Appallingly slanted reporting from the Guardian -- DC plane crash

[GeneralPeter]

This article describes Trump's theory that DEI had something to do with the crash using debunking words throughout. 'Baselessly', 'without providing evidence' etc etc.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/trump-washington-dc-plane-crash-dei

The thing is, this isn't 'baseless'.

The FAA has said that the tower was understaffed. We don't know if that was relevant or has not. We do know that FAA recruitment cratered because of a (very well-evidenced) extremely crude attempt at DEI. There is a long-running class action lawsuit that is on public record and not made up. The test really did award points for saying you had more Ds than Cs at school, for saying science was your weakest subject, etc etc and they did then give the answers to candidates of a particular race before the test.

Sometimes things that sound like loonish right-wing conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true. If you think I must be a right-wing loon, please read this thread first (and many others out there -- this is all public record in court documents and not denied by the FAA).

x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1752091831095939471

You would not know any of this if you read the Guardian article. Their reporter must surely know this stuff. So it's another attempt to bury with slurs an ideologically inconvenient actual truth. We've seen this before with sex-based rights, and the Guardian should stop it.

(Obligatory: I'm not a Trump fan, think he is appalling in many respects, several of them disqualifying for the presidency. But while comment is free, facts should be sacred).

@Littoralzone Partly, but also partly pilot error at the level of the human eye, and also partly understaffing, and also partly systemic in that there should not be that level of reliance on visual separation. There should be a built in safety measure to avoid that kind of incident.

Those are all air traffic control issues. The only way this isn’t an air traffic control issue is if the pilot was on a suicide mission.

Nancy Kerrigan has given the speech that any decent US President should have given.

Also Trump: They're eating the cats, they're eating the dawgs...

You are being obtuse. Just because there have been recruitment issues does not then mean it was a reason for this crash. Maybe following an investigation that may be a finding, maybe it will be pilot error, maybe there was a radar issue. Right now you have no evidence.

Right now any speculation is exactly that, there is no evidence and it is baseless. For Trump to do it and potentially defame military personnel or ATC operators is not leadership, it is lying to score political points, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.

We’re probably getting a bit techie but with the limitations of human vision (especially at night, in busy airspace) and limitations of what the ATCer and pilots can convey by voice (especially over radio with time pressure) I think trying to get solid confirmation that the traffic the ATCr was looking at was the same traffic as the pilots were looking at, to a > 99.99999999% level of confidence,is IMHO almost impossible.

That’s why offering visual separation at night is a mugs game and a literal recipe for disaster…but the US rules allow.

@Littoralzone No, it's simply not true that those are all air traffic control issues. You don't understand what you're referring to by saying that. I don't mean to offend you but it isn't fair to ATCOs to say this.

@verysmellyjelly can you just confirm to us your expertise and qualification as an air crash investigator? Or are you a trained ATC operator?

Or are you actually just regurgitating stuff you read on Twitter and in the right wing press?

Yup — I don’t like it if it’s CNN either.

@Caplin None of my comments say that recruitment issues caused the crash. I am simply saying that it's foolish to ignore the evidence we do have at this point in order to have a pop at Trump, because even though he is crass and narcissistic and unpleasant and cruel, there is no need to sink to his level when discussing something so tragic. I personally would like journalism that is more than just a slanging match, and I don't agree that that makes me obtuse. In fact I don't quite see why you keep pretending that no evidence exists when it does.

@Caplin I haven't had a Twitter account in years and I don't read the right wing press. Not sure why you think personal attacks are the way to go.

And I am saying you don’t have any evidence, you only have speculation.

The President preempting the enquiry like this is completely unacceptable. And would be whether he is right or wrong.

I don't disagree, but I would say the onus is on him, as commander in chief, to set the tone and not muddy the waters.

f he says something that, at this moment in time, is baseless, it is the media's job to report it as baseless.

To some extent, we may well be in the situation we're in due to media's credulousness and reluctance to call things out in forthright language. As an American, I've been extremely frustrated by the New York Times, for example, skirting around the words lies and lying, when he has said something that is demonstrably or factually a lie, or the Washington Post referring to an insurrection to overthrow an election as 'an attempt at election reversal.'

Until and unless some evidence is proffered, it's baseless.

@Caplin There is evidence already published. I have no idea what you get out of insisting that there isn't. You can listen to the audio yourself if you care to do so. That constitutes partial evidence. You can watch video of the crash. Evidence is composed of many things and some is freely available early on. You can read the PPRuNE thread if you want to.

You are gratifying only yourself by repeatedly claiming there's no evidence and launching personal attacks.

And less than 24 hours after the crash when less than half the victims have even been recovered from the water

@snugsnug1 Oh, I agree insofar as I think he's a horrible president and absolutely unfit for the job, and basically screws up every time he needs to manage anything that involves the ability to show a modicum of empathy or intelligence. Believe me, despite some posters' suggestions to the contrary, I have zero inclination to support the orange monster and I think he absolutely deserves criticism for how he spoke. I know it caused even more pain to some of the young bereaved skaters, too.

For me, my frustration with the media is separate. I always expect Trump to be awful, if that makes sense.

Two different issues here. Issue one is the fault of the crash in relation to which I couldn't comment. Issue two would be the huge problems which are emerging around DEI

Exactly, @squizquiz; two separate issues, so it's a shame (though predictable) that Trump conflated them

There may or may not be a link - we simply don't know yet - but what we have got is a perfect storm for those who can't bear to see DEI questioned and hate Trump

Best to get used to it though, because I suspect there's an awful lot more of this to come

It's a false equivalency. A better comparison would be a President who went on a rant about DEI hires in mental health services after a mass shooting. EG a rant about the President's personal bugbear that wasn't actually proven cause of the accident.

@HowardTJMoon I gave an analogy. Use of analogy is not bad faith. In hindsight I should have flagged it as analogy in that specific post. I genuinely thought it was self-evident. It was an extension of an analogy we were talking about at the time. I used the conditional tense to describe how I 'would' respond to the passage I wrote, further indication that it was a hypothetical. MN board move fast and people here are smart. If I've already explained this to you once and you still aren't understanding then I think we'd better just leave it at that.

Really? The air crash investigators have already come out in less than 48 hours, having only just retrieved the black boxes, on this specific crash, and said that was part of the cause? How did we all miss this news?

if however you are referring to some other reports that do not link directly this crash, then I repeat, you have no evidence. None of us have any evidence. Only the air crash investigators have evidence.

You are speculating and attempting to link two things that may or may not be connected.

So which news outlets are doing a good job of reporting this? Which should we be reading? So far Guardian, BBC and CNN don't seem to meet with your approval.

Are you in the US?

I'm of the opinion that a full investigation should take place before people start shooting from the hip and apportioning blame, but there you go.

@Caplin If you make no effort to review the initial statement from the FAA or the evidence which is in the public domain, I can't help you. But it is nonsensical to then insist that such evidence does not exist and that I am so very terrible for alluding to it.

I think other posters can make up their own minds. Again, I would encourage anyone with an interest to read the technical and detailed thread on PPRuNe ("AA5342 Down DCA" is the title) if you want a more thoughtful and evidence based overview. I have no affiliation with the site, it's just one of many frequented by aviation professionals. I'm sure some of the others on this thread with an interest in aviation can recommend alternatives.

It should be possible to discuss a tragedy like this without resorting to personal attacks, Caplin.

Exactly