An American Airlines flight landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday was forced to abort its landing to avoid hitting another plane taking off on the same runway.
The Federal Aviation Administration said that the incident happened at around 8:20 a.m. EST.
&#8220;An air traffic controller instructed American Flight 2246 to perform a go-around at Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) Airport to ensure separation was maintained between this aircraft and a preceding departure from the same runway,&#8221; the statement said.
The FAA said that a &#8220;go-around&#8221; maneuver is a &#8220;safe, routine maneuver performed at the discretion of a pilot or at the request of an air traffic controller.&#8221;
The maneuver aborts a landing and returns the aircraft to a position where it can make another approach to land.
&#8220;American has a no-fault go-around policy as a go-around is not an abnormal flight maneuver and can occur nearly every day in the National Airspace System,&#8221; American Airlines said in a statement. &#8220;It&#8217;s a tool in both the pilot&#8217;s and air traffic controller&#8217;s toolbox to help maintain safe and efficient flight operations, and any assertion that flight 2246&#8217;s canceled approach was more than that is inaccurate.&#8221;
The incident comes after a Southwest Airlines flight had a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/25/us/chicago-midway-airport-near-miss-planes/index.html">very close call</a> on Tuesday morning at Chicago Midway International Airport.
Southwest Flight 2504 was touching down on the tarmac when a private jet taking off pulled out in front of the plane. The Southwest flight was forced to initiate a go-around, immediately taking off again to avoid a collision.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation into the incident, officials said.
&#8220;We don’t believe that this was an air traffic control issue,&#8221; TSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/ntsb-blames-southwest-chicago-near-miss-flexjet-crew-failure-listen-air-traffic-control">Fox News</a>. &#8220;It appears this was a failure of the flight crew from Flexjet to listen and abide by the instructions of air traffic control.&#8221;

American Airlines Plane And Black Hawk Helicopter Crash Near Reagan National Airport

American Airlines Flight Forced To Abort Landing To Avoid Another Plane Collision

Air and Space

airport

American Airlines

U.S.

Washington D.C.

Questions continue to abound in this horrifying tragedy outside Reagan National Airport, where an American Airlines flight coming from Wichita, Kansas, was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter.
Was this an air traffic control problem? Was this a pilot error issue? All of that is still very much up in the air. There have been near-misses in the past.
A lot of people are now asking why Black Hawk helicopters are operating at night in an area where passenger jets are taking off and landing.
Apparently, near-misses of this sort tend to happen a lot more often than expected. According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pilots-recall-problems-washington-airport-after-fatal-crash-2025-01-30/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>, “U.S. commercial pilot Rick Redfern was preparing to land at Reagan Washington National Airport about a decade ago when he spotted a bright red Coast Guard helicopter hovering about 50 feet (15 m) above the Potomac River. Air traffic control promptly warned the helicopter pilot to stay clear, and Redfern said he used evasive maneuvers to avoid it and avert a potential disaster &#8211; and that was in daytime, when visibility was clearer.”
It&#8217;s almost unthinkable that this even happened, considering how sophisticated our machinery is now and how sophisticated our ability is to see planes in the air — even at night.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2129-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
But to attribute it to anything other than an accident at this point would be to move beyond the available evidence; it&#8217;s unclear what caused the crash. Apparently, the black boxes have been recovered, so we&#8217;ll have a better window into what was going on aboard the two aircraft before they collided. Army secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll said during a Senate hearing that the crash may prompt the military to reconsider conducting training operations near the Washington, DC airspace.
Yesterday, when President Trump spoke to the press, he brought up the DEI policies of the Obama and Biden administrations that he felt had weakened the air traffic control systems. 
That suggestion made Democrats insane. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), for example, slammed Trump for speculating about DEI issues.
You could make the case that President Trump shouldn&#8217;t be talking about DEI and the FAA until we have more details, but I think what Schumer really objected to was the idea that DEI is bad at all. Like all Democrats, he tends to think DEI is good. And it pervaded every aspect of the Biden administration.
As The Washington Times <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jan/30/faa-diversity-hiring-practices-scrutiny-long-air-d/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>:
<blockquote>Years before Wednesday’s fatal collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, critics warned that the Obama and Biden administrations had jeopardized safety by prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion at the Federal Aviation Administration. &#8230;
Critics warned that the FAA’s focus on DEI diverted time and resources from air travel safety. It hobbled the agency as it grappled with air traffic controller shortages, antiquated monitoring equipment and an increase in near misses on crowded airport runways, they said. An unidentified source told The Associated Press on Thursday that the air traffic controller in charge of monitoring the airspace at the time of the fatal collision was performing the work of two people.</blockquote>
In other words, because they couldn&#8217;t get enough “diverse members” in the FAA, they were simply under-hiring. That meant that they were short-staffed during critical times.
The Times continued:
<blockquote>Air safety concerns prompted 11 Republican attorneys general to write to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker last year to question the administration’s hiring practices and priorities. “Unfortunately, the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue-signaling ‘diversity’ efforts over aviation expertise. And this calls into question the agency’s commitment to safety,”</blockquote>
That is not wrong. It is true that the Obama and Biden administrations prioritized DEI over safety. The Times added:
<blockquote>The Biden-era FAA website, now scrubbed, said, “The FAA’s mission involves securing the skies of a diverse nation. It only makes sense that the workforce responsible for that mission reflects the nation.” In 2022, the FAA pledged to “diversify its workforce by rethinking its hiring practices,” and administration officials assigned long-term goals to amplify diversity, accessibility and LGBTQ issues. A 2022 performance target required that the agency “host a national symposium with internal and external stakeholders to socialize efforts on the use of gender-neutral language at FAA.” &#8230;
In 2013, the FAA started using a “biographical assessment” to increase the hiring of preferred minority racial groups at air traffic control centers. The assessment asked applicants about their participation in school sports &#8230;</blockquote>
One of the questionnaires circulated by the FAA reportedly awarded points for factors such as having the lowest grade in high school in science — which is psychotic.
There is a lot of heartburn on the Left because Trump is suggesting DEI had something to do with this accident. I can&#8217;t name the number of times that Joe Biden came forth right after some sort of school shooting — before any of the evidence was available — to discuss how gun control was obviously the solution.
Here&#8217;s the salient point: It is very clear that the FAA has been operating along these lines for a very long time. Regardless of whether this crash was a result of DEI or not, there is a reason why the blowback is coming in that form.
We&#8217;ll have to wait and see what the cause of this particular plane crash was, but it is certainly the case that procedures have to change. This is why President Trump took executive action yesterday, signing a memorandum to end DEI practices in the aviation sector and to assess aviation safety, as well as issuing an Executive Order to appoint a new head of the FAA.
Regardless of what led to this crash, DEI procedures must change.
Trump is correct about that.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-AVIATION-ACCIDENT

Trump, DEI, And The FAA

Airline Crash

Ben Shapiro

Biden Administration

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Opinion

President Trump

U.S. Army

Woke Culture

The more we learn about the mid-air collision involving American Airlines 5342 and a military Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday night, the more it&#8217;s clear that we can now identify some reasons why this catastrophe happened.
This is something that, in the mainstream press, you&#8217;re not supposed to say out loud. You&#8217;re supposed to believe that we can&#8217;t really know anything about what happened — and that, at a minimum, we should allow a few years&#8217; worth of investigation to take place, before we jump to any conclusions. That&#8217;s certainly the position of CNN, which sent a reporter to the White House briefing yesterday to browbeat Donald Trump because he cast blame on the Black Hawk pilots, DEI and air traffic control. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Trump Against Kaitlan Collins" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AutwhdX_-ig?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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We&#8217;ve talked a lot about how Trump is reforming Washington at a very rapid pace, largely with his steady stream of executive orders and executive actions. But one of the most important changes he&#8217;s making is that he&#8217;s introducing accountability to the federal government. He&#8217;s demonstrating that he has no patience for the bureaucratic runaround that allows disasters like this to occur in the first place. The corporate media cannot run interference anymore. They cannot hide what actually happened.
One of the reasons that&#8217;s true is that, in this case, we have primary sources that we can rely on. There are a lot of aviation enthusiasts on platforms like YouTube, and they regularly upload air traffic control data and audio. And those videos paint a pretty clear picture of what took place on Wednesday night. Here for example is a reconstruction of the accident from the account &#8220;VASA Aviation.&#8221; It combines the radar tracking data with audio from air traffic control. In this footage, you&#8217;ll hear the first relevant interaction between the tower at Reagan airport and the Black Hawk helicopter crew. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 Visual Seperation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/saYk_jL2BeI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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So the tower says, &#8220;PAT 25, traffic just south of the Woodrow Bridge, a CRJ, it&#8217;s 1200 feet setting up for runway 33.&#8221;
And then comes the response: &#8220;PAT 25 has the traffic in sight, requesting visual separation.&#8221;
And then &#8220;visual separation&#8221; is granted.
This is a key moment. Contrary to what you may have heard in the media, the controller tells the Blackhawk pilot exactly what plane to look out for, and where it is at that exact moment. And the Blackhawk pilot states that he sees the plane at the bridge, and will avoid it.
At this point, everything&#8217;s going normally.
Then, about twenty seconds later, an alarm goes off in the control tower, because the two aircraft are on a collision course. That obviously signals that the Blackhawk pilot may not have followed the instructions. Listen to what happens at that point:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 Crash Reaction" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5q8QY8qVkg4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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This time around, the air traffic controller isn&#8217;t very specific. He doesn&#8217;t state where exactly the passenger plane is, he just tells the helicopter pilot to avoid a &#8220;CRJ,&#8221; probably because he assumes they&#8217;re still tracking the same plane he mentioned earlier. He also doesn&#8217;t give the helicopter pilots much time to respond. And then, as you heard, within seconds the two aircraft collided.
So right away, there&#8217;s reason to speculate that maybe the Blackhawk helicopter was somehow looking at the wrong plane. Or maybe the Blackhawk lost sight of the passenger jet at some point, and failed to tell anyone. Either way, it&#8217;s clear that air traffic control&#8217;s guidance in those final seconds was very lacking, to say the least. And on top of that, based on the radar data, the Blackhawk pilots made a series of other mistakes, in addition to failing to see the passenger jet that was right in front of them.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1527-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
As several aviation analysts have pointed out, the Blackhawk helicopter was supposed to be below 200 feet at this point. That&#8217;s a requirement for all helicopters on that route, at that point, right in front of the runway at DCA. The idea is that they&#8217;ll pass below the arriving traffic at the airport. But in this case, according to the radar data, the helicopter was flying above 300 feet. Additionally, the helicopter appeared to be slightly off course.
According to the published charts for this area, the helicopter was supposed to be hugging the land. Instead, it was over the water. Here&#8217;s how one aviation analyst described the problem:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="009 Recap of Flight Paths" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jaM9VdRbeik?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Late last night, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc?rsrc=ss&amp;unlocked_article_code=1.tU4.kM9x.An5Rzyh6YvWu&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> this analysis: &#8220;The Army Black Hawk was supposed to be flying in a different location and lower when it collided with a passenger jet, according to four people briefed on the matter.&#8221;
So already, we have evidence of serious errors by pretty much everyone involved in this crash, except the American Airlines flight crew. They were in the right place, doing the right thing. The helicopter pilots were apparently too high and off-course, and they clearly failed to spot the plane that was right in front of them. According to the defense secretary, they also had night-vision on, which reduced their field of view. And the air traffic control wasn&#8217;t offering much help.
And that&#8217;s not even scratching the surface of the extent of the failures here. NBC News reports that, according to the FAA, staffing levels were &#8220;not normal&#8221; at the airport at the time of the accident. One controller was handling both inbound planes and helicopters, where normally two controllers split those responsibilities. So this is some of the most congested, critical airspace in the entire country, and we&#8217;re evidently running things at half capacity. How exactly is that possible?
As you might remember, a little over a year ago, I did a few <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6byj8jfZYRA" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D6byj8jfZYRA&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1738441249163000&amp;usg=AOvVaw31SaIoTbIYpw6lfbzff2RU">monologues</a> on the fact that a major aviation disaster was imminent in this country. It got to the point that it felt redundant after a while, because every week, there would be a new series of near-misses. We didn&#8217;t even have time to talk about all of them. In one of these monologues I specifically pointed out that TCAS — the on-board collision avoidance system in most commercial planes — doesn&#8217;t help prevent mid-air collisions when aircraft are close to the ground. It&#8217;s not designed to work below 1,000 feet. So I made the point that there&#8217;s a very high risk of a mid-air collision near the ground. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="010 Matt Predicts More Accidents" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NThFetmVdVQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I&#8217;m not an aviation expert. I&#8217;m not even a hobbyist. I&#8217;m a high school educated podcaster. But even I knew, more than a year ago, that this was a major risk. Our mid-air collision fail-safes simply do not work at low-altitude. That&#8217;s especially true given that some low-flying aircraft don&#8217;t have TCAS at all, like military Black Hawks.
With that information, you might think that the FAA would consider, say, banning helicopters from flying directly into the approach paths of major airports like Reagan National. But they didn&#8217;t think of that, apparently. Instead, this is the chart that helicopters currently use to fly around DC:
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-869635 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/gbtoHN0-Imgur-629x576.png" alt="" width="629" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/gbtoHN0-Imgur-629x576.png 629w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/gbtoHN0-Imgur-300x275.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/gbtoHN0-Imgur-768x703.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/gbtoHN0-Imgur.png 1188w" sizes="(max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px" /></div>
As you can see, they just put the helicopter routes right in front of the airport. Look at how close Route 1 and Route 4 are to the runway. And if there&#8217;s any deviation from those altitudes whatsoever, there&#8217;s a major risk of a catastrophe. Everyone has to be perfectly on their game, at all times, or else there could be a disaster.
But as we know, very often, air traffic controllers are not always on their game. Almost all of the near-disasters I&#8217;ve talked about over the years were potential mid-air collisions caused by incompetent air traffic control. Here&#8217;s one of these near-misses from Reagan National Airport — the same airport where the crash occurred on Wednesday. This is from last April. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="012 Near Crash on Taxi 1" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0gOkFKYBR8c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You can hear the controllers in the tower screaming once they realize their mistake. Again, there was new footage like this every week. That&#8217;s why, in 2023, there were 503 air traffic control lapses that the FAA categorized as &#8220;significant,&#8221; which was a 65% jump year-over-year. I&#8217;ll say that again. &#8220;Significant lapses&#8221; by air traffic controllers increased by 65% in just one year.
It&#8217;s not hard to understand why this might be happening, given all of the evidence of declining standards at the agency. Last year for example I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qofbS4OFLHM" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DqofbS4OFLHM&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1738441249163000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3-_fGXff2ALW-bdZ1uBm36">published</a> footage and documentation from whistleblowers in the FAA and the aviation industry. And what these whistleblowers made clear is that the FAA (and the airlines) have drastically cut their performance expectations, across the board. Actually, that&#8217;s underselling what happened. The FAA specifically went out of its way to punish white applicants. They introduced a &#8220;biographical questionnaire&#8221; that dinged applicants who had relevant education or experience, knowing that white applicants would be affected the most. In one case, an FAA official was even <a href="https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1738441249163000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0pCHihEurO-D_MG5RT_Gv_">caught</a> <a href="https://x.com/JoshDehaas/status/1752175942166868312" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/JoshDehaas/status/1752175942166868312&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1738441249163000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0CDsU9rBPQmgjlId8PAHDf">helping</a> black employees — and only black employees — to access inside information that would help them in the application process. In the footage I reported on last year, a senior FAA official openly talked about the importance of &#8220;reducing the number of white males&#8221; in the aviation industry.
As increasingly under-qualified air traffic controllers have been promoted, the situation has deteriorated further. And that&#8217;s produced a constant stream of near-misses that continued right up until this disaster. As the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-updates-helicopter-potomac-reagan-airport/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a>: &#8220;Just 24 hours before the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday, another jet trying to land there had to make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path.&#8221;
So that&#8217;s what we know. Airlines and the FAA deliberately lower standards and then near misses dramatically increase. No one does anything about it, or takes preventative measures of any kind. And then we have an inevitable crash.
Based on those facts, do we know for sure that if DEI were never invented as a concept, then this accident would never have happened? No, we don’t. Based on the information we have right now, we can&#8217;t say that with certainty. One of the Black Hawk pilots was reportedly a woman with just 500 hours of experience, but we don&#8217;t yet know whether she was handling the controls at the time of the crash — although that seems likely, since her male co-pilot was doing the radio calls. But we still don&#8217;t know the full extent of her qualifications, or anything else.
At the same time, as Donald Trump outlined yesterday, that&#8217;s not really the point. The point is that we shouldn&#8217;t even have to wonder, even for a second, if DEI played a role in an incident like this. But we do have to ask that question because any agency or organization that practices DEI cannot claim to be upholding the highest possible standards.
As Trump pointed out, that never ends well — particularly in an industry like aviation. Watch:
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If we want to avoid future disasters like this one, this is the approach we need to take. We don&#8217;t really have a choice. You simply have to establish high standards. And if you can&#8217;t find enough applicants who meet those standards — if there&#8217;s a shortage of qualified personnel — then the solution is to pay qualified applicants more, so that you attract competent people.
At this point, we also need a full accounting of the damage that the COVID lockdowns have done to this country. Last night I received an email from a senior engineer at a major company in the aviation industry: &#8220;While nobody had it easy, the aviation industry was hit particularly hard. The demand for air travel plummeted when the lockdowns took effect, resulting in massive attrition of experienced people out of every corner of the aviation industry. When demand came back about three years ago, these people were replaced by relatively young and inexperienced new hires. I would be utterly shocked if this did not in some way impact the midair collision at Reagan National.&#8221;
That&#8217;s another aspect to this incident I hadn&#8217;t really considered. We have too few qualified people in part because of the devastation that the COVID lockdowns inflicted on this country. It&#8217;s yet another reason why we should never allow lockdowns like that to occur in this country. And the current White House seems to understand that.
Moving forward, the White House has now committed to rooting out existing DEI hires at the FAA, so they can start recruiting competent employees. Speaking to Fox last night, senior White House official Stephen Miller said that&#8217;s exactly what&#8217;s about to happen. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="014 Stephen Miller" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A236FNVe3bY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is the step we need to take. We have no other choice. Once an organization actually rewards competence, things start improving very quickly. A competent FAA official might decide, for example, that it&#8217;s a bad idea to have a helicopter route pass right in front of a major airport, on the assumption that the helicopter will never make a mistake and go 100 feet above or below their assigned altitude.
Those are the kinds of practical, life-saving decisions that get made when you&#8217;re focused entirely on your mission, and nothing else. They&#8217;re the kinds of decisions that Americans just voted for, in record numbers. And they&#8217;re the kinds of decisions that need to get made, immediately, before a lot more people die.

Why The Plane Crash Was Entirely Foreseeable And Preventable

Donald Trump

Matt Walsh

Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan broke down in tears over the tragic <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/airplane-crash">plane crash</a> near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport involving an Army helicopter and American Airlines Flight 5342 on Wednesday night.
Speaking to <a href="https://x.com/MSNBC/status/1885067494538219837">reporters</a> outside the Skating Club of Boston, as an alumna member of the club, Kerrigan joined with fellow members and opened up about trying to process the loss following news that six of the victims &#8212; two teenage figure skaters, two coaches, and their mothers &#8212; who were killed in the plane crash, were from the Boston club, <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/nancy-kerrigan-skaters-washington-crash/63622801">WCVB</a> reported.
“Not sure how to process it,” Kerrigan said through the tears. “Which is why I’m here. I just wanted to be here and be part of our community.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="DC plane crash: Nancy Kerrigan breaks down while speaking about crash victims | LiveNOW from FOX" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pTMCmU9yV5E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;And then when you find out you know some of the people on the plane, it’s an even bigger blow,” she added. “We just wish them well, the families, the courage and the strength to make the next steps.&#8221;
&#8220;I just feel for the athletes, the skaters and their families &#8230; anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters, because it&#8217;s just such a tragic event and we&#8217;ve been through tragedies before as Americans, as people, and we are strong,&#8221; Kerrigan continued. “Even when it&#8217;s hard, you get back up. Even when you&#8217;re crying, hurt, pain, you get back up and move forward. It&#8217;s not easy. But that&#8217;s what we all have to do now together.”
U.S. Figure Skating announced that there were “several” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/sports">athletes</a> and coaches aboard the passenger flight when it crashed into the Potomac River after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/airplane-crash">colliding</a> with the helicopter on Wednesday night, as previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-figure-skating-confirms-several-skaters-and-coaches-were-in-american-airlines-crash">reported</a>. The organization provided a <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/special-reports/dc-plane-crash/washington-dca-dc-reagan-national-airport-us-figure-skating-american-airlines/65-6b954cb8-4db9-4fa8-ad19-430829843262">statement</a> to news outlet WUSA9 on Thursday morning.
“U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/washington-d-c">Washington, D.C.,</a>” the statement read. “These athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.”
On Thursday morning, D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly said that rescue efforts were now switching to recovery efforts with no survivors expected in Wednesday night&#8217;s crash, as previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/authorities-believe-there-are-no-survivors-after-american-airlines-crash-with-army-helicopter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. He said first responders had already recovered the bodies of 27 of the 64 people onboard the passenger plane and one body from the Black Hawk helicopter.
“We wish we were gathering for different purposes today,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference. “We will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly you are safe.” 
Amanda Harding contributed to this piece.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/first-lady-melania-trump-issues-statement-following-tragic-plane-crash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">First Lady Melania Trump Issues Statement Following Tragic Plane Crash</a>

Nancy Kerrigan

Olympic Skater Nancy Kerrigan Breaks Down In Tears Over Plane Crash

Celebrities

Olympics

Plane Crash

Sports

U.S. Figure Skating announced that there were “several” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/sports">athletes</a> and coaches aboard <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/american-airlines">American Airlines</a> Flight 5342 when it crashed into the Potomac River after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/airplane-crash">colliding</a> with an Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night.
The organization provided a <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/special-reports/dc-plane-crash/washington-dca-dc-reagan-national-airport-us-figure-skating-american-airlines/65-6b954cb8-4db9-4fa8-ad19-430829843262">statement</a> to news outlet WUSA9 on Thursday morning. 
“U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/washington-d-c">Washington, D.C.,</a>” the statement read. “These athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.”
There were reportedly 60 passengers and four crew members on Flight 5342, a regional American Eagle jet that departed from Wichita, Kansas. The names of the athletes and coaches involved in the crash have not yet been made public.
World champion husband and wife pairs competitors Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were reportedly on board the plane, according to Russian state media. 
D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly said Thursday morning that rescue efforts were now switching to recovery efforts as no survivors are expected. He said first responders had already recovered the bodies of 27 of the 64 people onboard the passenger plane and one body from the military helicopter. 
“We wish we were gathering for different purposes today,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference. “We will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly you are safe.” 
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom released a <a href="https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2025/Information-regarding-American-Eagle-Flight-5342/default.aspx">statement</a> on the crash, sharing his “deep sorrow.” 
“This is a difficult day for all of us at American Airlines. Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, partners, first responders along with their families and loved ones,” he said. 
“Anything we can do now we are doing and right now that means focusing on taking care of all passengers and crew involved as well as their families,” Isom added.
The crash is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Army, and the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the probe.
&nbsp;

U.S. Figure Skating

U.S. Figure Skating Confirms ‘Several’ Skaters And Coaches Were In American Airlines Crash

U.S. Figure Skating Confirms 'Several’ Skaters And Coaches Were In American Airlines Crash

Airplane crash

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Thursday morning that a &#8220;fairly experienced&#8221; crew was on the Army Black Hawk helicopter that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/plane-crash-halts-all-flights-at-ronald-reagan-washington-national-airport?topStoryPosition=5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collided</a> with an American Airlines flight near Washington, D.C., Wednesday night before both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River.
Sixty-four people, including passengers and crew, were on board American Airlines Flight 5342, a regional jet that was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with the military helicopter. Authorities said Thursday morning that they believe <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/authorities-believe-there-are-no-survivors-after-american-airlines-crash-with-army-helicopter?topStoryPosition=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no one survived</a> the crash and have switched rescue efforts to recovery efforts. Responders have recovered at least 28 bodies from the Potomac River.
Hegseth said the three soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter were conducting an &#8220;annual proficiency training flight&#8221; and were wearing night-vision goggles.
&#8220;The Army unit involved was Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, at Fort Belvoir,&#8221; Hegseth said. &#8220;It was an annual proficiency training flight, and when we look at the crew, not all kin have been notified, so we&#8217;re going to withhold ranks and names at this point. We do know, on our side, who was involved.&#8221;
The Department of Defense has deployed an investigation team to look into the crash, according to Hegseth, who said investigators will come up with answers &#8220;quickly.&#8221;
&#8220;We anticipate that the investigation will be able to quickly determine whether the aircraft was in the corridor and at the right altitude at the time of the incident,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;It&#8217;s a tragedy. A horrible loss of life for those sixty-four souls on that civilian airliner, and of course the three soldiers in that Black Hawk. They&#8217;re in our prayers.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zh14_2PwSYA?si=pDB2T8vyT_vsVocd" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Hegseth also addressed the media at the White House during a press briefing with President Donald Trump. During the briefing, Trump ripped the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies instituted by the Biden administration, and Hegseth assured that under the Trump administration, the &#8220;era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department,&#8221; saying the DOD will focus on putting the &#8220;best and brightest&#8221; in &#8220;every position possible.&#8221; He added that their standards will be &#8220;color-blind and merit-based.&#8221;
The Reagan Washington National Airport and surrounding area have some of the busiest air traffic in the country as military and government helicopters often fly near inbound and outbound commercial flights. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Thursday morning that the crash was &#8220;absolutely&#8221; preventable.
Duffy&#8217;s comments came after Trump addressed the crash in a late-night Truth Social post, <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113915617049801010" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>, &#8220;The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!&#8221;
Wednesday&#8217;s deadly crash marked the first major commercial airline crash in the U.S. since 2009, when a Colgan Air flight <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/dc-plane-crash-marks-major-commercial-crash-us/story?id=118250215" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crashed</a> as it was landing at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. All 49 people aboard that plane were killed.
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.

Pete Hegseth

Pete Hegseth Reveals More Info On Army Helicopter Involved In Deadly Plane Crash

Pete Hegseth Reveals More Info On Army Helicopter That Collided With AA Flight In D.C.

Authorities said Thursday morning they believe there are no survivors after an Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight near Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., and crashed into the Potomac River late Wednesday night. 
D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly said Thursday morning that rescue efforts were now switching to recovery efforts as no survivors are expected. He said first responders had already recovered the bodies of 27 of the 64 people onboard the passenger plane and one body from the Black Hawk helicopter. 
“We wish we were gathering for different purposes today,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference. “We will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly you are safe.” 
The crash, which was reported at around 8:48 p.m., prompted a 300-person emergency response from local fire departments, police departments, the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, and the FBI.
Donnelly said that rescue workers faced frigid conditions, including icy water and wind that made the response efforts hazardous. 
Duffy added that the two aircraft had been located and that the fuselage of the airplane had been found in about three different locations. He said that an investigation was being launched by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA. 
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said that he was “absolutely heartbroken” and that “we are all hurting incredibly.” He said it appeared that the helicopter appeared to have veered into the flight path of an American Eagle regional jet, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas. 
Some on board were American figure skaters. 
&#8220;U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C.,&#8221; the organization said. &#8220;These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.”
&#8220;We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available,” the organization added. 
In a statement on Truth Social overnight, President Donald Trump said that the crash could have been prevented. 
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

US-AVIATION-ACCIDENT

Authorities Believe There Are No Survivors After American Airlines Crash With Army Helicopter

American Airlines passengers had a rough start to their Christmas Eve travel plans when the airline grounded all flights on Tuesday morning due to a nationwide &#8220;technical issue.&#8221;
American requested a ground stop for all of its flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and <a href="https://x.com/AmericanAir/status/1871520528206295120" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> on social media early Tuesday morning, &#8220;We&#8217;re currently experiencing a technical issue with all American Airlines flights.&#8221; An hour after the disruption, American Airlines began boarding flights again and the FAA lifted the ground stop, ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airlines-requests-ground-stop-flights-faa/story?id=117078840" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
American said in in a statement later Tuesday morning that a “vendor technology issue” caused the disruption which has &#8220;been resolved and flights have resumed,&#8221; CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/24/business/american-airlines-delays-cancellations/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Just after 7:00 a.m. ET, American Airlines had nearly 2,000 outages reported, according to DownDetector. Social media users said they were stuck on the tarmac or being sent back to the gate after boarding their flights, Fox Business <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/american-airlines-reports-technical-issue-affecting-all-flights" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
&#8220;Was seated on plane. Captain made announcement at first computer was down for balancing the weight. Maybe 5 -10 minutes delay he stated. About 15 mins later made announcement entire AA system was down,&#8221; Texas native Morgan McMahon told Fox News.
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift-guide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/gift-guide/" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-16702">CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE</a>
The flight disruption for one of the biggest airlines in the U.S. came during the year&#8217;s busiest travel season. The Transportation Security Administration said that up to 40 million people are expected to fly through January 2, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/american-airlines-flights-grounded-halted-travel-c666afa120054b032014c6005677aa7a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Associated Press</a>. American alone has over 3,000 domestic flights scheduled on Tuesday. The airline appears to have recovered well from the ground stop as only 26 American flights were canceled nationwide as of Tuesday morning.
During the Christmas travel season in 2022, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines stranded millions of travelers after a technology issue that affected flights worldwide.

American Airlines Grounds All Flights After Nationwide ‘Technical Issue’ On Christmas Eve

American Airlines Resumes Flights After Nationwide 'Technical Issue' On Christmas Eve

Air Travel

Christmas

Flights

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/american-airlines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Airlines</a> is backing away from its court filing blaming a nine-year-old girl for not noticing the hidden camera a flight attendant allegedly planted in the aircraft&#8217;s bathroom.
A former American flight attendant is accused of taping his iPhone to the toilet seat and then luring young girls to use the airplane bathroom.
Attorneys for the airline initially blamed the child, saying in a court filing that any injuries the girl suffered were due to her “own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by [her] use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”
On Thursday, however, the airline distanced itself from that accusation.
An American Airlines spokesperson <a href="https://apnews.com/article/american-airlines-blames-girl-hidden-camera-4b474bf3d8c8803872dbb7e12032d13e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that external attorneys working for the airline had “made an error in this filing.”
“Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing. The included defense is not representative of our airline and we have directed it be amended this morning,&#8221; the spokesperson said. &#8220;We do not believe this child is at fault and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously. Our core mission is to care for people — and the foundation of that is the safety and security of our customers and team.”
The 9-year-old’s family sued American Airlines after the FBI informed them that videos of their daughter were found on the former flight attendant&#8217;s phone. The family had flown from Texas to California last year.
The fired flight attendant, Estes Carter Thompson III, 36, pled not guilty this week to charges of attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of images of child sexual abuse.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
Thomas is accused of having recordings of four girls, including the nine-year-old, using bathrooms on flights. He is also accused of trying to secretly record a video of a 14-year-old girl using the bathroom on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston.
He was arrested in January and has remained in federal custody since then.
The court filing was amended on Wednesday. The new filing does not include the accusation that the girl&#8217;s injuries were her own fault. The case is making its way through a state district court in Austin.
On Tuesday, an attorney representing the 9-year-old, as well as the 14-year-old, excoriated the airline&#8217;s defense.
“To blame a 9 year old for being filmed while using the airplane bathroom is both shocking and outrageous,” attorney Paul Llewellyn <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4678026-american-airlines-says-filing-blaming-9-year-old-in-bathroom-recording-case-was-an-error/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
“In my opinion this is a depraved legal strategy that sinks to a new low. American Airlines should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves,” he added.
The 9-year-old’s mother <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4678026-american-airlines-says-filing-blaming-9-year-old-in-bathroom-recording-case-was-an-error/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a statement through her attorney, “How in good conscience could they even make such a suggestion?”
Thompson is due in federal court in Boston on July 1.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

American Airlines Claims ‘Error’ After Blaming 9-Year-Old Girl For Not Noticing Flight Attendant’s Hidden Bathroom Camera

American Airlines Claims 'Error' After Blaming 9-Year-Old Girl For Not Noticing Flight Attendant's Hidden Bathroom Camera

Airlines

Child Abuse

Crime

Sex Crimes

Sexual Abuse

If you&#8217;ve followed my show regularly over the past few months, you know that I&#8217;ve done a couple of monologues on the aviation industry. 
The frequency of near-disasters in the sky has increased dramatically in recent years, and as I&#8217;ve noted, the increase began around the time that the Obama administration began a concerted effort to &#8220;diversify&#8221; the FAA, including air traffic control. According to a NASA database, which tracks self-reported data from pilots, we now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-government-diversity-initiatives-are-leading-us-to-a-major-airline-disaster">average</a> roughly five near-misses per week — more than double the number from a decade ago. And that&#8217;s not even getting into the obvious maintenance issues that have been popping up — including doors and wheels that have been flying off planes lately.
Given how terrible all of this looks from the outside, I wanted to get a better idea of what&#8217;s happening internally at the FAA and major airlines in this country. We hear a lot about DEI in the abstract sense, but we rarely get a glimpse of what it looks like in practice. We don&#8217;t often hear firsthand testimonials from people affected by DEI because they&#8217;re worried about protecting their careers. They know if they speak out, they&#8217;ll face termination, and they&#8217;ll probably be blackballed from the industry forever. But with social media, some level of anonymity is possible. So to take a closer look at how far this DEI rot has spread, I <a href="https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1744869138151924174?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a>: &#8220;If you&#8217;re an airline pilot and have firsthand knowledge about the DEI agenda being forced into your profession, send me a DM and tell me about your experiences. Curious yet terrified to see how bad it is at this point.&#8221;
To say my inbox was completely flooded would be an understatement. I received too many DM&#8217;s to count from pilots and other professionals in the aviation industry. Virtually every single message told me the same thing: that the ideology of &#8220;diversity, equity, and inclusion&#8221; is the top priority in their workplaces. It goes without saying, but this is an industry where one mistake can kill hundreds or even thousands of people. This is not comparable to DEI departments in universities or corporate America, as destructive and as wasteful as those departments are. DEI in the aviation industry could lead to a catastrophic disaster. That&#8217;s why — even though it was a risk — several of these sources provided me identifying information to validate their identities, along with permission to post some of the internal documents and footage they&#8217;ve obtained. These people knew they might lose their jobs, but they decided that getting the word out was more important.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1311-i-ve-obtained-internal-footage-revealing-the-faa-s-plans-to-reduce-the-number-of-white-males-in-aviation-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
Yesterday, I posted some of these materials on my Twitter feed. They reveal that, at the very highest levels of the FAA, there&#8217;s an effort underway to reduce the number of white men who work in the aviation industry. In April of 2022, the FAA&#8217;s acting deputy chief operating officer — a woman named Angela McCullough — led a meeting with the FAA&#8217;s Flight Operations division. This division is responsible for all aspects of aviation operations, including overseeing airline maintenance. 
But McCullough did not spend the call talking about ways to make sure that airplane doors don&#8217;t fly off mid-flight. She didn&#8217;t say a word about the importance of keeping the wheels attached to jetliners as they&#8217;re taking off. Instead, McCullough talked extensively about DEI. As you&#8217;ll see, she was prompted to do so by a man named Wil Riggins, who&#8217;s the FAA&#8217;s Vice President of Flight Program Operations. 
If that name sounds familiar at all, it&#8217;s probably because Riggins is the same guy who <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/15/faa-dot-coordinated-to-hide-cost-of-buttigiegs-flights-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conspired</a> to find ways to hide Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s spending on government aircraft. So this is a completely corrupt group of bureaucrats who have assembled here. Watch:
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2/ The footage begins with FAA acting deputy chief operating officer Angela McCullough saying more workers need to go from &quot;ramp to cockpit,&quot; meaning she wants to see more baggage handlers become airline pilots. <a href="https://t.co/2KAeHNcJA2">pic.twitter.com/2KAeHNcJA2</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1755319180306346029?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;We&#8217;re looking at a need across the agency to recruit and retain a diverse population of folks,&#8221; says Wil Riggins. In response, McCullough talks about the arms race of DEI that&#8217;s occurring in the industry. She mentions &#8220;partnerships with universities.&#8221; And then she says the FAA wants to look at something called &#8220;ramp to cockpit.&#8221;
Let&#8217;s think about this. When she&#8217;s talking about &#8220;partnerships with universities&#8221; in the name of diversifying aviation, McCullough is referring to relationships that airlines have established with historically black colleges and universities. For example, United Airlines has <a href="https://www.northcarolina.edu/news/elizabeth-city-state-university-united-airlines-launch-partnership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allied</a> with Elizabeth City State University. The airline describes this as, &#8220;a partnership that seeks to not only train future pilots, but also bring more women and people of color into the ranks of commercial aviation.&#8221;
In case it&#8217;s not obvious, Elizabeth City State University is not a hotbed of engineering or aviation talent. In fact it&#8217;s not a hotbed of any kind of skill whatsoever. The average SAT score at the school is 960 out of 1600, which is one of the lowest scores that you&#8217;ll find anywhere in the country. The only reason for partnerships like this is because of the racial makeup of Elizabeth City State University, which is overwhelmingly black. This is the kind of partnership that, based on this video, senior FAA officials want to see more of. 
They aren&#8217;t interested in seeing the best pilots in the cockpit. They&#8217;re interested in seeing more black pilots in the cockpit.
That also could explain why McCullough is promoting something called &#8220;ramp to cockpit&#8221; in that footage. When she says &#8220;ramp,&#8221; she&#8217;s referring to ramp agents, who are responsible for loading and unloading baggage on airplanes. Evidently, the FAA believes that these employees deserve some sort of specialized program to encourage them to become pilots. But nowhere in this footage does McCullough explain why this makes any sense whatsoever. It doesn&#8217;t follow in any way. The job of a baggage handler is completely different from the job of an airline pilot. There are precisely zero transferable skills or even interests. Just because you have a job working around a plane doesn’t mean you should be flying them. This is like having a “janitor to surgeon” pipeline at a hospital, or setting up a program so that the window washer cleaning the outside of the skyscraper can one day become an architect designing skyscrapers. These two lines of work have almost nothing to do with each other. So what’s the point of this?
A few seconds later, McCullough provides something of an answer. She tells the FAA&#8217;s senior leadership in Flight Operations that their whole division is &#8220;white-male dominated.&#8221; Then she says that should change. And Wil Riggins, rather than reacting with surprise to this suggestion, agrees with her. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 FAA COO Angela McCullough" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m9MmG1zYRg0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
There&#8217;s no pushback from anyone in that clip, as they listen to this. No one says, &#8220;wait a minute — why should baggage handlers become pilots? And what&#8217;s wrong with having a lot of white men in Flight Operations, exactly?&#8221; Instead, this woman gets complimented for her insights.
But of course, not everyone on the call was in agreement. They didn&#8217;t want to speak up because they&#8217;d be fired. But they knew this was going to happen. So one individual recorded the meeting. This source had seen several white men get passed over for jobs because of their skin color, and he or she heard these kinds of remarks all the time at the FAA. That&#8217;s why the source saved it, and it&#8217;s why we have it now.
As of this morning, neither the FAA nor the secretary of transportation, Mayor Pete, has responded to this footage. That&#8217;s because it reflects exactly what they believe. This is what they talk about behind closed doors. They want fewer white people flying planes and working in Flight Operations, including maintenance. They want more baggage handlers to become pilots. And they are not remotely concerned about professional standards or competence. That topic just doesn&#8217;t come up in their discussions.
This what DEI is all about, and it&#8217;s not limited to Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s agency. In response to my post, I received several other tips from sources outside of the FAA who say they&#8217;re seeing similar policies all across the aviation industry. Airlines are promoting DEI as well, even when it clearly endangers passengers. One source — a pilot at Delta Airlines — told me this: &#8220;We recently had a transgender pilot repeatedly receive negative reviews during his first-year probationary period from Captains he flew with regarding attitude, CRM, and judgment, yet the Chief Pilot’s Office (CPO) was unwilling to address the issue. Had this not been a transgender pilot, the individual would likely not have successfully completed their probationary period. Coincidentally, that CPO has a management pilot on staff who recently transitioned who is able to weigh in on these matters.&#8221;
This is what the airlines and the FAA will never admit publicly. They&#8217;ll never admit that they&#8217;re lowering standards, and endangering the public, in order to get more &#8220;diverse&#8221; pilots flying planes. But that&#8217;s exactly what&#8217;s happening. The source also sent along this internal Delta Airlines manual that&#8217;s designed to help Delta pilots &#8220;transition&#8221; into another gender. Here&#8217;s what that looks like:
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7/ The source also notes that Delta routinely makes exceptions for trans-identifying pilots concerning grooming and behavioral standards. Internally, Delta has even published a lengthy guide for pilots who believe they were born in the wrong body. <a href="https://t.co/8aQszhqVJw">pic.twitter.com/8aQszhqVJw</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1755319191123439760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
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It reads, &#8220;Helpful Steps for Transitioning at Delta.&#8221; And of course there&#8217;s the pilot with the trans pride flag draped over his body.
It goes without saying that this is incredibly irresponsible for several reasons. Put aside the fact that Delta is discriminating against qualified pilots on the basis of their skin color and gender, and promoting incompetent pilots instead. This document shows that Delta is also going out of their way to recruit trans-identifying pilots — people with extremely high rates of mental illness, and a propensity for suicide. Remember, these are people who, according to the trans activists themselves, are at risk to kill themselves if they’re misgendered or if they don’t receive all of the “affirmation” they feel they need. And the FAA and Delta want to more of them flying commercial aircraft.
In fact, in private, they&#8217;re open about the fact that they&#8217;re willing to endanger the public in order to hit diversity goals. Recently on Twitter, someone named Trace Woodgrains has been looking closely at FAA documents that were unearthed in a long-running class action lawsuit filed against the agency back during the Obama years. And he found further proof that the agency does not care if &#8220;diversity&#8221; costs people their lives. They&#8217;ve put it in writing. In 2013, for example, FAA leaders reviewed this slide:
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Interesting questions being posed by the FAA in 2013 <a href="https://t.co/tnit9ipsRx">pic.twitter.com/tnit9ipsRx</a>
&mdash; TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) <a href="https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752378790846796038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2024</a></blockquote>
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It reads: &#8220;Key questions for leadership: What are the relative values of diversity and the prediction of performance/outcomes? There is a trade-off between diversity (adverse impact) and predicted job performance/outcomes. How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve diversity goals?&#8221;
So there it is, as clear as it could possibly be. The answer to that question should be: No trade-off in job performance is acceptable to achieve any diversity goals. The mission of the FAA is to make sure people don&#8217;t die on airplanes. But increasingly it&#8217;s clear that&#8217;s not important to the FAA. I didn&#8217;t mention this on Twitter, but one of the sources who DM&#8217;d me sent this information over: &#8220;I was unaware of this until recently, but the FAA has authorized special issuance medical certificates to individuals on SSRIs &#8230; The FAA and the [airline pilots association] are looking to broaden/expand the SSRI and mental health on-ramps back to being able to exercise a first class medical certificate.&#8221;
In other words, the agency is doing everything it can to ensure that pilots taking antidepressants can fly. At the same time, the source says: &#8220;The FAA just sent a letter requesting Congress NOT to raise the mandatory retirement age from the current age of 65, and the FAA primarily states safety as a justification. Obviously, there’s zero safety data that shows a switch is flipped when you turn 65 and you are somehow instantly less competent; we all know competent 70 year olds and incompetent 50 year olds running around. &#8230;The point is that the FAA and [the pilot&#8217;s association] are much more willing to go along with the idea that SSRIs and transitioning pilots being at the controls is somehow more safe than someone who just woke up on their 65th birthday.&#8221;
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These are the kind of incoherent medical standards we&#8217;ve come to expect in the FAA. A year ago, for example, the FAA abruptly lowered its medical certification guidelines for pilots with heart block. This is a serious condition; it makes it harder for the heart to pump blood effectively. Before the change, pilots with first-degree block had to provide medical documentation proving they had, “no evidence of structural function or coronary heart disease.&#8221; Now, many pilots with first-degree heart block can fly without this documentation. There was a lot of speculation this was due to complications of the COVID shot, or that this might implicate the safety of passengers. The FAA denied that, but of course we have no reason to believe anything they say anymore. This is what we can expect from the federal government at this point. Even on matters of life-or-death, they have absolutely no credibility.
There are some more documents I posted on Twitter along these lines, including some insider information on how the FAA awards contracts to various small businesses. These small businesses handle important engineering and logistics tasks for the agency. But it turns out that these contracts, like everything else these days, often prioritize &#8220;socially disadvantaged&#8221; businesses, which according to federal regulations, typically means businesses that aren&#8217;t owned by white people. In the FAA&#8217;s &#8220;eFast&#8221; contract system, these &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; businesses get first dibs at contracts valued under $150,000.
What this means is that the FAA has adopted a gender and race-based spoils system for pretty much everything. At every step — whether you&#8217;re a baggage handler, a pilot, or a contractor — you will get priority treatment if you look a certain way. The only way to bring an end to this is for more whistleblowers to do what they did yesterday, and speak out about it. Record the meetings where they tell you they don&#8217;t want white people working for them. Save the documents showing they&#8217;re promoting incompetent pilots because they&#8217;re &#8220;trans.&#8221; If we expose enough of this, then it might finally collapse under the weight of its absurdity. If we don&#8217;t — if we allow it to fester, as everyone on that FAA videoconference did — then before long, people will die as a result.

Cockpit of a modern passenger aircraft. Pilots at work.

I’ve Obtained Internal Footage Revealing The FAA’s Plans To Reduce The Number Of White Males In Aviation 

I've Obtained Internal Footage Revealing The FAA's Plans To Reduce The Number Of White Males In Aviation 

Delta Airlines

Racism

Readers Pass

Transgender

United Airlines

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine one of your buddies comes up to you with a big smile on his face and tells you he just got a brand-new job. He&#8217;s vague on the specifics, but he says it&#8217;s a federal government gig that pays six figures. It didn&#8217;t require any kind of bachelor or associate degree, or a physical fitness test. But your friend does tell you that, as part of the application process, he had to complete a couple of computer exams.
Then, as the conversation goes on, your friend recounts a few of the questions from one of those exams. He tells you the questions went something like this: &#8220;Would more classmates remember you as humble or dominant? What age did you first start making money? How many high school sports did you participate in?&#8221;
At this point, you&#8217;re thinking to yourself, this is a little odd. What kind of job would ask questions like this? This all sounds kind of dumb and unserious. So your friend reassures you that he had to complete a second test as well. This second test asked slightly more <a href="https://www.tsatestprep.com/atsa-practice-test/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">challenging questions</a>, like, &#8220;What&#8217;s the difference between the numbers 8 and 6?&#8221; If you answered &#8220;2,&#8221; then congratulations, you could also pass this test.
Now, at this point, if you had to guess what job your friend just landed, what guess would you make? Based on all of the information provided, and knowing this is a government job, what would you think? Well, you’d probably make some obvious assumptions right away. You&#8217;d think, at a minimum, that whatever job your friend is gunning for in the federal government, it can&#8217;t be that important. And, indeed, there are a lot of very unimportant jobs in the federal government. Jobs that were made for incompetent and unimpressive people. Maybe your friend got a gig in the Department of Education, for example, or the IRS. That would make sense.
But then imagine that your friend informs you that he is not working in some frivolous government agency that contributes nothing of value to humanity. Imagine he tells you that, in act, he applied to be an air traffic controller. And after just a few months of training, very soon, he&#8217;s probably going to be directing planes with hundreds of people onboard. This may be a hypothetical thought experiment, but it is very much grounded in reality. I didn&#8217;t make up any of the test questions I mentioned earlier. They&#8217;re all based on real air traffic control <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/06/27/the-disastrous-initiative-to-hire-air-traffic-controllers-based-on-diversity-not-talent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exams</a> or <a href="https://www.tsatestprep.com/atsa-practice-test/#atsa-memory-game" target="_blank" rel="noopener">practice exams</a>.
Now ten years ago, this little hypothetical scenario would&#8217;ve been unthinkable. But everything changed very quickly in 2013, when the Obama administration <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/06/27/the-disastrous-initiative-to-hire-air-traffic-controllers-based-on-diversity-not-talent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embarked</a> on a plan to diversify the ranks of air traffic controllers. Obama&#8217;s FAA chief announced that he intended to &#8220;transform&#8221; the agency, which includes air traffic control, into a, &#8220;more diverse&#8221; workplace. As part of that plan, air traffic controllers no longer needed to take a more demanding cognitive assessment before being hired. Instead, all they needed was a high school diploma and the ability to speak English. All of the tests were dumbed down to the point of being absurd.
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The result, over the past decade, has been exactly what you&#8217;d expect. The number of air traffic controllers who are not white men has significantly increased, according to the FAA. Coincidentally, so have the number of near-collisions involving commercial airlines. According to a database maintained by NASA, which relies on data self-reported by pilots, the number of &#8220;near misses&#8221; has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airline-safety-close-calls.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than doubled</a> over the past ten years. 
In just the past year, there have been more than 300 near misses involving commercial airlines, averaging more than five per week. Just to emphasize that point again: they diversified the FAA, and near-misses immediately doubled. Correlation does not prove causation, but it can point towards it. And in this case there is a giant, glowing sign pointing in that direction.
Of course, only a handful of these incidents receive any major media attention. So it&#8217;s easy to underestimate the scale of the problem, no matter what media outlets or social media platforms you frequent. That&#8217;s why, in a moment I&#8217;m going to go through some of the near-misses that have gotten very little coverage.
But I&#8217;ll start with an incident that did get some attention from the national news media, because it helps put the broader problem into some context. This incident happened in July, when air traffic controllers put two aircraft — an Allegiant air passenger plane and a Gulfstream jet — on a collision course, shortly after the Allegiant plane took off from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Allegiant plane avoids mid-air collision at 23,000 feet" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3k2j31B3Dak?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The report goes on to mention that the pilot&#8217;s last-minute evasive maneuver was so extreme that it sent one flight attendant to the hospital.
If there&#8217;s anything reassuring in this clip — something that might make you feel a little better if you, like me, plan on boarding a plane in the near future — it’s that automated software called &#8220;TCAS&#8221; saved the day. This is a system that relies on transponders that are installed on all domestic aircraft. As you heard, it&#8217;s capable of sounding an alarm in the cockpit, and directing planes away from one another if there&#8217;s a risk of an imminent collision. It&#8217;s a failsafe for when air traffic controllers mess up and command planes to fly into one another.
But TCAS isn&#8217;t perfect. It certainly doesn&#8217;t prevent all mid-air collisions. In 2002, for example, a passenger jet and a DHL cargo plane <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collided</a> over Germany, because one pilot followed TCAS while another listened to the Swiss air traffic controller — who, incidentally, was later murdered by a surviving family member of several passengers. In fact, just this year, TCAS failed to prevent a mid-air collision at an international airport in this country — Houston Hobby. Fortunately, and miraculously, no one died as a result of that collision, but it was very close to being disastrous.
This incident illustrates the obvious, which is that the failsafe is not capable of solving all mid-air collisions, nor is it designed to. Particularly when planes are close to the ground, and covering a lot of ground very quickly in close proximity to one another, things can happen too quickly for the system to respond.
Those are the kind of incidents that are happening more and more often. A month ago, at Portland International Airport, for example, an Alaska Airlines jet turned directly into the path of a departing Skywest airliner. Air traffic controllers didn&#8217;t notice this until the planes were right on top of each other. In that case, the Alaska plane was trying to land, but it had to execute a &#8220;go around&#8221; because of high winds. Around the same time, the air traffic controller tells a departing Skywest plane to turn right. But for some reason, the Alaska pilot responds to that command, and turns to the right — straight into the path of the Skywest plane. And the controller completely misses it until pretty much the last possible moment. Radar data shows that the planes came within 250 feet vertically and less than 2,000 feet horizontally.
An even closer near-miss took place in August at San Diego International Airport. Controllers cleared a private plane to land right on top of a Southwest plane. They noticed their mistake just before the private plane hit the Southwest jet on the runway. The plane got within 100 feet of the Southwest passenger jet. There&#8217;s no TCAS system that can prevent something like that, either. If the visibility had been worse, and if the controllers didn&#8217;t notice the problem, there would have been a collision. Hundreds of people would likely be dead.
You can go to YouTube and find many clips showing these near misses. We won’t review all of them here, but I do want to share one that may be the most shocking recent example. It&#8217;s from JFK airport in New York City earlier this month, which is one of the busiest airports in the world. An American Airlines passenger jet was lining up for its approach, when air traffic controllers told a small private plane to line up for a parallel runway. But the private plane didn&#8217;t follow that instruction. Instead it made a beeline for the same runway the American Airlines plane was going for. At no point in this process did controllers notice the problem. They also didn&#8217;t notice that the private plane didn&#8217;t read back the right clearance. Instead, the only person who noticed anything wrong were the pilots of the American Airlines jet, when the private plane was right on top of them:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="“If we hadn’t bailed out, we would have collided”. American A321 has problems at New York. Real ATC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-2XVD2yIDww?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;If we hadn&#8217;t bailed out, we would have collided.&#8221; That&#8217;s what the pilot of an American Airlines Airbus said, just a couple of weeks ago, at JFK airport. There was apparently no TCAS instruction to take evasive action. (If there had been, the pilots should have called it out. But they didn&#8217;t.) There was certainly no ATC warning. One of the pilots just looked out his window, or maybe saw something on his screen, and realized a plane was coming right for him. And he realized it just in time, to save a lot of lives.
I could go on and on. There&#8217;s the Southwest Airlines flight on July 2nd, which had to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airline-safety-close-calls.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">abort</a> its landing at New Orleans International Airport because a Delta plane was taking off from the same runway. The passenger planes came within seconds of hitting each other. That same month, an American Airlines plane nearly crashed into a Frontier Airlines jet on takeoff, because nobody — including the ground controllers — noticed that the nose of the Frontier Airlines jet was jutting out into the runway. Earlier this year, in February, an air traffic controller routed a Spirit Airlines flight within 200 vertical feet and 700 horizontal feet of a cargo plane. You get the point.
It&#8217;s true that we can&#8217;t blame this dramatic rise of near-misses solely on diversity and equity efforts, single-variable explanations are rarely sufficient. This is a complex issue. For one thing, when Ronald Reagan fired more than 10,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981, in violation of federal law, a bunch of new controllers needed to be hired. And many of those controllers recently hit retirement age — all at once. That creates a staffing crunch. That&#8217;s all true.
But that staffing crunch was foreseeable. It&#8217;s been obvious it would happen since Reagan fired the controllers more than four decades ago. The problem is that, instead of providing incentives for competent people to become air traffic controllers — say, by raising the salary, and providing more training and offering better hours — the government chose to do what it always does. It drastically lowered standards, in the name of equity. 
And the Biden administration is still proud of it. Right now, on the FAA&#8217;s <a href="https://www.faa.gov/jobs/diversity_inclusion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, you&#8217;ll find this line: 
<blockquote>The mission of the FAA involves securing the skies of a diverse nation. It only makes sense that the workforce responsible for that mission reflects the nation that it serves.</blockquote>
Actually, that doesn&#8217;t make sense at all. The job of the FAA, and air traffic control, is preventing catastrophic accidents where a lot of people die. It doesn&#8217;t matter what the workforce looks like. Everyone knows this, because deep down, everyone knows that diversity doesn’t matter. That’s why no passenger on a plane has ever cared in the slightest about the racial makeup of the guys in the cockpit, or the ones on the ground directing the plane. Just like nobody has ever cared about the diversity of fire departments when they’re trapped in a burning building, and nobody has ever cared about diversity among brain surgeons when they have a tumor that needs to be removed. 
When it comes down to it, when it really matters, diversity doesn’t matter. And we all know it. 
But that&#8217;s all the FAA has been focused on lately. Just a year ago, the FAA <a href="https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-launches-be-atc-campaign-recruit-next-diverse-generation-air-traffic-controllers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">launched</a> yet another initiative to &#8220;diversify&#8221; the ranks of air traffic controllers — meaning to hire people based on qualities other than competence. The FAA calls this the &#8220;Be ATC&#8221; campaign. The agency says in a press release that: 
<blockquote>Building on last year’s successful campaign to receive more applications from women and other underrepresented groups, the FAA will again work with diverse organizations, host Instagram Live conversations, and work with social media influencers.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s what the FAA is working on right now. We&#8217;ll be getting more women and more &#8220;underrepresented groups,&#8221; courtesy of Instagram influencers. That much is clear. What&#8217;s not clear is whether we&#8217;ll be getting a workforce that&#8217;s capable of preventing two jetliners, full of passengers from colliding with one another while they&#8217;re each going in excess of 500 miles per hour. And that&#8217;s alarming, to say the least, because every single week we&#8217;re discovering that the existing crop of air traffic controllers is barely capable of doing that.
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Keep in mind that this is all happening even as airlines also begin their own quest to add more equity to their ranks. It was only a couple of years ago that United Airlines pledged to diversify its pilots. Many other airlines have followed suit. Soon we will have diverse air traffic controllers directing diverse airline pilots, while thousands of lives hang in the balance — and inevitably many are lost in the process.
You often hear aviation experts say that nothing ever gets fixed until a lot of people die, which is not a thought that will help cure your anxiety about flying. But it’s true and it’s been true throughout the history of aviation. Planes didn&#8217;t have wind shear detectors until commercial airliners started crashing in bad weather, just shy of the runway. TCAS wasn&#8217;t mandatory until there were a lot of mid-air collisions. Pilots didn&#8217;t have to de-ice until an Air Florida plane nose-dived into a Potomac after sitting for too long on the tarmac on a snowy day.
What this means is that, if history is any guide, soon enough, we may finally start to get some solutions to the air traffic control debacle we&#8217;re seeing right now all over the country — from Portland to San Diego to New Orleans to New York, to pretty much any other major metropolitan area in this country. That&#8217;s because, as problematic as it may be for the Biden administration&#8217;s equity agenda, we&#8217;re closer than we&#8217;ve been in more than a decade to a disaster of truly historic proportions. And when that happens, a lot of people will die. And then, and only then, when it’s too late, will anything be done about the problem.

Passenger airplane taking off at sunset

How Government ‘Diversity’ Initiatives Are Leading Us To A Major Airline Disaster

Airplane

A North Carolina teenager who was flying for the first time skip-lagged on his flight — meaning his ticket was booked for connecting flights but he never boarded the second — and was detained at the initial airport, taken to a security room, and then interrogated.
Logan Parsons, 17, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was flying on an American Airlines ticket from Gainesville, Florida to New York’s JFK airport with a stop in Charlotte.  The ticket was purchased with the intent that Logan would get off in Charlotte, as it was a cheaper fare than a direct flight to Charlotte, a practice nicknamed “skip-lagging.” But his North Carolina ID caused an agent at the airport to be suspicious of his true intended destination, prompting him to be detained.
Logan’s father Hunter said his family has skiplagged before, acknowledging, “We&#8217;ve used Skip Lagged almost exclusively for the last five to eight years.”
“They kind of got out of him that he was planning to disboard (sic) in Charlotte and not going to make the connecting flight,” Hunter Parsons said of this son being detained. “Our concerns are he is a minor and was kind of left to fend for himself several states away. &#8230; I think a stern warning, ‘Hey, this is frowned upon. If you do it again there would be consequences, financial penalties,’” Hunter Parsons told <a href="https://www.qcnews.com/news/local-news/father-says-son-was-detained-at-airport-before-having-to-purchase-a-new-ticket/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Queen City News</a>.
“It’s the first time he’s flown, and he really doesn’t know what he is doing,” aviation attorney Bruce Brandon told Queen City News. “It seems to be a bit harsh to me. I just don’t understand why they would do this.”
“Was it a security issue or was it a contract issue?” Brandon wondered. “Was he held against his will in that back room?”
“Purchasing a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares (hidden city ticketing) is a violation of American Airlines terms and conditions and is outlined in our Conditions of Carriage online,” American Airlines noted in a statement.
In 2014, United Airlines and Orbitz sued Skiplagged; a Chicago judge <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2015/05/01/investing/united-airlines-lawsuit-skiplagged/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismissed</a> the lawsuit in 2015. In 2019 it was <a href="https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-skiplagging/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that United Airlines sent an internal memo to airport staff to look out for skiplagging and report it to higher-ups at the company.
Last year a report <a href="https://lifehacker.com/youre-going-to-get-caught-skiplagging-and-it-s-not-goi-1849041104" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> that United Airlines would fine people who repeatedly skiplagged and that airlines could ban passengers from their airline if they skiplagged.

Airport security # 18

North Carolina Teenager Skiplags On His First Flight. He’s Caught and Interrogated.

Flying

North Carolina

Teenagers

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