I wrote on these pages just over a year ago about my concerns about the FAA’s hiring practices.  They were allowing DIE policy to infect the hiring of air traffic control agents.  Now those hiring policies may have contributed to the deadly midair collision at D.C.’s Reagan National Airport that killed sixty-seven people Wednesday night.

It has been reported by the New York Times and others that the staffing of air traffic controllers in the Reagan airport control tower “were not normal.”  According to those sources, only nineteen controllers were present when the “normal” number would have been thirty.  As a result of the short staffing, the same controller was talking to both the helicopter and the American Airlines jet, which were involved in the crash.

My initial reaction to this fact was that it might have been a good thing to have that common communication.  But apparently, the helicopter and jet communications were on different frequencies, and any warning directed at one of the aircraft would likely have been heard by only that one.  Separate controllers, with separate warnings, conceivably could have prevented this tragedy.

Over eleven months ago, a coalition of eleven Republican attorneys general wrote the FAA, questioning its hiring practices.  I have not been able to find reports of a reply from the FAA.  What is a certainty, however, is that the agency is understaffed, whereas most every other federal agency is bloated with personnel.  It appears that the FAA has had difficulty finding qualified individuals, also possessing the required DIE qualities, to fill the roles.  Had this not been the case, this event may not have occurred.

According to reports on television news, the controller asked the helicopter pilot if he was aware of and had eyes on the passenger jet.  The pilot replied that he did.  It seems possible  to this untrained eye, after watching videos of the crash, that the helicopter pilot saw one of the other passenger jets in the vicinity and not the one with which he was about to collide.  I can only surmise that two controllers, rather than just one, may have been able to sound the alarm to both craft and avoid this tragedy.  The NTSB investigation will eventually offer some answers to this and other questions, such as why helicopters are allowed to fly in commercial flight landing and takeoff corridors.

Regardless of the results of the investigation, which I believe will point to human pilot error as the cause of this horrible incident, I would feel much better flying if I knew for certain that a full complement of air traffic controllers was looking after me.  Dubious hiring requirements would likely continue to be a problem for the FAA had not President Trump put an immediate end to them.  The sixty-seven souls lost last night deserved better.

(See also, The plot thickens: Did DEI contribute to the plane crash in Washington, D.C.?)

Bill Hansmann is a dentist and dental educator with over fifty years in the profession.  He continues to teach and write political blogs and semi-mediocre novels while living with his wife and cats in Georgia.

Image: Ilmicrofono Oggiono via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.