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).

If you're truly interested, OP, which I suspect you aren't, I highly recommend listening to the first half hour or so of the podcast of last night's Deadline White House. There is some very reasoned analysis.

@yabbadabbadoo2025 answers? Or questions?

Hi - a quick fact check would have been helpful for you. The FFA brought in a target of 3% of its entire workforce (NOT air traffic control) for DEI. This was because of the number of wheelchair users, and disabled passengers, who had bad experiences flying - so they wanted some head office and airport staff to have a direct understanding of these issues to help improve their overall systems.

Take your ableist rhetoric somewhere else. And maybe ask why you automatically agree with a convicted felon and rapist over evidence.

Oh, and here's a great pal and political ally of Trump's

https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-black-pilots-racism-accusations-1863546

@GeneralPeter

One of Trump's first actions was to fire loads of people responsible for airplane safety.

How is that decision looking to you now?

No wonder he is trying to point the finger elsewhere. As usual, hoping the mud sticks whatever the conclusion.

Absolutely this.

Do we know the ATC staff were DEI hires?
Trump blamed DEI but then said the helicopter (not FAA) didn't follow instructions.
He's an idiot. The Guardian seem to have been restrained.

It’s a sad reality that the biggest strides forward in aviation safety (and other industries too) is as a direct result of a tragedy and the implementation of recommendations that come out of the subsequent investigation.

Yes it takes months, but the NTSB and other nations equivalent investigation bureaus e.g. AAIB) are diligent and comprehensive in establishing the circumstances of the incident and the direct and indirect causes. They do not shy away from calling out ATC, airlines etc on inadequate procedures and policies- e.g. training, maintenance, performance and conduct etc and I’m sure this would extend to recruitment practices if found to be in any way relevant.

Let the investigators do their job and then the blame can be apportioned where it should sit.

I think that Trump's comments were appalling at this time, deflecting from the fact that Musk has just forced out the head of the FAA because he conflicted with Musk's business interests, very cynically motivated and typically batshit in places ("dwarfs and amputees" ffs), and the Fox News take is typically slanted and untrustworthy.

But I think the Guardian does its readers a disservice by not giving the backstory on why he said these things. It's not uncommon in the UK to get a "Trump says something mad!" story presented as if he's pulled something out of thin air, without any background on the (gossamer thin) facts or ongoing conspiracy theory that give context. The context almost never justifies his comments, but goes some way to explaining why tens of millions of Americans voted for this man and don't just dismiss him as a madman.

OP, I would have been more surprised if your thread title had been “Superb bit of investigative reporting in the Guardian”! I lost all respect for it after decades as a devoted reader, when it ditched accuracy in favour of ideology.

You're right OP. Problem is, those who are anti Trump will believe none of it, even if it was there in black and white in front of their eyes. Truth will out soon enough. And we can then see what transpires. I'm guessing the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

There is no evidence linking the law suite raised by a class of air traffic controllers about standards being lowered to the ACTUAL air traffic controllers who were on duty when the DC crash happened. At this point, we have absolutely no idea what happened.

It's fine to have theories - and behind closed doors, I would expect crash investigators to have some and be working on them. However, President Trump is not an air crash investigator, and he needs to stop telling them what outcome he wants them to find, no matter how keen he is to use this tragedy for his own political advantage.

It was baseless because he had no basis for it. It was random mostly nonsensical sniping. If he happened to be slightly right with one of his jibes, it's basically accidental.

You have no evidence that DEI caused staff shortages, they could have been ill with noro / covid / flu like huge swathes of the Uk population are at the moment.

At the moment we only have one certain fact; a passenger airliner and a helicopter collided with loss of life.

The messages from ATC, both in audio form and in transcript, seem to me, and I've spent many, many hours earwigging on the UK system, normal.

If it's true one person was controlling inbound instrument traffic (the airliner) and helicopters etc at the same time that may, or may not, be routine.

At the moment I'd stake my money on either the helicopter pilot fixing on another aircraft or losing sight in a blind spot. If not that then maybe some more complex technical failure.

The thing I'll wager will change quickly is mixing choppers in close proximity to airliners flying complex instrument approaches. That would be similar to the Korean comparator about birds.

I think, until evidence emerges that it was an ATC screw up and the officer who screwed up was not properly qualified, anything about recruitment criteria still less Diversity and Equality policies are a red herring and a distraction.

@Littlebutloud No one is being ableist. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean their opinion is ableist. And I am saying this as someone in a wheelchair myself who has had bad experiences flying in the past. Please don't try to shut down a discussion topic by labelling someone as "ist" simply because you disagree.

22nd January

Trump Guts Key Aviation Safety Committee, Fires Heads Of TSA, Coast Guard

The committee will technically continue to exist, but it won't have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-aviation-safety-tsa-coast-guard_n_67912023e4b039fc12780c73

It's not routine to control both at the same time as they sometimes use different systems.

@MsJinks

I know your hyperbole is intentional, but no of course we should not ground everything. But yes, looking at whether standards have been systematically compromised would be a good thing to do. I don't trust Trump to do it sensibly or fairly, but if the choice is between that or an administration that cannot be trusted to do it at all, I don't like my options at all. It's not conspiracy theory to say that admission standards to all sorts of things in the US have been set in part based on race for decades. That's just fact, and it's one that one side of the debate argues is a good thing (as is their right. There are many pretty good arguments for it). But you can't on one hand openly reduce standards based on race on the one hand, then act shocked! shocked! when the other political team claims that this might have resulted in lower standards.

I'm a centrist classical liberal. I'm anti-Trump. I'm massively pro-immigration (with some important caveats). I like sensible evidence-based policy debate, done by grown-up. Trump will never give me that. I'm just sad that the Guardian has (on issues where there's a progressive party line) stopped trying.

All newspaper reporting is slanted. It’s just more unusual that it’s biased towards the left.

I read it in the Guardian first thing this morning and thought it was Trump talking out of his arse (again).

There's nothing in your post OP that makes me change my mind on this.

Having said that, I do agree that the Guardian is every bit as good at spinning news stories "their way" as the much abused so-called "right-wing media".

I went down a bit of a 'DEI hire' rabbit hole last night, and watched Mr. Budd question Mr. Washington, then Sen. Ted Cruz question the same man, for Biden's nominee for FAA Administrator. Does anyone know if it's fake? I watched it in complete disbelief, and I hope someone can tell me it's not genuine.

"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)."

@GeneralPeter - no, you can't have it both ways. If the DEI recruitment policy is to blame (or even a contributing factor) it absolutely necessitates that the individual who was in charge of getting the planes down was somehow to blame (either because they weren't capable or they were understaffed). If you can't point to fault in what that person did then DEI can't be to blame. And so the claim is baseless. So again I ask, what did the person do wrong?

@GeneralPeter, posters on mumsnet are so grateful that a man has come on mumsnet to explain this to us.

🙄

That should they were given 'questions' before the interview. Thanks for pointing out @telephonelady These questions would in the past be given only in person during interview, so it was to ensure the applicants could maximise their chances by thinking about 'ideal' answers.
Pretty shocking.
London trust.