Trump blames Obama and Biden’s ‘diversity push’ for fatal Washington DC crash
A total of 67 people are thought to be dead, making it the deadliest US air disaster in more than 20 years.
President Donald Trump implied without evidence that federal diversity efforts were at fault after a regional jet crashed into a US Army helicopter at a Washington airport, killing 67 people in the deadliest US air disaster in more than 20 years.
It is not yet clear why the American Airlines Bombardier, carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, collided with the Army Black Hawk helicopter as it prepared to land at Reagan Washington National Airport.
The crash sent both aircraft plunging into the freezing Potomac River. Officials said there were no survivors.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said both aircraft had been flying standard flight patterns and there had been no breakdown in communication.
Radio communications show that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter about the approaching jet and ordered it to change course.
But at a White House news conference, Trump accused his predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden of lowering hiring standards and suggested a “big push for diversity” at the Federal Aviation (FAA) may have weakened its capabilities.
The President said those with “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” had been hired as air traffic controllers.
“My administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety,” Trump told reporters after recently signing executive orders dismantling diversity initiatives in the federal government.
“I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first,” he added. “They put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen.”
The administration has not provided any proof to back these assertions.

Trump read from what he described as an FAA document stating that physical and mental disabilities would not on their own disqualify applicants from a controller’s position.
That document was released in 2013 and remained online through Trump’s initial 2017-2021 White House term, according to aides to Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg responded to Trump on X, calling his remarks despicable. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying.”
Trump also said the helicopter pilots “should have seen where they were going”. His remarks contrasted sharply with those of other officials, who said there was no immediate indication why the crash took place.
Meanwhile, staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport during the crash was described as “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” by an FAA safety report seen by The New York Times.
The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity was also thought to be instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways, despite those jobs usually being assigned to two controllers, not just one.


American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience. The Bombardier CRJ-700 jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter was flown by a “fairly experienced crew” of three soldiers who were wearing night-vision goggles on an annual proficiency training flight. Officials said they were grounding other flights from the Army unit involved in the crash and would reevaluate training exercises in the region.
Passengers on the flight included world-champion Russian figure skaters, six members of the Skating Club of Boston and family and coaches returning from a training camp in Wichita, Kansas.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said that the bodies of most of those involved in the collision had been recovered.
It was the deadliest US air disaster since November 2001, when an American Airlines jet crashed after departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.
The last major fatal crash was in 2009, when Conn Air Flight stalled and crashed on approach to Buffo, New York, killing 49 people.
Reagan National’s main runway is the busiest in the United States, with over 800 daily takeoffs and landings.
US Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said he had long been concerned about the busy airspace, where civilian and military aircraft must navigate the unique security concerns of the US capital.