Transport and Infrastructure Disasters

[caltrek]

Buttigieg Blasts Trump’s ‘Despicable’ Failure to Lead After Plane Crash
by Emily Singer
January 30, 2025

Introduction:

(Daily Kos) After Donald Trump tried to blame Pete Buttigieg for the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C., the former transportation secretary fired back, defending his service and telling Trump to be an adult and show leadership rather than find a scapegoat in the middle of a horrific tragedy.
"Despicable," Buttigieg wrote in a post on X, referring to Trump's batshit crazy news conference in which he blamed everyone from Buttigieg to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to people with dwarfism for the crash that killed 64 civilians and three members of the military. "As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch."

Additional extract:

"President Trump now oversees the military and the [Federal Aviation Administration]," Buttigieg continued. "One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again."

At the time of the crash, there was no head of the FAA, as Trump's co-President Elon Musk had forced out the previous administrator because the FAA fined Musk's company SpaceX.

Trump also gutted an aviation safety committee days before the crash, getting rid of a three-decade-old safety committee that was created by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Because the committee was created by an act of Congress, Trump couldn’t get rid of it, but he did fire all of its members, which will make the committee unable to do the work of looking into airline safety issues, the Associated Press reported.

Read more here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/ ... um=email

caltrek's comment: I think the important aspect of all of this is not the partisan sniping back and forth, but whether the vacancies at the FAA, and on the aviation safety committee will be filled and by appointments of people technically qualified for their new responsibilities. Picking people just because of their loyalty to Trump (and/or Musk) and not because they are the most qualified can lead to unsatisfactory results, to put it mildly.

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

‘The Airport Said Don’t Do It. And They Did It.’
by Juan Benn, Jr.
January , 2025

Introduction:

(Politico) It’s no secret in Washington — in the halls of Congress and various agencies that call the city home — that D.C.’s airspace is “incredibly congested.”

That’s what former House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio said after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a PSA Airlines passenger plane on Wednesday, killing all 67 passengers and crew members on board the two aircraft.

For years, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority warned Congress that the region’s airports were at capacity, DeFazio said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. But their pleas for restraint fell short among lawmakers, who voted to add more flights to an airport already struggling with its heavy load and a shortage of air traffic controllers caused by previous government shutdowns and pandemic-era hits to its workforce.

“Every senator in particular wants a nonstop flight to and from wherever they live,” said DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat. He noted that a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration passed last year added even more flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. “The airport said, ‘Don’t do it.’ And they did it. So they added to what DCA said is already an overly congested and over-capacity airport.” (Congress has added more than 60 new flights to Reagan since 2000, over the objections of airport officials.)

DeFazio spent 36 years in the House, serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee the whole time, and he played a lead role in the congressional investigation of two Boeing 737 Max crashes that killed over 300 people. So, I asked him what he thought went wrong and where the investigation should start.

See linked article for transcript of the interview with Peter DeFazio: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine ... 0201767

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Why Politicians Keep Blaming DEI for Disasters, Even When it is Laughably Untrue
Peter Cetro
February 5, 2025

Introduction:

(Other Words) In this chaotic news cycle, America’s worst plane crash in a generation already feels a generation old.

But the administration’s response to the tragic January collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac is worth revisiting. Not only because the loved ones of those lost deserve answers, but because it highlights a MAGA playbook we’ve seen repeatedly now — and we’ll see again very soon.

We don’t yet know what caused the crash. But shortly before it, President Trump disbanded a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety committee, fired the FAA administrator, and implemented a federal hiring freeze despite a shortage of air traffic controllers. (Staffing at the local tower was “not normal” the night of the collision, The New York Times reported.)

Speculation has even emerged that Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire bureaucrat who’s been illegally gutting the federal government, urged the FAA administrator’s firing in retaliation for past fines against his SpaceX company.

Did any of that contribute? That’s for a proper investigation to determine. But one thing’s for sure: It wasn’t the “DEI” initiatives President Trump immediately blamed.

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/why-politicians ... y-untrue/

caltrek’s comment: I almost skipped over this article on the grounds that it was just stating the obvious concerning the lack of any proven connection between diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and recent air travel disasters. Then it occurred to me that with a plurality of voters having voted for Trump, nothing can be counted on as being self-evidently obvious.

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

More on that by 11alive:

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/lo ... 891c08c542

[firestar464]

Police responding to report of plane crash at Toronto Pearson Airport

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/p ... r-AA1zeBGS

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

More on that by UPI:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/02 ... 739990163/

You know it's bad when the operator of Outbreak Updates considers plane crashes to be an epidemic

[firestar464]

12 passengers rushed to hospital after American Airlines plane catches fire on tarmac of Denver airport

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/p ... vacuation/

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

[firestar464]

Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5xx036p4vo

[weatheriscool]

3 people killed and 1 injured when plane crashes in South Florida near a major highway

Source: AP

By STEPHANY MATAT and CURT ANDERSON
Updated 12:17 PM CDT, April 11, 2025

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Three people were killed and one was injured when a small plane crashed Friday morning in South Florida near a major interstate highway and pushed a car onto railroad tracks, officials said.

Boca Raton Fire Rescue assistant chief Michael LaSalle said the plane crash that killed all three people on board emitted a fireball when it hit the ground, injuring a person in a nearby car. LaSalle said several roads near the Boca Raton Airport will remain closed near Interstate 95.

The Federal Aviation Administration identified the plane as a Cessna 310 with three people on board. It went down about 10:20 a.m. after departing from Boca Raton Airport bound for Tallahassee, the FAA said in an email.

Fire officials told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the aircraft appeared to have pushed a car onto the railroad tracks, leading to the tracks’ closure.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/small-plane- ... 2d2295b974

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

[weatheriscool]

Small plane crashes into San Diego neighborhood, setting homes and vehicles on fire

Source: Associated Press

A small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood during foggy weather early Thursday, setting about 15 homes on fire as well as vehicles, and forcing evacuations along several blocks, authorities said.

“We have jet fuel all over the place,” Assistant Fire Department Chief Dan Eddy said during a news conference. “Our main goal is to search all these homes and get everybody out right now.”

He said “there is a direct hit to multiple homes” in the Murphy Canyon neighborhood and described “a gigantic debris field” in a dense, packed neighborhood where a number of military families live.

It was not known if there were any injuries.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/plane-crash- ... 1bfdc142a1

[weatheriscool]