Northern Viewpoint: Air Safety and the Blame Game

On top of a string of airplane collisions which we hadn’t seen in decades, a concerning event occurred at the Newark airport on April 28. Air Traffic controllers lost all communications for 30-90 seconds. Then it happened again on May 9. And one source reported that blackouts had occurred at least two times previously.

For that job, 90 seconds is a long time! One Newark controller said “It’s just dangerous, period, if you lose your radar! Every second the airspace changes because planes are constantly moving.”

When asked about these incidents, Sean Duffy, Secretary for Transportation explained, then blamed. “We have really old infrastructure in America, it hasn’t been updated in the last 30, 40 years. This should have been dealt with in the last administration and they did nothing.”

The previous Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg responded to Duffy’s accusations.

“I hated the technology that we inherited because it did need to be upgraded. Look, these problems have built up over a long time. I didn’t sit around saying who can we blame for this. We launched a contract to modernize the infrastructure, take what’s basically a copper wire system and transform it for the internet era, get fiber [optics] going there. That’s not something that can be done overnight. When you leave an office like that, you hand over the keys and it’s up to the next guy to take it to the next level.”

The following points are noteworthy:

· The number of air traffic controllers declined each year of Trump’s first term; Biden’s term saw a slow rebuild of numbers.

· Duffy voted against FAA funding which included money for hiring more air traffic controllers and upgrading technology.

· Under Duffy the non-partisan Aviation Security Advisory Committee, responsible for reviewing FAA air traffic control management since 1988, was (illegally) disbanded.

· Transportation Inspector General Eric Soskin, who was calling for aviation safety improvements, was fired in the first week of Trump’s second term.

· In February Trump fired hundreds of FAA employees including workers responsible for maintenance of the radar, landing and navigational aid systems.

· The vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board was fired by Duffy with no reason given (coincidentally he is Black).

· The FAA is now negotiating to replace a $2.4b contract with Verizon with a Starlink system which is owned by Elon Musk.

This blaming everyone except me is developing into a pattern. Remember Trump immediately blaming DEI for the January 26 collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington DC, before an investigation had even begun?

Donald Trump actually said out loud what has been obvious to anyone paying attention - that he takes credit for anything "good" and blames Biden (or someone else) for anything "bad". Here in his own words is Trump's response to a question by NBC's Kristen Welker in a May 4 interview "When does it become the Trump economy?"