We have had two serious plane crashes in the past several days. In recent years, we have seen very few plane crashes. What changed?<\/p>\n
On Friday, PJ Media<\/a> posted an article that cites something that might be part of the problem.<\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n On Thursday, while addressing Thursday\u2019s plane crash near Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump blasted both the Obama and Biden administrations for prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation.<\/strong><\/p>\n “I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room.<\/strong><\/p>\n Democrats and the mainstream media were outraged.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one thing for internet pundits to spew up conspiracy theories,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. \u201cIt\u2019s another for the president of the United States of America to throw out idle speculation even as victims are still being recovered and families are still being notified. It turns your stomach.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n But Trump was not wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n …Last year, 11 Republican attorneys general voiced<\/a> their concerns in a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, questioning the agency’s commitment to safety in light of its emphasis on diversity over expertise. They expressed disappointment that the FAA appeared to prioritize \u201cvirtue-signaling\u201d over securing the nation’s airways.<\/strong><\/p>\n The article includes a quote from an editorial that appeared in The Washington Times\u00a0<\/a>on February 1, 2024:<\/p>\n There hasn\u2019t been a fatal airline crash in the United States since 2009, but it\u2019s only a matter of time before the streak ends. The FAA recorded two serious, near-miss runway incursions at Reagan National and Baltimore-Washington International last year [2023].<\/strong><\/p>\n Vigilance is waning because the nation\u2019s air traffic control towers are woefully understaffed. The people responsible for keeping planes from smashing into one another are tired after working long, mandatory overtime shifts to make up for the lack of controllers.<\/strong><\/p>\n Contributing to the shortage, the FAA temporarily put the brakes on hiring in 2012 so it could replace race-blind hiring rules with a \u201cBiographical Assessment\u201d stratagem designed to hire more minorities.<\/strong><\/p>\n This quiz served as further screening of applicants who had already graduated from a 200-hour training program and achieved high scores on AT-SAT, a grueling, eight-hour cognitive test that measures each of the specific skills needed to do the job properly.<\/strong><\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/strong><\/p>\n More than 3,000 top-performing, motivated applicants lost out because they weren\u2019t members of this ethnic club. After Congress forced the FAA to drop the quiz in 2018, many former applicants reapplied and have since become controllers. Their careers were set back several years for no good reason.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can’t solve a problem if you are unwilling to identify it. Hopefully, the Trump administration can restaff our control towers quickly and make the skies safe again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have had two serious plane crashes in the past several days. In recent years, we have seen very few plane crashes. What changed? On Friday, PJ Media posted an article that cites something that might be part of the … Continue reading