From "Army Withholds Identity of Helicopter Pilot Killed in Crash/The names of two male crew members were released, but the family of the third aviator requested privacy" (NYT).
Much of this was an attack on the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan....
This reminds me of the Trump we saw during the Covid crisis. He just keeps going and going, as if he were talking with his advisers in a private room. It's so unfiltered. It's good to get more access to the President and to hear his thoughts, but the crash just happened, so many people died, and so many people are sensitive about the problems related to diversity. Why be so raw? Is he choosing to do this to us or can he just not help it?
I think he's choosing to do this and deserves to be held to account for merging this disaster with his larger anti-DEI enterprise, but let's be accurate. We don't know that what he said was "without evidence." He knows the identity of the helicopter pilot, and there's certainly evidence that the pilot was to blame — perhaps not conclusive evidence, but evidence. He had access to all the Army's information about the unnamed woman, and we don't know that it did not contain specifics about the justifiability of her advancement. As long as we don't know whether there was some evidence, and it's wrong to write "without evidence." If you want to hold Trump to a high standard of evidence, you must yourself follow a high standard.
By the way, does it seem to you that Trump's anti-DEI efforts have stirred little objection from the general public? Are people stunned by the shock-and-awe intensity of the change and unable to speak? Am I missing protests occurring somewhere? Are people quietly accepting the inevitable, even as they genuinely believe what they were taught — that meritocracy is racist and sexist? Or are people actually appreciating Trump's actions and even his statements and glad the orange monster is taking the heat?
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148 comments:
"Pete Hegseth, the newly confirmed defense secretary, has said that the military has diminished its standards by welcoming women and racial minorities into its ranks."
No, he didn't. He has said that the military has diminished its standards in order to welcome less-qualified women and minorities. It's an entirely different statement, and one that is factual.
Trump's characteristic raw, unfiltered style of speaking may make him an insensitive jerk at times, but in an event that resulted in the death of 67 people, the family does NOT have the right of privacy. The truth regarding all the circumstances has the prevailing right. Sorry, we need the name and the records.
Using this disaster to blame DEI without evidence is like using the LA wildfires to blame climate change without evidence. Or immediately blaming lax gun country for a shooting. This is unfortunately common political practice.
The trouble with criticism of meritocracy is, as Sowell would say: “compared to what?” Compared to hereditary aristocracy, explicit race or sex based discrimination, nepotism, partisan croneyism? The strength of meritocracy is that it really does reward, or even ensure, merit. The people selected through a meritocratic process may have been born rich, or gone to good schools, etc., but they Have been selected by being good at what they do.
“ How does the NYT know what evidence Trump has seen?”
The NYT doesn’t care the facts when it comes to Trump.
More likely than not, pilot error. But ATC is supposed to prevent crashes due to pilot error. “Helio you are too high. Reduce altitude immediately!
Secretary Pete allowed ATC around the country to be understaffed. Pete bears full responsibility. He couldn’t concern himself with air safety because he was too busy not building EV charging stations.
Pete needs to answer to the public.
"By the way, does it seem to you that Trump's anti-DEI efforts have stirred little objection from the general public?"
Perhaps more people are coming to realize that society has sacrificed standards and performance on the altar of diversity.
Your analogy is correct. If you're going to assert blame, you need to cite your evidence. If you do not yet have the evidence, don't assert blame until you do.
Your questions highlight the most pernicious thing about DEI. We know people have agitated for more women in the military and more female pilots. We know the infamous 'goals and timetables' have been established. We know individuals and organizations are evaluated on their adherence to the goals and timetables. We know you get what you measure in an organization. We'll never know the impact this had on that woman's career but we'll never be able to say it had no impact either.
The reason the Army gave for withholding the name, we're told, was "her family’s request for privacy." And "It is unclear what specifically motivated the aviator’s family to make the request."
What evidence do we have that any of the above is true? Sure, the Army said it, but does the NYTs know who the family is? Has anyone in the press talked to the family?
Reason I ask is I sometimes wonder if Trump is running this whole thing like the producer of a reality TV show. Withholding the name would fit a “big reveal” episode for later on - you build suspense and interest by withholding, then make the big reveal?
Do I think it most likely? Not sure. Do I think Trump would never do that? No I don’t.
100% correct hawkeyedjb. But this isn’t new. Thirty years ago Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen died when she mishandled the landing f her F-14 Tomcat. It turned out that the Navy was so eager to have a female fighter pilot that she was allowed to pass her training despite the fact that she should have washed out. They should have waited until a woman did measure up.
Christopher B eat me to it. Thanks to Diversity Uber Alles, they're going to be blamed whether it's justified or not.
Are we not going to mention the poor(?) National Guard transwoman pilot who was accused on X as being the aviator referred to? That person had to make a statement to assure us that she was not involved.
The sad double edge sword strikes. My spouse, a brilliant person and the best manager I ever observed, was a "first" multiple times as she advanced in a male dominated agency. She was, on merit, selected to serve on numerous national committees. She often came back telling me things like, "This time they discovered I was not selected because I was a woman by the afternoon break."
Affirmative action led many to make such assumptions. That is particularly true when the AA was applied as a blunt instrument.
DEI appears to be worse, far worse. So many will assume the pilot was less than highly qualified. When the Army withholds the name of the female pilot they make that assumption worse, much worse.
These are almost the same statement. With physical tasks, the strongest females are routinely weaker than the near-weakest males. Also see research of limited female endurance. Welcoming women beyond perhaps 1% or 5% can equate to diminished standards. So, they can never get close to the "equal representation" of 50% that is the goal of many equity programs.
In an accident that killed 67 people, the family’s request for privacy should be rejected. What the fuck, who is this family that gets to keep critical information hidden?
No one is blaming the other two people in the helicopter, and withholding the third person's name just highlights her. Accidents can happen, and then we go back and figure out WHY. If DEI is to blame, we need to know. It wouldn't have been her fault if she was promoted beyond her capability. (Frankly, it seems to me that the blame is more likely in the ATC tower.)
Also, please note that much of Trump's rambling style during COVID turned out to be RIGHT. We could have treated blood with UV light, and we could have tried other treatments. It's the press that consistently exaggerated and deliberately misinterpreted what he said. There's absolutely no doubt that he is gutted over the deaths and very, very much wants to see this not happen again. Part of doing that means a blunt assessment of the things that went wrong, as painful as it might be.
The instructor pilot had 1000 hours. The pilot in training had 500 hours. I'm not a fan of the FAA policy of requiring 1500 hours versus 750 hours to be an airline transport captain. That rule was changed after the Colgan Air crash in 2009. None of these military aviators had the 1500 hours entering this busy airport at a very busy time of day.
My point is that "fairly experienced crew" isn't a knock at sex or gender. That route and airspace would be challenging for any pilot with well over 500 hours. 500 hours is a lot of hours, but I'm sure we will find the civilian flight crew had a lot more hours.
You can train women to fly anything - simulators make it easy to train - and drill procedures into them, but women don't obsess on the job like men. As I say, airplanes are so easy to fly these days that girls do it.
I used to spend hundreds of hours in the pattern to practice wheel landings on the numbers every time in any wind, because it was cool. That's a unification of man and airplane feeling driving it. That's what's missing with women, who advance by moving to more complex airplanes and ordinary performance.
By the way, does it seem to you that Trump's anti-DEI efforts have stirred little objection from the general public?
Little objection, Professor? Try massive support.
Are people stunned by the shock-and-awe intensity of the change and unable to speak? Am I missing protests occurring somewhere?
No and no, Professor. We normal people are fully supportive. The facts that have come out about the DEI mayor of Los Angeles, not to mention the DEI fire chief and DEI deputy chiefs and the $750,000 salaried DEI head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who fidn’t even know that a 127 million hallow reservoir was empty and had been empty for almost a full year, does not help the case for DEI.
Are people quietly accepting the inevitable, even as they genuinely believe what they were taught — that meritocracy is racist and sexist?
Professor, what makes you think anyone — anyone normal, that is —- believes meritocracy is “racist and sexist”? It’s perhaps natural that you think prople should believe what university professors tell them, but the credibility of professors is, deservedly, in the toilet.
Or are people actually appreciating Trump's actions and even his statements and glad the orange monster is taking the heat?
Bingo! He is the tip of our spear.
It used to be 250 hours and worked fine. It gave the airlines a chance to knock out bad habits before they became permanent. The Colgan crash wasn't caused by inexperience but by a just-released NASA videoM on tailplane icing, which the pilots believed had happened to them, and they took the recovery procedures it recommended.
I think he's choosing to do this and deserves to be held to account for merging this disaster with his larger anti-DEI enterprise, but let's be accurate.
Okay, let’s hold him to account: If he believes people have been hired and promoted into positions above their abilities because of DEI and those people are killing themselves and random others, I want him working to stop the policy. Quickly. Also pointing out examples of why it’s a bad policy. Quickly, so fewer of us are exposed to the dangers…
I don’t care about what kind of heat Trump takes I want the policy to stop so people aren’t exposed to the dangers of it…
I see I’m not the only one who believes Ann’s soliloquy supports what Trump is doing…
Why does DEI have the effect of lowering standards? Supply and demand.
Once a non-white-male becomes a hot commodity, guess what? There aren't as many (yes, there are just as many white females as white males, but probably not as many who have an interest in the job you're trying to fill).
So then you are competing for the best of an already small population. If Albanian dwarves are hot, then the military, the airlines, academia, big business, etc, are trying to get the best Albanian dwarf they can find, and offering big pay packets, benefits, etc, to attract them.
And only one of them can get the best Albanian dwarf. The rest have to settle for less able Albanian dwarves, or eventually just any Albanian dwarf who walks in the door.
Then everyone starts associating Albanian dwarves with suboptimal performance.
There are perfectly Constitutional ways to increase workforce diversity, but they take work. Do outreach, give aptitude tests, take the ones who score high on the aptitude tests and provide extra training to make up for the lack of such training in whatever minority community it is, then unleash the trained-up candidates to compete with the general population.
The military pioneered these techniques during mass drafts, and also by establishing the academy prep schools, as well as when it expanded special operations for the GWOT ("hey, you're in pretty good shape. Can you swim? I think we can teach you...."). But you can easily adopt these techniques for any job. Coding? Come up with an aptitude test where people have to work puzzles or something else that correlates with designing algorithms and processes. Give the high scorers a nerd boot-camp course, then hire the best performers. Pay them a little more at each step of the process to encourage them to stay the course. A hundred bucks just to take the aptitude test. 300 a week for the boot camp. Guaranteed first year's salary, even if you prove completely inept (we do this with a lot of DEI hires for a lot longer anyway, so no net loss there).
JSM
Regarding the role of DEI in this tragic crash, I am repeating verbatim a comment I made yesterday in response to a comment by Earnest Prole:
“Actually, Earnie, DEI did lead to the crash of the plane and helicopter at Reagan National Airport. One way DEI could have done that is if the controller on duty was under-qualified. That may or may not have been the case with this controller — certainly he made a mistake in not telling the helo pilot that the plane to avoid was at their 11 o’clock (left front) and was landing (so would be low over the river).
But another way DEI could have caused the crash is if the controllers are understaffed because the agency is looking for qualified people with the correct gender, ethnicity, or skin color while deliberately excluding well-qualified white males. There is ample evidence that this is the case. Literally thousands of white males have applied and been turned down, meanwhile the authorized staffing for that airport is 30 while the actual staffing is 19. And only a single controller was handling takeoffs (on runway 1), landings (on runway 33), and the helicopter (on a different frequency). The normal cruising speed of a Blackhawk is 174 mph and the landing speed for a CRJ700 is 135 knots (156 mph). The two aircraft could well have been approaching each other at a combined speed of something like 330 mph. No room for error, but errors were made.
Just because Trump said something doesn’t make it wrong.”
Indeed. It's not just a misrepresentation of Hegseth's position, but a complete lie. The NYT is deliberately attempting to muddy the waters while smearing critics of DEI.
The blame for this particular accident is a policy that isn't well thought out, namely giving a pilot authority to maintain visual separation at night. At night, you can't see the airplane that you're going to collide with because its lights are not moving relative to city lights so it looks like empty airspace. You can see airplanes that you're not going to collide with, though, for instance the following jet in the pattern that was no threat in any case.
Looking at the plots of ADS-B tracks, the collision was near perpendicular. The airliner crew was executing a visual (non-precision) approach to runway 33. From their perspective, the helicopter was approaching from their 2 or 3 o’clock. Only the copilot would’ve had a chance to see the helicopter, but he was probably looking forward towards the runway. We don’t know whether the pilot was the Pilot Flying. If it was the copilot, he most definitely would’ve been looking at the runway as they were probably less than a minute from landing.
From the helicopter’s perspective, the airliner was at their 9 to 10 o’clock. Most helicopter pilots fly in the right seat, so the pilot likely was unable to see the airliner. We don’t know if the female pilot was in the left or right seat. Regardless, even the pilot in the left seat or perhaps the crew chief would’ve had a chance to see the airliner. If the were wearing NVGs, they would’ve had a reduced field of view.
As for why the helicopter was higher than its 200 foot ceiling, it could’ve been simple pilot error. It could’ve been instrument failure. I’m sure the NTSB will be looking into the calibration history of the helicopter’s altitude measuring equipment. In addition, the pilots may have entered the barometric pressure setting incorrectly or have been given an incorrect pressure setting. An error of 0.1” would result in an altitude error of 100 feet.
Woman can be perfectly good, even excellent pilots, no different than men. But because of programs such as DEI, people can't help but suspect they are less qualified. Feminists should find this insulting, yet we know that is not the case.
I've landed at DCA dozens of times at all hours of the day. It's a super busy airport with commercial, private, military and local law enforcement air traffic. What shocks me about this incident is not that the military helicopter was at the same altitude as the CRJ but that it was anywhere near the direct line landing path of that runway. What the hell kind of policy allows that? It's like allowing catering and fuel trucks to crisscross active runways and hoping that they see the landing jets before they plow into them.
The Althouse community knows plenty about aviation!
Exactly the sentence and blatant smear that caught my eye. It's very telling that the Leftist Media have to smear people and "paraphrase" their quotes to obscure the simple truth Trump and his appointees keep saying: "we shouldn't have lowered our standards."
Since it is irrefutable, especially when it comes to aviation and other critical factors, they have to hide the actual statements.
What Trump said was 100% true and when phrased by a reporter very similar to your statement he explicitly said we don't know and he hopes not. Buttigieg explicitly said many times that diversity was his highest priority. Not safety. Transportation must be accomplished safely. Trump is correct to keep the focus on that.
In addition we don't know what information Trump had at that point but some has trickled out to the public confirming his position on DEI.
Rising to 400 ft in an area with a 200 ft maximum is pilot inattentiveness, presumably what is being practiced. One more thing to keep under control while doing something else.
Hmmm, what if she WAS a DEI hire? It would make sense then that those in the military responsible for her flying that helicopter would need time to alter/delete records to show it wasn't THEIR fault. And it would give the family time to scrub any social media accounts and any other records that showed that she really wasn't qualified to be a helicopter pilot.
Of course, it really could be that the family just wants to avoid the intense scrutiny the pilot of the aircraft that deviated from it's proscribed flight path (fly this route at this height) and caused a mass casualty event would accrue. But in this case I don't think that's even remotely possible.
At bottom, DEI is based on the assumption that people are entitled to something, and that no matter how difficult it is, standards are de facto adjusted to make that possible. Pretending that is not true is intellectually dishonest, and can be lethal. What makes it more insidious is that the results of DEI propagate through the system, and the actual point of failure may be upstream several levels. As with much that has happened in this area, the genesis can usually be traced back to the Obama years, both with respect to military and civilian government operations.
The key thing is that the jets lights would not be moving as seen by a helicopter on a collision course with it. Constant bearing means collision. The "stationary" lights would look like empty airspace.
remember the last time someone killed scores of people, and their name was not released..
because of the wishes of the family?
Me neither
I agree that Colgan crew wasn’t inexperienced, both having over 1500 hours, but it was used as the excuse to raise the numbers. I’ve seen various podcast editorials on the subject, and I’m on the side that the standard was set too high, because it allows habits to be developed that are fine if not proper for smaller aircraft, but bad when transferring to commercial airlines.
Larry, I watched Ward Carroll’s commentary last night. He was talking about crew positions. My only problem is we don’t know who was shooting the approach for the CRJ. It probably was the Captain, but the FO could be doing it. Since the military helicopter flight was a trainee flight, then we have more of an idea of who was controlling it. I’m quite worried about the NV goggles component as that seems a bad idea in that flight environment. I also think they could have run the mission an hour later with significantly less traffic.
As they say, to ask the question as to why this woman's identity isn't being revealed is to know the answer. I'm assuming they need to scrub a few things.
Critical Diversity Theory (CDT)
DEI is institutional, systemic Diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies), including: racism, sexism, etc.
Can they choose to abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too?
Most think that the talk of D.E.I. was about the pilot of the copter. My thoughts went to the tower not being fully staffed. Later I found the tower was not fully staffed. My suspicion was that it was not filled due to its composition not being quite right in all D.E.I. requirements. Mainly dudes who like fast-moving video games do that job.
Exactly, Mike!
The issue is not race or sex, but rather selecting for race or sex, and class generally. Diversity is an umbrella philosophy for class-disordered ideologies, including: racism, sexism, etc. DEI is institutional, systemic Diversity.
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
My only problem is we don’t know who was shooting the approach for the CRJ. It probably was the Captain ...
During a trip, the crew swaps Pilot Flying & Pilot Monitoring roles. So, 50-50 either way.
Everyone seems to be swallowing the NYT's premise that Trump "blamed diversity ... for the crash." I'd like to see the exact quote where he did that. I watched the video of the press conference and didn't hear that. He raised the topic, but that's not the same as specifically assigning blame. It's more like pointing out a potential contributing factor, which is very different.
The NYT could have said "without citing evidence" and been accurate, but as written they are doing exactly what they accuse Trump of doing.
"Ann’s soliloquy"
I would have gone with "Althouse's disquisition," if that was the tone I was after, but that's just me.
To try and blame DEI for this horrific crash is disgraceful and then the insanity of signing an executive order to try and blame DEI is incomprehensible.
"its lights are not moving relative to city lights"
From what I could tell, the aircraft was directly down river of the helo, so there shouldn't have been much light behind it, just the Wilson Bridge a couple of miles south.
When I was in USAF pilot training, it was shortly after the first women were allowed in. A female student pilot had difficulties with nose-low unusual attitude recoveries that would have washed out a male student. While on a solo sortie, she turned a barrel roll into a barrel dive, failed to recover and died.
In the late 90's I was the second in command of a pilot training squadron — this was a year or so after women were first allowed fly combat aircraft. After the initial influx of women into fighters, the flow turned into a trickle. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) showed up to investigate us to find out how we were discriminating against the female students. [Because reasons] while female students had about the same washout rate as the males, the females were significantly over-represented in the bottom half of the class. As follow on assignments were chosen in performance ranked order, it was fairly rare for any female student to be in a position to choose a fighter, and those that were almost always went to heavies. Fortunately, we survived the investigation, but there was significant pressure that should *never* have existed in the first place.
During the same tour, I was deposed regarding the elimination from training of a black male student who went to the Pentagon's office of whatever the hell DIE was called at the time. Fortunately, our documentation and practices were on the money, so we were OK. But there was even more pressure than should ever have existed in the second place.
Shortly before I was hired at FedEx, an MD-11 was destroyed at Memphis, flown by a female pilot whose conduct and performance would have long since seen the firing of a male pilot.
In 2019, Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashed east of Houston Intercontinental. The First Officer was a diversity hire.
I could go on, but this is already easily long enough.
I just watched the video, Lucille. He didn't blame DEI. Usual distortion to libel Trump.
Do they actually plan to bury pilot in an unmarked grave to keep her identity secret?
The policy is that the helicopters fly along the east bank of the Potomac at 200 ft, This keeps them well under the flight path of incoming passenger flights. Of course, having helicopters completely absent would be ideal but the confluence of military bases in the area and the airport make this impossible, so the helicopters take a restricted path to let them through without interfering with the airliners. The big question under investigation is why the helicopter deviated from this route into the path of the passenger jet, not why the helicopter was flying at all.
DIE is, by definition, anti-meritocratic. In some areas, that may not matter, but it sure has heck matters in aviation. Whether it played specific roll in this mishap ... staffing, for instance, it has played a roll in others.
There is no disputing this — the President is right.
@SeanDuffy (Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy)
"NEW: With the support of @POTUS and in consultation with the @SecDef, effective today, the @FAANews will restrict helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport airport.
Today’s decision will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic. This is part of the @USDOT's ongoing commitment to safeguarding our nation’s skies and upholding the highest standards of air travel safety. We will continue to support @POTUS' directive to achieve uncompromised aviation safety. The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system and today’s action is a significant step towards restoring that trust.
The restricted area includes:
- Memorial Bridge to South Capitol Street Bridge, excluding the Tidal Basin
- Haines Point to Wilson Bridge
- Over the top of DCA"
For an airport with the traffic of DCA, the normal staffing would have been two working ground traffic, and one each working departures and arrivals.
It's a very convenient airport, but as anybody who has ever worked in software knows, security and convenience are always at odds with each other.
Many here are quite knowledgeable about the issues involved. I have no special knowledge. Here is my takeaway: It does seem that the helicopter was flying too high, that the ATC instructions to the helicopter were not sufficiently clear and that the controller was doing a task that is ideally performed by two controllers. Is my understanding correct?........Is DEI part of the equation? Was the tower undermanned because they were struggling to find enough DEI hires? Was the female pilot a DEI hire and in any way responsible for the wrong elevation? Can these questions be asked and answered in a fair, responsible way?
Mike (MJB Wolf), I normally agree with you, but I think you're missing the point here. If one asserts blame AND knows the evidence (as it's likely that Trump does), one should cite that evidence at the time the assertion is made. If there are good reasons for not citing the evidence immediately, one can easily qualify the assertion by adding phrases like, "and I believe the accumulating evidence I've been advised will soon confirm this."
No one is blaming "diversity". They are blaming Diversity (e.g. racism, sexism, etc) and DEI (i.e. institutional, systemic Diversity), specifically selecting for Diversity in lieu of merit.
There are obviously situations where the differences between men and women will matter but I don't see that flying a helicopter would be one of those areas. What particular set of skills would a man have and a woman not have that should make flying a helicopter a uniquely male endeavor.
I read an article that there were 14 US Army helicopter accidents in 2024 that caused 11 fatalities. It didn't include the gender of the pilot in each crash but presumably mostly men. Instead it talked about training issues.
I may be remembering things incorrectly, but if the helicopter pilot was a woman it is giving me flashbacks to the Navy after the Tailhook scandal. If I remember correctly, they were in a rush to get some female carrier pilots out there and the first heavily-touted candidate managed to get herself killed because she was either not ready or not capable. I hope the young lady in the Blackhawk wasn't rushed into something that she was not ready for.
The top three management positions in LA Fire Dept were held by lesbians. Over twenty five percent of their fire engines were down for maintenance at the time of the fires. No MSM journalist or public official has tried to connect the dots, but just on the face of it there seems to be a connection. There seems to be a conscious effort not to do so, and so it goes here.
Critical Diversity Theory (CDT) advises that Diversity can be inferred, and under DEI it is an explicit, unapologetic practice. That said, the determination of race or sex of the individuals involved does not reflect on race or sex as a bloc witness. People who think it does need to lose their religion, their progressive ideology, discard their liberal license, abort their politically congruent constructs. #HateLovesAbortion
DEI is simply anti-merit.
The left will hide behind "You're all racists and misogynists!"
In order for the left to score points- they must lie and twist actual quotes. See the drinking bleach lie, the good people lie... the covid origins lie... the ivermectin lie... and on and on... the backbone of the left = lies.
I thought that the people in DC would have a vested interest in the safety of their flights, but apparently that is not so. The VIP's want to use helicopters for commuting and to have flights from their home town landing in a convenient location. This accident might have as much to do with VIP pull as DEI push.
Bingo. The DEI crap and affirmative action hot garbage creates the opposite of the intention. Women and minorities are suddenly looked upon as lesser, inside the DEI construct.
The best way to combat = make sure our education system is top notch. Something the left and their teacher's union abhor.
Also, be suspicious when they assert something factual on the basis of "we're told" but they omit who it was that allegedly told them.
“If you want to hold Trump to a high standard of evidence, you must yourself follow a high standard.”
Thank you.
"I don't see that flying a helicopter would be one of those areas."
Why is there a separate division for women in chess? Why is it that women "grandmasters" are not required to meet the same level of achievement as men? There has been one woman who has been competitive in the "open" division in which the men compete.
I agree with you Ann. I was disappointed when Trump blamed DEI on the accident when it fist happened. Politicizing tragedy should never happen. It is often the gun control zealots that do it. I hate they are keeping the pilots name secret. It will only fuel controversy when it should not. I served in the air force. Women can pilot as well as men. Women can not serve as infantry grunts as well as men though. I hate to say it though if the pilot was a black female lesbian many will think DEI hire. That person could be the best pilot in the world but also could be DEI.
There are certainly problems in staffing ATC positions, with policy directives that excluded white men from filling these positions no matter how experienced or capable. (Now changed by President Trump.) From looking at the flight path it appears the helicopter pilot deviated from it's required route so suddenly that even the most attentive ATC would've had very little time to issue warnings to the plane or for the plane to take evasive action. Sure, the video shows the helicopter apparently flying right at the plane for quite a while, but I think the distance and angle the video was taken don't reveal the whole story.
Planetgeo. 7:12 nails the core issue. Even without the effects of insane DEI policies, the airspace used for landings and takeoffs at DCA is no place for helicopters to be flying, especially on training flights, and ESPECIALLY on busy windy nights. (I know it was windy because I landed at DCA 30 minutes before the crash. I now wonder if the helo pilot wanted some additional altitude because of downdrafts.) These types of helo flights are just asking for trouble.
You know. It could be a trans-she. Meaning she was born a he and became a she. I’m just speculating that the pentagon still using the approved pronouns as defined in their latest manuals. Trump hasn’t been around long enough to change those. Maybe. I don’t know.
Everyone will try and cover up if the fault, or part of the fault, lies with their group. Also, military aircraft do not have “black boxes.”
It wouldn't have been her fault if she was promoted beyond her capability.
I don't think that is entirely true. I would agree that fault lies with the people in charge of evaluation but if you are an individual who is employed in a skilled or professional role, part of your personal responsibility to be aware of your own skill level and how it compares to the task at hand. If a surgeon gets assigned to a surgery that he or she isn't qualified to perform, the surgeon should be aware if he or she is up to the task and that surgeon fails in their own personal duty if he or she fails to properly self-evaluate. A pilot is absolutely a skilled position that puts people's lives at risk. Pilots have a duty to be aware of their skill level and capability.
Merit gets muddy because of political baggage, but the concept derives from ancient (heartless) functionalism, survival, and natural selection.
With engineering it's obvious who has merit. Give a bunch of prospective students a fixed amount of wooden sticks, glue, and string. Ask them to build a bridge capable of holding 10 pounds across a span of 3 feet. The students who make a functional bridge can move on to real projects. Those who cannot require additional training or should pick another career.
Similarly, put a bunch of people on an island with no food. Put a cache of food 1 mile away on a second island. Those who can swim (strong) or make a boat (smart) will live, while those who cannot will starve and die. Polynesia is populated by the offspring of successful sailors only -- and those with very efficient metabolisms (i.e., chubby). The forgotten failures and skinny people were eaten by fish.
The work-around to personal limits (the lack of merit) has always been family and tribes -- find a niche for everyone and take care of the weak. Plus, the male/female division of labor has meant that the most effective women were those who best prepared their children to survive in the future.
This all got twisted into DEI and wishful-thinking: they want to force failures to be successful, be they uncompetitive persons and ineffective tribes. But also consider the other extreme of eugenics.
I read somewhere that they do this training in these conditions because they may have to evacuate the President or other top officials in an emergency scenario that will be just like this, windy, dark, busy.
Biden was collecting “firsts” the way some people collect first edition Pokémon.
I've seen stuff on the internet that the 2nd pilot was transgender. A man who transitioned to a "she". This is probably why the family "wants privacy". As for the "without evidence", we've seen this before. The DNC-MSM will deny any statement that a female/POC/Gay/whatever was the cause of something bad. Or that a mass killer had leftist beliefs. And ascribe any statement to contrary as "Conspriacy theories" or "Misinformation".
Later, we'll get the facts and find the Trumps "Conspiracy theory" was correct. But we'll all have moved on the next news event.
Good point. Hell hath no fury like like a VIP scorned. In my experience, women and certain minorities (and that fuckin' John Kerry) are the most readily and grievously offended.
I would speculate that there are far more men competing than women and setting up a woman only division was to try and find a way to attract women to the game? Not completely O/T, "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix is really good.
Back in 2018, even The Atlantic magazine admitted to the underlying cause: Women do not CHOOSE non-people careers if given the option. When given a choice they tend to pick caregiving (children, education, nursing, teaching, etc), and tend to choose with STEM and "object" careers only when economically necessary.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
Why does the general public need the pilot's name at this time? The military know, the investigators know. As Althouse said, it will be made public eventually.
This is a US soldier who died in the line of duty serving her country. Her family was no doubt very proud of her and loved her. They're probably devastated and in tremendous pain.
Why throw her and her greiving family to the word wolves on the internet and drag her name through the mud when nobody knows yet what went wrong. Just because she was a woman doesn't mean she was unqualified or shouldn't have been a pilot, if that's your hobby horse.
Have a little respect.
Supposedly copters fly across the flight paths of the reagan Ap all the time. Usually in daytime. If you look at the animation of the crash, the copter should have been lower and near the opposite bank of the Potomac River. Instead it was more in the middle of the river and at 500 feet.
The Airplane approaches are standard and locked in. I suspect we'll find that the trainee was flying the plane, or was the co-pilot and failed to warn the pilot.
I wonder how many night flights of military copters using that route take place every year. Was this unusual or standard? Its never happened before.
After the 9/11 attacks of 2001, there was talk of shutting down the DCA (Reagan) airport where this crash happened. It's cramped and in the middle of town -- planes are required to fly squiggly along the Potomac River to minimize noise. DCA was kept open largely because the elected people wanted a convenient airport and didn't want to drive an hour out to IAD (Dulles).
The problem was not seeing the accident jet, not control of path and altitude, which were among the things being practiced. There's no trouble avoiding traffic you see, regardless of paths and altitude restrictions.
Why is NYT making this tragedy about sex? Why not race, too?
DC airspace is so cramped and has so many secure no-fly zones that all air movement is akin to a sliding tile puzzle. Any mistake results in chaos. Drones are not allowed in a 15-mile circle.
Supposedly copters fly across the flight paths of the reagan Ap all the time. Usually in daytime. If you look at the animation of the crash, the copter should have been lower and near the opposite bank of the Potomac River. Instead it was more in the middle of the river and at 500 feet.
The Airplane approaches are standard and locked in. I suspect we'll find that the trainee was flying the copter, or was the co-pilot, and failed to warn the pilot. But then I love conspiracy theories.
I wonder how many night flights of military copters using that route take place every year. Was this unusual or standard? Its never happened before.
I wonder how low you can go without disappearing from the ATC radar. maybe they had to be at 500 feet to be seen. Just wondering.
I don't understand on what grounds DoD should honor a family's request to withhold the responsible pilot's name. This was a person performing an offcial task under orders with government equipment. The military has a duty to be transparent about accountability. The public has a right to understand fully what happened, at its expense and to the detriment of fellow members of the public.
Obsessing is probably how Sullenberger became the guy who landed a jet on the Hudson River, without any loss of life, and without ever having done it for real before.
Why are their free-access no-cover-charge "ladies nights" in nightclubs? Supply and demand. I suppose it's a signal to direct working girls to a large group of lonely men too.
The question isn't "Can women fly helicopters?" its "why should a less qualified women be admitted over a more qualified man to helicopter school?" And why should we be worrying about how many women or POC's are helicopter pilots.
Because once you decide X percent of pilots need to be wimmen or POC's then the powers that be will - if neccessary - throw away standards and promote less qualified people. We've seen this in almost every area of the military.
Theoretically, even if women/men were equal in talent for military piloting, you would still have more qualified men than women, because the number of women who want to be pilots is less the number of men. How many girls dream of being a military pilot? I can assure you its much less than the number of boys who do. He said without evidence.
If helo evac is required after dark most VIPs will be scattered in homes. bars/restaurants and meetings/speaking events.
If you can locate them you gotta be able land in some pretty unfamiliar and unlandable places. assuming you pull that off they're probably heading for Andrews, not DCA.
One area men and women differ is in spatial ability. Women are the equal or slightly superior to men in verbal ability. But they are much less better at spatial ability. One of the key factors in being a pilot.
The USSR during WW II used Female pilots since their ideaology was that men and women were equal in everything. They found women were terrible fighter pilots, usually getting themselves killed. They could fly the plane but they couldn't manouver and keep track of enemy aircraft.
You had a few that made ace. But usually ended up dead, since their "Kills were usually a matter ignoring the risks and getting as close as possible.
As a result, they were usually assinged to transport/ bomber aircraft.
I've read on the internet the person was transgender. He said without links.
Seriously? These issues don't affect the families of the the male crew members? Clear example of the female receiving extra consideration.
"Have a little respect."
That's 'Have a little respect, you racist misogynistic pig.' This should be an uncluttered investigation into the instruments, the equipment, the safety systems, and the pilot's capabilities. But sadly, instead of getting to root causes associated with flying, we're contemplating root causes that shouldn't have been there, in the first place. The Word Wolves aren't going to respect anything more than their circulation numbers, ever. The other 67 people are still dead because of human error, maybe on the part of multiple humans, and there's grief there, too. The first thing to get rid of in a situation like this, is the politics. I've noticed when there's a hysterical reaction to what Trump says, he often ends up being right, and the hysteria is often from the people associated with the cause of the problem.
Name will come out eventually - hopefully not prematurely by leak. Inference suggests "DEI hire." Whatever the facts, they will not change. Let us honor the living (parents) not slander the dead. Curious, but willing to wait till the news cycle moves on.
I agree w/ Althouse re. Pres. initial public statements. He looked bad physically - tired - and sounded bad. Not well done.
Yes, the silent majority have realized elected officials left unattended will quite willingly trample on the 99.9% in order to assuage ridiculous demands of the 0.1%. People sense a return to stability and sanity, and are comforted - vast majority of them, anyhow.
- Zavier Onasses (Your Grace/Your Grace/Your Grace's)
What concerns me more is that flight tracks seem to show Black Hawk turned directly into path of AA pax jet when within 1000 feet and 3 seconds from impact.
Let the record reflect I speculated before seeing "Unsaid things". Granted "without evidence". But if I had the evidence, then, there would've been no need to speculate. Because everybody would have seen it, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, Say no more.
The real screw up came when the tower diverted the RJ from the main runway to an alternate. That required the RJ to hug the east bank of the Potomac, right above the helo routes through the area and force a turn across the helo route to line up for approach.
@NKP
The families of the male crewmen didn't request the names be withheld and males holding those jobs hasn't been controversialized. Ultimately, this is Trump's decision. Maybe he feels like protecting the woman's family since he brought politics into it.
I'm curious about the chief warrant officer Eads that was on the chopper. At first he was reported to be flying the chopper which would make sense. I the army most chopper pilots are warrant officers (is this still correct)
Not saying sinister. But odd.
Any army folks have thoughts?
John Henry
But there are photos of him at a wedding in Navy Crackerjack. At that time he was a PO3 (E4 =corporal) but has a good conduct ribbon with star. That means 2 hitches, at least 8 years. That is pretty long in the tooth for a E4.
He also has a bunch of other ribbons and parachute device.
I wonder if he was a special operator in the Navy.i did find that he was Navy from 2007 to 17
Then there are the official army portraits that are captioned "Chief Warrant Officer" but clearly show Staff Sgt stripes (E5)
I
"Name will come out eventually - hopefully not prematurely by leak."
Meantime, while wait, maybe we should check out "Emilia Pérez" (2024), out of an abundance of caution.
"Why throw her and her greiving family to the word wolves on the internet and drag her name through the mud when nobody knows yet what went wrong. "
Maybe it would assist in determining what went wrong if her name were known?
In any event, the American public, but most especially the grieving families of the victims, are entitled to know every single detail concerning this catastrophe, whether you like it or not. The fact that some extreme assholes might decide to "drag her name through the mud" doesn't change that. Moreover, if she's the hero that you seem to have already concluded she is (without evidence), then let's release her name and you can start building a statue of her. The rest of us want the damn facts.
Are there any maps showing the choppers route? There are a bunch of people in Bluesky saying that it stopped at a House in McClean owned by the Saudi embassy
John Henry
Big mike
Right about Hultgren. I would not say "died" though. She was killed, maybe "murdered" by die. It put her in an impossible situation. It killed her by doing that
John Henry
When a pilot turns, however slightly, does the pilot generally tilts his head and vision, into the direction of the turn? The way a driver might/would?
DCA was, indeed, closed for three weeks after 9/11, and there was debate about keeping it closed. I know all private aircraft were banned for a long time.
I live on the Potomac right in DC, and so I see and hear the VIP helicopters all the time: HMX (Marine One et al), 1st Heli (USAF), and the Army VIP unit from Belvoir. Not to mention US Park Police and various medevacs and life flights that land on the roof of a hospital near me.
The helos fly the river for several reasons. It minimizes noise so NIMBYs like me dont complain (when the life flights approach the hospital, it sounds/feels like they’re landing in my living room). It’s a nice linear navigation measure so they dont get lost. It’s an arguably good tactical choice: you can stay low and too close to missiles that have a minimum arming distance (although the tradeoff is you have a predictable route for dudes who want to ambush you with lower-tech weapons), plus you have buildings, woodlines, etc, to cover/conceal you, minimizing the number of positions from which someone can see and shoot you. Although again the drawback is that your enemy can figure out exactly where those places are and pick one, while you have to cover all of them or just roll the dice and fly fast.
Another tactical drawback of flying too close to the airport is, if the balloon has really gone up, wouldnt the bad guys also be attacking the airport? Why go near it if instead you can fly over a randomly-selected piece of DC or Arlington?
So if you want to keep the helos away from the airport, you just have to tell the NIMBYs to GFY, tell the pilots to get better at landnav, and tell the tactical wizards that tactics are like assholes: everybody’s got one, and they all stink in one way or another.
JSM
Not only will they hide it,
They will use the threat of severe punishment to prevent anyone (not in the official chain of command) from coming forward with the identity.
I’m making an assumption that the dead crew members will be honored and buried in a VA cemetery. But due to privacy concerns the pilot will forever remain anonymous.
A post on X wrongly pinned blame on a transgender National Guard pilot. She had to release a statement discounting the accusation.
https://x.com/MAGA__Patriot/status/1885361705665859598
Like I said, the investigators know who she is and everything about her. Are you going to help them figure out what went wrong if they tell you her name?
I didn't draw any conclusions in my comment about what went wrong or whose fault it was because I don't know and neither do you. I just stated the fact that she was a US soldier who was killed in the line of duty. When you see a flag-draped casket do you say, "First tell me what kind of genitals are in there?" Maybe you do.
You know what? if the pilot was trans, it would've been irresistible for Trump to break with the traditional tragedy protocols because... among other things, how his nominee was treated for one, and how they have framed their fight (against DE&I) as an existential threat facing America. Trump's eagerness betrays a subdued desire to do a victory lap, an en end zone dance. I'm prepared to wage a few buck that the pilot was trans.
The trainee needed to have full situational awareness, where she was, where she was supposed to be, what was going on in the air around her, but so was the instructor.
Who is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a training flight,
the instructor or the trainee?
Well it's not like everbody in the country has fully accepted Trump's dismantling of or "assault on" DEI. The Congressional Black Caucus complained.
Sex sells way mo better.
No gambit could have intensified scrutiny of the female pilot more effectively than the family's request for anonymity. She died in the line of service, so there is a powerful presumption that she deserves our respect and gratitude. The oddity of the request implies that the presumption is unwarranted.
if she's the hero that you seem to have already concluded she is
I made no such statement. You're projecting because you have already concluded she was a villain (without evidence).
One of the aircrew rescue swimmers who worked for me did 8 years in the Navy, then went through Army flight school as a warrant and flew Apaches. Retired from the Army, and flew as a test pilot for Bell for about 20 years
If the pilot was a real "female", how come the voices that we hear from the exchange between the traffic controller and the chopper were both male?
Unless the mission was of a sensitive nature, and the instructor was instructed not to allow the pilot to say peep? Granted, I don't know a flight training communications protocol from Adam's paper airplane. I'm just spit balling here.
"At bottom, DEI is based on the assumption that people are entitled to something,"
THIS, THIS, THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!
I've been saying this for years. It's selfishness. You are not entitled to a job you are not qualified to perform, especially when the welfare of others is at stake. There are thousands of other jobs in the world; pick one of those.
Life deals each of us a different hand. That's just the way it is.
"At bottom, DEI is based on the assumption that people are entitled to something,"
THIS, THIS, THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!
I've been saying this for years. It's selfishness. You are not entitled to a job you are not qualified to perform, especially when the welfare of others is at stake. There are thousands of other jobs in the world; pick one of those.
Life deals each of us a different hand. That's just the way it is.
While recognizing that a grieving family will want to protect themselves and their loved one, this is a massive mistake, and they should have been advised as such. If they'd just released the name, probably few people would have cared or made the link to DEI. Now it looks like they are hiding something, and there will be a Streisand effect.
This cannot stand. Sometimes the gov't must have secrets. This isn't one of them.
"Also, military aircraft do not have “black boxes.”
I watched an NTSB press conference last night in which the presenter clearly stated that this helicopter did have a black box and that they had recovered it.
If she was trans, too many people had to have been involved to keep it under wraps for long. A "first" is something that had to have approvals up and down the chain of commando.
Yep.
First, some traditionally male area gets opened up to women.
Second, an insufficient number of women enter that area, usually because they cannot meet the existing, gender-neutral physical standards.
Third, there is an outcry in Congress, the media, etc., about discrimination, the patriarchy, etc.
Fourth, the standards are revised downwards, explicitly and/or tacitly.
Fifth, there are unnecessary deaths. And often a bunch of the highest-performing men quit in disgust, leaving the organization materially weaker.
Usually the pilot at the controls would be the one talking to the controller.
"Looking at the plots of ADS-B tracks, the collision was near perpendicular."
"The key thing is that the jets lights would not be moving as seen by a helicopter on a collision course with it."
I don't see how these two things can both be true.
If the paths were perpendicular, the aircraft were both converging on the same point, 90 degrees apart as viewed from overhead and there would be apparent motion to each aircraft if they were looking at the other one. If the aircraft were converging on the same point while no motion was apparent, it would be on a path where the aircraft's routes were 180 degrees apart and there'd be a head-on collision.
What am I missing here?
This lines up with a viral Internet rumor that the “female” helo pilot was a biological male. This is an unconfirmed rumor and should be taken as such.
"What am I missing here?"
I don't think you're missing anything.
At least "without evidence" is better than their prior habit of using "falsely". Ignorant liars, they are.
I keep coming back to how hard it is to hit something going 100+mph flying perpendicular from my vector from hundreds of yards away.
It’s just about impossible.
You do know that "the Queen's Gambit" is based on a novel, and that novel is fictional, not based on any real person, right?
Why lower the standards for women to become "grandmasters"? It shouldn't be necessary, unless there are differences between men and women that go deeper than just those that can be seen with the naked eye. What are the odds that men and women would have physical attributes that support a complementary role in survival in an uncaring wilderness, and yet all mental attributes would be identical?
It's not a rhetorical question; you are the one stating that men and women are identical in all respects but the physical, how would this work?
I would speculate that, in terms of either piloting helicopters, or air traffic control, male brains may be better suited. It’s because they are, statistically, more spatially oriented. Not all women - my mother and daughter had/have degrees in mathematics (daughter also has a PhD in a higher math oriented engineering specialty). And could/can read maps just fine. But statistically, males orienteer better spatially, and females by recognizing small differences in landmarks.
I live with a woman who grew up in Las Vegas, and routinely tells me what this city feature used to be - but very often is almost off 180° in the part of town it was in. She grew up fairly far east in Henderson, and thinks that she recognizes stuff almost as far west as Summerlin. I, and many, if not most, guys can easily pinpoint our location, spatially, at least w/I a mile or two, instinctively, most of the time. I’ve given up telling her that, no, that’s impossible, and that we’re currently maybe 10 miles west northwest of there, pointing in the correct direction.
It is theorized that this difference in orienteering is a direct result of millions of years of different sex roles, with the males doing the hunting, and the females doing the gathering (sex roles that go back at least to our chimp ancestors, 7.5 million years ago).
"Without evidence" has gotten really tired. Editors should have said, "Don't wear it out" long ago.
LOL! There is literally no way we won't know the name of the helo pilot by this time next week. It might not get reported in "all the news fit to print" organizations but it will be known.
The difference is that while this was a standard, locked in, flight path for the plane - it is not used that often. I think that it is possible that some of the military pilots training by flying through there may have gotten somewhat used to that. They may be subconsciously thinking that, sure, there is a 200’ ceiling there, but it really doesn’t matter much, with airplane flights rarely using that flight path.
The NYT needs to learn the difference between absence of evidence ("without evidence') and evidence of absence.
Meritocracy maximizes competence far better than systems based on hereditary aristocracy, woke equity quotas, or cronyism/nepotism.
And competence is the chief quality missing in our current government.
There’s a classic poster that reads “Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incompacity ot neglect.”
Kara Hultgreen is a tragic example. The F-14 was a demanding aircraft to fly, and carrier landings in that plane were especially tough. Plenty of men crashed F-14s over the plane’s service history. The plane was unforgiving in an equal opportunity way.
Watched one, supposedly at speed. Plane took off at Langley (presumably the Army side of the joint base). Then proceeded at a fairly consistent speed mostly down the Potomac, until the crash. The plane, en route from Wichita, ended up coming up the Potomac before turning for the runway. My memory of flying into DCA was coming down the Potomac from the north, presumably the normal flight path.
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