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).

Of course trump was wrong to say anything other than we need to await outcome of the investigation but the thread on Twitter is definitely interesting

It could be that there was an issue in the control tower to do with poor quality staff.

To say that now- particularly as the president- is irresponsible.

If it turns out to be the case, it was still irresponsible. Trump is like a stopped clock. The fact he’s occasionally right doesn’t mean he’s not dangerously wrong the majority of the time. Not Good! Everyone knows!

With all these things, Im really making an effort to actually do my own research as theres so much guff. From multiple articles including bbc, telegraph, guardian, forbes and associated press, this is my 2 cents.

Under Obama the FAA did launch a large recruitment drive for diverse employees including people with moderate and severe impairment and recruitment tests processes were changed with this. There was a lawsuit of 3k rejected applicants in 2018 and a biographical aspect of the interview was dropped at that point but diversity drive continued throughout trumps first term

FAA hires 35k people and only a fraction of those work in air traffic control. We have no figures on DEI as it relates to traffic controllers

FAA has reported understaffing levels since covid.

Recent, changes include the aviation safety advisory committee was disbanded by trumps administration on 22nd Jan and the employees got the email about redundancy/ buyout day before the crash.

Trump has also admitted we dont know the cause and said the helicopter pilot did the opposite of what they were told.

Investigation has not concluded and we should wait before further speculation.

Flying in the USA is somewhat dangerous because of ATC staffing issues. There have been several serious "near misses" and a lot of people in the industry are saying a crash of this sort was inevitable sooner or later. And if the industry isn't fixed, there will be another one. Airspace is managed in the USA in a way that relies too much on human factors.

Well yeah, blaming the FAA for hiring "diverse" employees - black, gay, Hispanic, women, etc - who then caused the crash because they're incompetent. So yes, POC are being blamed for causing the accident, and the FAA are being blamed for hiring them. White, straight men are in fact the only people capable of doing difficult responsible jobs, and they never make mistakes, right?

This is about whether the FAA screwed up its training pipeline and process for DEI reasons, leaving it with not enough staff.
The claim is not (at least, the sensible claim is not) that black or gay people can't do air traffic control. That's a straw man.

As the FAA has said the tower was under-staffed, it may be incorrect to link the two (we don't know yet), but it's not some wild conspiracy theory, just like pointing to birds after Jeju Air is not wild conspiracy theory (even though it may or may not have been causal).

No. Trump’s two hires spoke after him and may as well have just come straight out and said black oeoole. In no particular order the blame lies with:
Obama
Biden
Buttigieg
dwarves
the visually impaired
PoC
helicopters not stopping

Fair play to the journalist who asked whether he was getting ahead of the investigation and was told she was a terrible question and she was terrible.
Honestly OP, Trump himself said he had no base for the claims that DEI hiring was responsible for this so I’ve no idea what you expect the Guardian to do. Well done for doing Trump’s work and making this not about the victims but Trump’s agenda though.

I was just about to say the same as @heyhopotato All the major news channels and papers I have seen are pretty much of the same opinion, not just the Guardian. Any particular reason why you are castigating only them OP??
And it is completely inappropriate for anyone, let alone the President, to be speculating on the cause of the incident before the investigators have had time to do their job. There are any number of possible contributing factors and a thorough investigation by appropriately skilled individuals is required, not Trump making "common sense" declarations hours after it's happened. He should be doing what any half decent leader would do in such circumstances - expressing condolences to the families and urging people to remain calm and await the results of investigations, not inserting himself as the main character in other people's tragedy and using it for his own political ends. He is a revolting narcissistic individual.

It couldn't "do what it liked", helicopters have quite fixed flight routes. One possibility is that the crew, who were asked to visually confirm that they saw the jet, actually confirmed they saw a different aircraft. Because of understaffing, there was a slight but catastrophic delay in handling the approaching disaster. The physical circumstances of night time and many lights made it easier to mistake one aircraft for another, hence the visual mistake by the helicopter crew.

Those things are not unknowns. If Trump et al ever 'rant' about the known issues above I will be delighted - now they are common sense.

Trump's claims are baseless as well as inflammatory and deeply disrespectful at this time. I assume you agree?

Here is Trump himself saying his claims are based on his 'common sense', not facts

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lgxx5xvep52q

REPORTER: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately a lot of people don't

He should have just stuck to well wishes and "thoughts and prayers" to the families involved.

It does sound like absolute shoddy recruitment practices if what you have laid out is true, however it wasn't the time, place or person to be making such sweeping statements when bodies are still being retrieved. And wanted for the investigation. Then separately addressed the issues with ATC and anywhere else crucial similar practices have been carried out.

@LordEmsworth I think you've misunderstood the causal claim. Understaffing putting strain on everyone, because non-merit factors were used to disqualify otherwise qualified candidates, leading to a rupture between the training schools and the FAA (people often self-fund their training in the expectation they will get a job if they pass the tests. Change the tests arbitrarily and people won't take the risk). Not that some races can't do air traffic control. That's unhelpful strawmanning.

It seems like you don't know that the FAA recruit people for far more - and less taxing - roles than ATC.

This isn't true. Many "possible" contributing factors to a crash in theory are in fact definitely not contributing factors to this one. While obviously every detail has to be gone over, professionals in the field already have some fairly confident ideas about what is likely to have happened. Just because Trump is wrong about many things and a bad person doesn't mean he is always incorrect about everything. It is a fact that ATC was understaffed. Read the thread on PPRuNE if you want to see this being discussed by actual pilots and ATCOs.

Why are you singling out the Guardian? Using an X thread as your 'evidence'?

American poster given the use of the double hyphen. I spy an agenda.

Yes, and not just strain on everyone but potentially on the specific ATCO handling the downed plane. It seems like possibly that poor person was working an extra load.

I think Trump has handled it horribly, to be clear. But I agree with you that the Guardian reporting is irresponsible.

If it's on X,then,everything that is said must be the truth. There is no way X would have random unverified facts!

All of what you say may be true but...
no one knows right now exactly what the cause of the crash is. He cannot with any certainty say DEI is the direct cause. But he did. And that is what is dangerous about him. He talks HIS fact to suit his narrative before true fact is actually known.

Most sane people will wait for the outcome of an in depth enquiry.

I've been down this rabbit hole since last night when someone else published a link.

The DEI Focussed hiring polices are shocking. There were university courses in Air traffic control that used to provide a large cohort of the work force, their graduates were unable to get jobs because they did not tick the DEI criteria - even their black candidates were "too good".

You are right, it's another of those "can't possibly be true" - WTF 🤬 - instances of the consequences of ideologically driven hiring.

I've just skimmed the very long X post. It's from a year ago, so not a response to this accident. It's about a court case, and the full court documents are attached as a link. There are screenshots of the documents. The poster has researched this meticulously. It's legit and damning.

I detest Trump. There's no evidence at this point that ATC were at fault here. However, it's clear that there has indeed been an incredibly ridiculous selection policy that disadvantages the most qualified and able candidates. The poster has posted some of the selection questions so you can try it yourself. I believe you can view individual posts if you don't have X, it just opens the post as a browser page.

Surely you would agree that the first press conference after the tragedy should concentrate on the victims and their families? He is psychologically incapable of being presidential. He has no empathy so cannot ever put himself in anyone else's shoes.

His claims are baseless i.e. without evidence, at this point. His claims may have some merit further down the line when a proper investigation has been carried out but to state them as absolute fact during the first press conference is an awful and unpresidential thing to do.

All of this is true, but it doesn't mean the Guardian is correct to report about it in the way OP is describing. Because in doing so they are presenting a narrative that is almost as misleading as Trump's - maybe even more so! Trump may well end up being right at least insofar as ATC is at the root of it (not necessarily DEI in any direct sense). But the Guardian's "Trump must always be 100% wrong about everything!" filter skews the picture they are transmitting. Trump doesn't care about fairness or the truth: we know this, but the press is supposed to, a bit.

Trump has very very good spin doctors! I honestly believe he said all this shit to distract from R K’s absolute battering from Bennet yesterday - if you want to see real gold find those clips on X!

but now we are all focused on his vile actions and his rants about dwarfs (ugh) and mental people!

well played his team ( well played Satan!)

It's not a question of ATC being at fault; in fact the evidence so far suggests they are not at fault at all. They did everything right. It's the American airspace management that is the issue. That includes the understaffing and also the regulations in place. The actual ATCO who was working is not at fault as far as anyone knows.