The Unfriendly Skies

Honestly, I am surprised it has taken this long. A 16 year run without significant loss of life in US commercial aviation is pretty spectacular. The odds have been stacking for a while now. We have overworked controllers and understaffed control towers across the nation, leading to more near-misses at busy airports like Austin and San Diego; this accident was just an inevitability. I'm not saying that the controllers at Washington Reagan National Airport are solely to blame - they may have had no impact in this particular incident, we'll have to wait for the NTSB to weigh in on that - but, many airports with a tower in every state are chronically understaffed. Last week, Donald Trump put a hiring freeze in place that will only exacerbate this situation.

One question I have about this incident is why are military aircraft flying through and around active arrival and departure corridors, particularly at night, in the very busy airspace around Washington Reagan National Airport? What an incredibly irresponsible thing to do. I doubt our new Drunken Defense Secretary will do anything to address it.

Regardless, it is imperative that we fix this ongoing problem of understaffed towers in this country. Donald Trump and his merry band of morons will likely try, over the next year or two, to privatize this particular job. The job of an air traffic controller at a busy airport is inherently stressful - they have the lives of hundreds of people counting on them to stay aware of the movements of dozens of aircraft. We must invest in those jobs, and those jobs need to remain under accountability to the FAA. We also must invest in technologies that make their job less stressful, and aviation in general more safe.

One thing I promise wasn't part of this accident: this administration's go-to boogieman: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They're going to try to keep shoving that down our throats, but it didn't make a damn bit of difference last night over the Potomac.