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About all those plane crashes... [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-19
A Fox News report is pushing back on the seemingly strange number of fatal plane crashes under the Trump administration thus far. It attempts to compare the number of crashes so far under Trump 2.0 with those under President Biden’s first term, during the same time period (approximately one month after each’s inauguration).
The report initially notes that “Since Donald Trump was inaugurated into office as the president of the United States of America on January 20, 2025, the country has recorded seven air crashes.” (The report also notes that a fifth fatal crash occurred in Georgia this past Saturday, but had not yet been included in the NTSB dataset). There was also another fatal crash occurring on Thursday Feb 19 in Arizona, raising total crashes thus far under Trump’s second term to eight, assuming one includes the non-fatal crash in Toronto where the plane apparently flipped over.
It then goes on, however, to point out that the numbers were about the same for Biden:
There were 10 fatal plane crashes in the United States between Jan. 20, 2021, and Feb. 18, 2021, according to the National Transportation Safety Board's Case Analysis and Reporting Online, or CAROL, which has recorded aviation accidents since 1962. There were four fatal plane crashes recorded during the same time period under the second Trump administration — from inauguration day to Feb. 18 — the data shows. *** Fox News Digital found that during the Biden administration’s approximate first month in office, there were U.S.-based fatal plane crashes in Janesville, Wisconsin; St. Thomas, Caribbean Sea; Tehachapi, California; Galt, Missouri; Belvidere, Tennessee; Chitina, Alaska; Hackberry, Louisiana; Port Angeles, Washington; Boynton Beach, Florida; Rio Rancho, New Mexico. A total of 18 individuals died in the 10 crashes.
However, what the Fox report does not mention is the cause of those fatal crashes that occurred under Biden. For all ten listed by Fox News to have occurred during Biden’s first month in office (including one that involved a hot air balloon rather than a plane), all were ultimately attributed to either weather, pilot error, or mechanical failures.
Here is a breakdown of all the 10 crashes listed by Fox during Biden’s first month in office, with links in support:
www.kshb.com/… (Galt Missouri) — ignored ice warning. generalaviationnews.com/… (Hackberry, Louisiana) — flight instructor and student. asn.flightsafety.org/… (Boynton Beach, FL) — [U]nrecognized spatial disorientation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s distraction with the tuning of his transponder while maneuvering over an area with reduced visual references. www.ktoo.org/...(Port Angeles, WA) — Cessna ran out of fuel. www.seattletimes.com/...(Chitina AK): Possible mid-air breakup of aircraft as determined by preliminary investigation. kmph.com/...(Tehachapi mountains, CA) — Plane went missing amidst “high winds and low visibility”). www.channel3000.com/…( Janesville WI) -- The pilot reported an engine issue to the tower controller and asked to return to the airport. Investigators determine the engine issue that was reported was a red "X" displayed on the plane's monitor, resulting from damaged wires in the left engine that caused a false indication of an engine malfunction. Because of this, the pilot shut down the left engine as a precaution. Then, as the pilots continued back toward the runway, the plane exceeded the maximum airspeed for flight. That additional pressure is believed to have caused the right main landing gear door to break off and hit the right propeller, resulting in a total loss of right engine power. www.virginislandsdailynews.com/...(St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) — Per the NTSB: A preliminary investigation report had indicated that mechanical failure, not pilot error, caused the fatal crash. But the final report went a step further and placed blame on maintenance personnel responsible for ensuring the helicopter was safe to fly. www.baaa-acro.com/… (Belvidere TN) — Because of the weather conditions at the time of the final approach, the pilot likely attempted to fly the airplane under the weather to visually acquire the runway. The terrain along the final approach course would have been obscured in low clouds at the time, resulting in controlled flight into terrain. NTSB report: The pilot’s failure to follow the published instrument approach procedure by prematurely descending the airplane below the final approach fix altitude to fly under the low ceiling conditions, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain. file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/Report_WPR21LA158_102921_2_19_2025%204_37_17%20PM.pdf (Rio Rancho NM) (Hot air balloon). Per the NTSB, “The pilot’s failure to maintain the proper descent rate during the balloon’s approach to landing, which resulted in a hard landing and fatal passenger injury when the passenger fell out of the basket.”
In sum, none of these crashes could have fairly been prevented by any FAA or air controller action.
The ultimate “causes” of the crashes we have all witnessed during Trump 2.0’s first month, however, have yet to be determined. It may very well be that all of them are attributable to pilot error, mechanical breakdowns, or bad weather. We simply don’t know yet, and that is actually the point. Because Trump-Musk has determined that this would be a good time to gut the FAA — something President Biden most definitely did not do — the public is now unusually attuned to these tragic events. They are paying very close attention.
From Fox News’ own report:
The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Probationary workers were targeted in late-night emails Friday notifying them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement. The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told The Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
I’ll try to be as charitable as I can here, (though I’m not sure why I should bother). If this trend in aviation accidents continues — even if those accidents ultimately have nothing to do with Musk’s attempted downsizing of the FAA — lots and lots of people are going to stop flying. It’s true that “correlation is not causation,” but it’s damned persuasive when you’re taking your life into your hands by getting on a plane. As any economist will tell you, bad things happen when people stop flying. And that’s not even counting how pissed off they will be. Guess who they’ll be pissed off at?
The same is going to be true of just about any federal agency that Trump chooses to target. Just to be clear, this is how it works when you start messing with federal agencies dedicated to preserving the public safety or public health of literally millions of people, like the FAA, the FDA, and the Department of Homeland Security, for example. It’s also true of the Social Security Administration, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, FEMA and the EPA. Anything that goes wrong automatically becomes your fault because you screwed with something that didn’t need fixing, something that was working just fine for the vast majority of Americans.
Whether you like it or not, you’ll own it.
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