[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...

[listenallyall]

> If we’re doling out responsibility

No, we're not. A plane went down, it's an absolutely tragic event, doesnt matter what you believe politically. I specifically avoided pointing fingers by stating this event wasn't a political issue. Does it expose the fact that our air traffic control system needs more attention and funding? Yes - and hopefully that will become a priority of the current leadership. But did this event occur because one FAA head was recently fired, or because a new president just took office? No. It's actually quite offensive that people feel it is necessary to blame these deaths on a political enemy just to make some point.

[ceejayoz]

Again, you said:

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

Which the FAA preliminary report says is untrue. The resignations thing will only make the understaffing worse.

Subsequently, you pointed fingers at the outgoing FAA head and the outgoing President.

There are few scenarios where throwing a 2M person organization into chaos doesn't have some impact on the employees. It is too early to assign conclusive blame; it is also too early to be conclusively absolving anyone.

[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.