As Twitchy reported, the usual suspects jumped on social media and immediately blamed President Donald Trump and DOGE for a helicopter/airliner collision at Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people on January 29. For example, Bakari Sellers raced to post this (and then thought better and deleted it).
This post? pic.twitter.com/SM1zC4W759
— Stephe96 (@Stephe96) January 30, 2025
Remember in February when they were trying to blame DOGE's cuts at the FAA for a plane landing upside-down in Canada?
There was no freeze on hiring air traffic controllers; in fact, the administration put out a call for experienced, retired air traffic controllers to consider returning to work. Yes, about 400 probationary employees lost their jobs, but none of them had to do with air traffic control or safety measures.
After that tragic mid-air collision between the Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight, a lot of people pointed to the previous administration's focus on DEI in the FAA as a possible cause, including Trump. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy torched CNN's Jake Tapper for asking about Trump's insinuation, telling him, "Our mission since the start has been safety, and they‘ve lost that mission. We see when you don‘t focus on safety and you focus on social justice or the environment, bad things happen."
Soon after the Blackhawk incident, word spread that the pilot was a woman, which had a lot of people thinking she was a DEI hire. She'd actually logged plenty of hours in the Blackhawk, but a new report suggests her flight instructor, a man, tried to mansplain to her to turn left, which she ignored and which caused the collision.
Remember the DC helicopter crash in January that killed 64 people, including 12 children?
— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) April 27, 2025
Turns out the female pilot who was flying was given multiple warnings and was directly told by her male instructor/copilot to turn the opposite direction of the passenger jet to avoid a… pic.twitter.com/50q7O7jiHR
… a collision.
She ignored him and flew straight into it.
NEW from NYT: The female pilot of the Blackhawk which crashed into a plane kiIIing 67 people in DC, was instructed by her co-pilot to change course moments before the crash and IGNORED pic.twitter.com/oZD0nZ25m3
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 27, 2025
That face you make when you fly straight into a civilian passenger plane and killed 67 people because you’re too arrogant to listen to a man who’s giving you instructions. pic.twitter.com/Eg2cnSGsxE
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 28, 2025
The New York Post reports:
The Army Blackhawk pilot involved in the Washington, DC, plane crash failed to heed her flight instructor’s warning just 15 seconds before the deadly crash that killed 67 people, according to a new report.
Moments before the deadly Jan. 29 crash near Reagan International Airport, Capt. Rebecca Lobach missed an order from co-pilot Andrew Eaves, who was overseeing her training mission, to change course and avoid the descending American Airlines jet, the New York Times reported.
Along with the error, officials found that the pilots “stepped on” some of the air traffic controller’s instructions, meaning they accidentally cut him off when pressing the button to talk over the radio and likely missed important information.
So there's plenty of blame to go around, it seems. Some will blame Rebecca Lobach because she's a woman, but don't forget that it was a team of women astronauts who just completed a mission on Blue Origin. There was a national debate going on, including Elon Musk, just before the crash about DEI hiring on commercial airlines, which bragged of all-female crews:
Deleted but not forgotten pic.twitter.com/P71cKmvFRk
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 12, 2024
"Go off, queens!"
The @nytimes article about the January DC plane crash buries the real takeaway until the very end:
— Mr PitBull (@MrPitbull07) April 27, 2025
the female helicopter pilot ignored repeated altitude warnings from her co-pilot — even after he directly told her to turn — and flew straight into a passenger plane.
That’s it.… pic.twitter.com/gQ8bkBU1h9
And so the real question is ‘Why did she ignore the Pilot In Charge who was instructing her”?
— Skatvedt (@StanSkatvedt) April 27, 2025
Remember, it was a training flight, and she was not the Trainer, but the Trainee.
DEI has sadly done it again. It needs to be federally outlawed. Enough with this.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) April 27, 2025
DEI is great isn't it pic.twitter.com/CznKtd4vya
— Crazy Vibes (@CrazyVibes_1) April 27, 2025
She only had a few hundred hours of experience as a pilot. Black Hawk operators usually have thousands.
— The Conservative Alternative (@OldeWorldOrder) April 27, 2025
If not for DEI, this woman would still be alive.
We don't know about that, but it doesn't make us feel better about commercial airlines pledging to have half their crews be women and minorities within the next few years.
Training near a busy airport, too high, too close to the runway, and asked for "visual separation" when they clearly didn't see the traffic. This is 90% pilot error, 10% FAA error for allowing these zero separation routes at all. NTSB was shocked at the incident history.
— Tech Transplant (@TechnoTroph) April 28, 2025
There’s more to this story for sure.
— TimGrund1 MAGA American (@TimGrundman) April 28, 2025
A lot of people are wondering why the flight instructor didn't take over the controls. We still don't have black box recordings, but until then, this remains an accident and a terrible tragedy.
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