Just last week a military jet crashed in Alaska, and now this. Plane crashed tend to run in three's. I'm keeping my feet on the ground for awhile.

Dang...

This'll give you some idea of the traffic.... TX corridor and N Atlantic corridor right now..... and this does NOT include military traffic, private traffic, VFR traffic, helo traffic, etc. I'm in awe that they can coordinate all the traffic in the air at the same time. I understand reasonably well HOW they do it, but, to safely pull it off all over the world 24/7 is simply incredible to me.

Why is a helicopter in the flight/approach path for Reagan National?

Yesterday and the day before, Air Traffic Controllers were discussing the severance emails they received on social media. With 99% of towers understaffed and 2,000 ATC hires on hold— but needed in 2025 just to keep up with mandatory retirements—it’s possible the email and hiring freeze contributed to a human factor distraction. Only military ATC positions are currently listed, while government job sites for civilian roles went dark a few days ago due to the hiring freeze EO. So, understaffed and overworked ATCs received a severance email, while half the country is directing hate toward federal employees. Here’s a screenshot of ATCs discussing the severance emails.

BTW, I’m a lifelong pilot, have been deeply involved with command and control systems, and a family member literally wrote the book on ATC risks, along with another Pulitzer-nominated book on the Challenger launch decision. In aviation, human factor distractions and decisions can be deadly. If the Blackhawk was, in fact, flying dark, it certainly added to the risk—but someone made that decision, and someone in leadership chose to marginalize safety oversight.

Word.

I feel like the last 5ish years I have heard every other week about a very close call. Also about the shortage of ATC folks and how although "safe" the infrastructure of all our equipment and staffing levels etc. is very fragile and needs big time investment and improvement...

I supposed you can only have X number of close calls before you [censored] out on one.

Prayers up. Terrible deal all the way around.

President Trump just correctly called out Biden and Obama for hiring DEI employees at the FAA and other critical agencies...

Trump says “TALENT” needs to be the priority and that’s why he signed an executive order against DEI and for MERIT...

Trump is at it again.

Why can he not just express condolences...say experts will investigate and move on.

DEI talks etc is inappropriate. Conjecture serves no one.

His talk of them being at the same altitude is ignorance. The CRJ was on approach....close to landing...descending to land....in a left turn ...belly up to Southbound traffic. Someone correctly stated the TCAS was inhibited....

This accident occured at 400 feet....assuming a three degree path to the runway, this means 1.3 miles from touchdown.

Where do you suppose pilots eyes are focused on mile from touchdown?

Some are trying to make something of two different radio frequencies in use...

Might be because military aircraft use uhf radios primarily, while civilians use vhf exclusively.

President Trump has more information than all the talking heads on garbage news sources, he also has a pretty good record of being correct.

I'm honestly curious how he (or really anyone else) would have any meaningful insight into the cause of this while they are still fishing bodies out of the river.

Hopefully the media isn't selective and tells us if there were any warehouse workers, construction workers, fast food workers, mechanics, landscapers, etc... on board too.

How long do you think it will take to find the cause? The obvious is clear and I don’t see how stating it is wrong.

You got me, I've never investigated a plane crash. I don't know that I've ever seen or heard of a plane crash where the cause was known in the first few hours, though.

Hegseth mentioned both were at 400 feet , I am sure he advised Trump .
This was most likely a systems failure or communications , possibly both .
I do remember when congress was asking questions of the new FAA director --- he was more concerned about DEI than addressing actual problems .