[angoragoats]

The FAA administrator left his post after Musk asked him to, on January 20. The FAA had no administrator until Trump appointed one, only after the plane and helicopter crashed into the Potomac. The lack of leadership at the FAA could not have helped the situation, even if it was not a direct cause of it.

[toomuchtodo]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-emails-air-traffic...

> Air traffic controllers were emailed by the Trump administration urging them to quit their jobs and take mass “buyouts” just 24 hours after the D.C. plane crash. They were among hundreds of thousands of federal workers sent the email at 8.30 p.m. Thursday to push the extraordinary offer by Trump’s aides to get civil servants to quit en masse. The email dropped almost exactly 24 hours after an Army helicopter crashed into an American Airlines jet as it came into land at Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people. Just one air traffic controller was doing the work of two controllers at the time, early reports have suggested.

FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities [OIG Report AV2023035] - https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/FAA%20Controller... - June 21, 2023

Airline Close Calls Happen Far More Often Than Previously Known - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl... | https://archive.today/5qabt - August 21, 2023

Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont... | https://archive.today/h4gjo - December 2, 2023

The ATC labor force was already stretched thin before this. Tired, overworked humans make mistakes. There is no slack in the system, and it's being pushed further towards failure. Safe travels.

[aaomidi]

Keep in mind that even getting an email like this is quite implicitly distressing.

This being sent out to all ATC controllers means that you added an extra, unnecessary amount of uncertainty into their lives and that will directly translate to their work.

[bmitc]

Is this all real? We are headed into blatant corporate fascism. This is very scary stuff.

Looking this stuff up, apparently it's now being reported that Musk has taken over the Office of Personnel Management and General Services Administration.

[trescenzi]

All federal workers were sent this email: https://www.opm.gov/fork

[bmitc]

From the FAQ:

> > Why am I being offered deferred resignation?

> The federal workforce is expected to undergo significant near-term changes. As a result of these changes (or for other reasons), you may wish to depart the federal government on terms that provide you with sufficient time and economic security to plan for your future — and have a nice vacation.

[Tycho]

You are saying essentially that the authority in question was incredibly mismanaged and incapable if its staff would perform worse in their critical functions just because of some personnel changes at the top a few days prior.

[whoknowsidont]

So not only does this happen in any organization (instability leads to a decrease in over-all performance), but you're being REALLY dishonest by acting like this was the only thing the Trump admin did. Trump not only shut down multiple parts of the federal government but is actively trying to get people to quit. See: https://www.opm.gov/fork.

Just go ahead and tell us how you think that affects people's cognitive load, especially in a job that already is stressful and overworked? See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont...

[listenallyall]

Sutely, when there is a head of the FAA, that person occasionally takes a vacation or other time off. These plane crashes are totally unrelated to politics or staffing.

[ceejayoz]

“These plane crashes are totally unrelated to politics or staffing.”

The FAA seems to disagree.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/business/air-traffic-cont...

> Staffing Was ‘Not Normal’ at Reagan Airport Tower, According to F.A.A. Report

> The report, reviewed by The New York Times, said that one controller was communicating with both helicopters and planes. Those jobs are typically assigned to two people, not one.

[listenallyall]

So are you saying is the FAA didn't have enough controllers to keep the skies safe, ultimately leading to this week's collision? That sounds like a very strong reason to fire whoever is the head of that agency.

[ceejayoz]

The likely culprit for the understaffing is Congress.

The pandemic also messed with training new ones for a while.

[kccoder]

And congress added ten new slots to DCA in last year's FAA re-authorization act.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3935...

SEC. 502.

Introduced by Rep. Graves, Sam [R-MO-6], passed with veto-proof bipartisan support.

Dollars to donuts congresscritters wanted the ability to fly to/fro DCA vs Dulles to save themselves time.

[listenallyall]

How about the guy who was in the White House for the last 4 years? The guy who passed a so-called infrastructure bill? No responsibility for ensuring air safety in there?

[ceejayoz]

The guy they ramped up hiring under post-pandemic? https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-hits-air-traffic-controller...

> Today the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it exceeded its goal of hiring 1,800 air traffic controllers in 2024, with a final total of 1,811 for Fiscal Year 2024. As the largest number of hires in nearly a decade, this marks important progress in the FAA’s work to reverse the decades-long air traffic controller staffing level decline.

Training controllers takes 2-4 years.

Are we just gonna go from one debunkable claim to another all evening?

If we’re doling out responsibility, hoping 10% of them resign probably won’t help. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-offers-incentiv...

[PeterStuer]

Alternatively you could say this is furter proof the agency needs a thorough shakeup as things cleary went down the gutter.

Maybe collaborating on a solution to get it out of this mess is better than playing politics no matter what?

[Vaslo]

It’s been like this long before the current guy took control last week.

Here’s a write up from 2023 for example, they’re all over the internet from the last decade:

https://www.kreindler.com/articles/understaffed-and-undertra...

One article cited it’s been a concern since Bush was in office.

[_DeadFred_]

Vacations are often planned with responsibilities delegated.

If the head of a company gets pushed out because the richest man in the world has a vendetta against that company (in this case the FAA was trying to fine SpaceX and upset Musk) that can cause strife within in the company, especially when that same person writes an email (fork in the road is language Musk used in very similar emails he's sent in the past) telling you that you should quit.

[angoragoats]

> Sutely, when there is a head of the FAA, that person occasionally takes a vacation or other time off.

What does that have to do with anything? My boss takes vacations too, but if my team didn’t have a manager we would surely be worse off.

> These plane crashes are totally unrelated to politics or staffing.

Please provide a citation for this claim.

[listenallyall]

I'd agree, if there was no head of the agency for many months, confusion and lack of direction would drift down and be disruptive. But 8 days after he left? That's equivalent to a vacation, and, as you noted, people manage just fine.

I'll revise my earlier statement. It has nothing to do with the staffing of the agency's head. Yes, if there were not enough traffic controllers, that's indeed a staffing problem. But if the former head of the agency let that go on, putting air safety at risk, then he deserved to be fired.

[hattmall]

The problem with ATC is that they changed from a skills based assessment to a biographical one. This is no joke. They had an explicit goal of increasing ATC diversity so they passed over hundreds of people who took the previously traditional route and graduated from FAA Air Traffic University Programs.

Those candidates still had to pass the training but they have had a much higher attrition rate. So despite increased hiring ATC continues to be understaffed.

https://viewfromthewing.com/diversity-in-the-skies-faas-cont...

[somename9]

And that policy directly led to the deaths earlier this week. The ATC was clearly not a White male from the audio.

[angoragoats]

> I'll revise my earlier statement. It has nothing to do with the staffing of the agency's head.

Please provide a citation for this claim.

[listenallyall]

Me. I'm the citation. It is not the FAA chief's fault - nor is it because there was no FAA chief for 8 days - that a rogue military helicopter was flying above its well-defined airspace ceiling.

https://youtu.be/uFc6JFb2MqY

[angoragoats]

Then your claim lacks any supporting evidence, and that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I can think of about 10 different ways that the information in your YouTube video could be 100% true and correct, and the FAA could still be at fault. You do not have enough evidence to claim what you're saying.

[tastyfreeze]

If the CEO of a corporation is absent does all the mid and bottom level stuff just stop working? FAA may have been headless but the head never really had anything to do with the people getting stuff done.

[ceejayoz]

If everyone in the company gets a “consider resigning” email, though? Probably some mayhem.

https://www.opm.gov/fork

> Below is the email that was sent to federal employees on January 28, 2025 presenting a deferred resignation offer. If you did not respond to that email and wish to accept the deferred resignation offer, you may do so by following these steps.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump-administration-offeri...

> The White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to quit in September in a program meant to end work-from-home practices, senior administration officials told CBS News.

[tastyfreeze]

Yes, I understand that. ATC was woefully understaffed and overworked long before Trump was in office. It would be really hard to definitively tie Trump actions to a particular incident.

[ceejayoz]

Yes, that’s tough, like tracking deaths back to coal plants. We know it happens, we just can’t really say which specific ones, so it’s “cost of doing business” instead of murder.

At the very least, extending resignation offers to 2M federal employees, including at the FAA, seems likely to exacerbate the problem going forwards.

[angoragoats]

> If the CEO of a corporation is absent does all the mid and bottom level stuff just stop working?

If they leave abruptly without planning for their absence? Yes, quite possibly.

[happytoexplain]

How can you know it's totally unrelated any more than somebody can know it's definitely related?

[DiggyJohnson]

By real knowledge of the problem domain. I know that sort of argumentation is unpopular, but it’s genuinely correct in this case.

If anything, this incident has been predicted and warned for years and years and years, and is an indictment of FAA and ATC policy over the last couple decades, accelerating over the last 2-8 years or so.

The reason we can assume there’s no connection between the new administration and this incident is… because there’s no reason to make that assumption, based on the reality of ATC policy, (lack of) changes in the problem domain, and longstanding known risks in the status quo.

[angoragoats]

That this has been a known problem for a while (which I agree with) does not necessarily mean that recent actions haven’t made the problem worse. The parent asked how you can know it’s “definitely unrelated,” which seems like a pretty high bar that you haven’t come close to meeting.