."
The NYTimes wishes to create a world where merit is nonexistent. Minorities & LGBT & women Democrats are automatically a victim of something (hey, they themselves count as "something", right?!) Criminal behavior and lack of self-discipline are treated as symptoms of suffering, rather than proof of character.
However, if the person is on the Right or is White or Jewish, they are the oppressor or stooges for the oppressor. All valor and accomplishments are stolen goods & privilege.
P.S. Anybody who is reading this post now... while being free... can do so because of the "privilege" of people who work hard and are creative enough to build Western Civilization.
Reminds me of the old Ranger "half-day schedule": 0600 to 1800!
Also, in their defense, sleeping on the job is fairly common in America. But for them, I mean, what could go wrong?
In a previous life, I got to tour various ATC facilities in the Northeast while working for a Member of Congress. At the time, I toured the JFK tower, a TRACON, the Islip NY Tower, and the Oceanic ATC facility. Because I am nerdy, when I used to fly United, I would listen to the ATC channel (not sure if they still have that). My benign theory is that the helicopter pilot's visual contact was with the plane taking off and not the one landing. So the big mistake is that the controller should have specifically ordered the helicopter pilot onto a course to avoid the Jet and/or instructed him to reduce speed. Essentially something like implement heading of 240 and reduce speed to 110 knots (and perhaps increase or decrease altitude). A helicopter does not need to maintain a specific speed to fly so even slowing it down could have avoided the collision. I have heard many times AT controllers tell pilots to do such things because there was oncoming traffic or traffic crossing ahead or some other reason and then looked at the window and saw the jet we were avoiding. Instead, the controller basically said, "you see that plane? OK, turn behind it." But that did not take into account that the military pilot was seeing a different Jet than the one that concerned the controller. Otherwise from the video, it looks like the chopper was on a suicide mission to collide with the Jet. But I really think it is that the controller needed to be specific in the instruction, not what happened.
Watching the replay of the radar and sound, it looks like the Blackhawk (PAT25) makes a sharp turn just as the plane taking off emerges on radar (JZA789). PAT25 is at 300 feet at this point. PAT 25 is warned that there is traffic at 1200 feet (JIA 5342) or the CRJ on final approach. PAT drops below 300 feet. At this point the two aircraft are heading straight for each other. The CRJ is descending the whole time 700, 600, 500 as PAT 25 rapidly closes in still somewhere between 200 and 300 feet. I think it is safe to say the CRJ never saw the helicopter because it was below it the whole time until they collided. An order to the PAT to reduce speed and establish a heading of 90 degrees due east could have avoided this (I realized that the video perspective was not what I thought initially so I adjusted my headings accordingly). Instead, the controller asks if PAT has the CRJ in sight seconds before the collision. The two planes are almost on top of each other in terms of distance and vertical separation. At the time he asks, they are well less than a mile apart and 200 feet or less apart vertically with the plane descending on approach to the level the helicopter is at. As an aside, I remember from my visit that they like to keep aircraft a thousand feet apart vertically. The CRJ is probably going around 150 miles an hour at this point and the PAT seems to be moving at similar speed. They are closing are at 400 feet per second or more. There was no time left to spot the CRJ at this point and take action.
“But it’s not their fault they smoke pot during breaks or show up to work drunk! They’re exhausted.”
I remember reading a blurb and a cartoon that read: the government estimates that countless man hours of work are lost due to alcohol consumption. But it is even worse when these drunks show up to work!
I'm sure The New York Times will find a way to excise the part about drinking, smoking marijuana, and sleep on the job in the aftermath of yesterday plane crash over the Potomac River. They'll find a way to make it about Trump who's been in office less than a week. The New York Times where the truth goes to die.
I saw a helicopter go down like a ton of bricks in mid-air when it lost altitude because of strong winds coming up underneath it. I believe the operator of the Blackhawk had 6 years of experience, but that doesn't seem like a lot when it comes to a sophisticated military helicopter. Memory eternal to all who perished.
Thanks Ann. Without you how would we be informed?
Plus I can't help but wonder how many of them are DEI hires... Just saying...
Did this even happen? I haven't seen bodies or wreckage.
Near misses had doubled according to a (possibly different) 2023 NYT article. Pilots said the ATC in Austin (where a FedEx cargo plane almost landed on an accelerating Southwest passenger jet) was trying to kill them. Yesterday's disaster, however, seems to have been caused primarily by the helicopter pilot rather than ATC.
I disagree. In my other post I relayed my experience that ATCs are often very specific in these situations. Instead of saying "turn behind them" they say change heading to X, reduce speed and/or reduce or increase altitude. They will even give additional details like alter heading to 240 degrees, reduce speed to 110 knots to avoid American XYZ on DCA approach. Helicopters can do these things fairly quickly without risking stalls or loss of altitude. This ATC was not very specific and assumed that the helicopter and the ATC were looking at the same plane.
I said the helicopter seemed primarily responsible, but you may be right about contributing weak performance from ATC. Unclear, though. I've heard on the radio in the last couple of hours that the helicopter wasn't responding to ATC. Pilots have also echoed what you say about helicopters--that they can stop or even reverse, and also that visibility from a Blackhawk cockpit is excellent. Also, it seems the helicopter flew straight and level into the rear fuselage of the brightly lit Bombardier. One pilot even said it looked like a suicide attack by whoever was controlling the helicopter .
Finally some still shots of the wreckage.
It was so weird watching the coverage late last night. Everyone was acting like any minute all these survivors were going turn up. I am talking about roughly 1 AM. Four hours after the crash. No one dead? No one alive? Where the F are they, I kept thinking. They were in 7 feet of water, not 700 feet. I mean they could have said, "we've yet to rescue a survivor and with every passing moment at this point, the chances are less likely we will." It was like basic logical information was top secret or something. There is way too much needless obfuscation. Sometimes I think it is just stupid people trying to sound smart.