President Donald Trump says the Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday’s collision with a commercial plane over the Potomac River was “flying too high, by a lot.”
The New York Times reported that the helicopters were flying above 300 feet instead of flying below 200 feet as approved and at least a half-mile off the approved route.
“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday morning. “It was far above the 200-foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
The helicopter’s collision with an American Airlines CRJ-700 plane killed 67 people, including three military members aboard the Black Hawk. More than 40 bodies have been pulled from the river as authorities continue the recovery effort.
Trump also railed against the Biden administration FAA. He posted a video of Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) grilling former Biden FAA nominee Phil Washington on aviation-related topics, none of which he could answer in detail. He later withdrew his nomination.
He also reposted Elon Musk’s rebuke of the Biden administration FAA, among other posts, with the caption: “This is just one reason why our Country WAS going to hell!!!”
Musk said in a post on X: “Under the Biden administration, the FAA and other government agencies had absolutely insane hiring practices that endangered the public. President @realDonaldTrump and his team are working rapidly to restore competent personnel to all positions involving your safety.”
Trump and Musk have blamed DEI policies under the Biden administration for the crash, including a “diversity push” at the agency that involved hiring people with disabilities. They pointed to a section in a DEI webpage at the FAA that has since been taken down.
“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website formerly stated. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
This webpage was present during the Biden administration and during the first Trump administration, with an internet archiver showing the text and webpage intact in January 2019.
In its first weeks, the second Trump administration has eliminated DEI policies and departments across the federal government. Elon Musk’s DOGE has used this strategy to cut costs and reinforce a meritocracy within the federal government.
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Trump wants to eliminate DEI as a factor in hiring air traffic controllers.
“We have to have our smartest people” as air traffic controllers, Trump said Thursday morning. “It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. … They have to be talented, naturally talented. Geniuses. Can’t have regular people doing their job. We can’t have regular people doing this job. They won’t be able to do it, but we’ll restore faith in American air travel.”
