Photo by NTSB Gov. Public Domain
Another faction of our air travel safety system that Trump should consider cleaning out is not only the DEI-crippled air traffic controllers, but the investigators of crashes. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) asserts exclusive authority over analyzing such crashes in the United States, but this federal agency, like others, is saturated in liberal bureaucracy. The NTSB’s initial statements after the mid-air crash in D.C. between a military Blackhawk and a commercial craft seemed to avoid holding anyone accountable, despite the deaths of all 67 people involved. No collision of this magnitude should happen today, and any suggestion that no one was severely at fault ought to be grounds for firing the investigators.
An air traffic control expert, Michael Pearson, revealed that air traffic control in the recent D.C. crash made numerous errors, including failure to alert both aircraft to danger and give timely safety advisories, as well as improper routing to begin with. But the air traffic controllers’ association, which functions like a union in impeding the ability to fire workers, has immunized the federal employees against being fired by adopting the Air Traffic Safety Action Program. Under this policy “employees are promised that no punitive or disciplinary actions will be taken as a result of reporting errors that could impact safety, provided those errors are not the result of gross negligence or illegal activity.”
The NTSB is already protecting its fellow federal government workers. They speculated that the altitude meter in the helicopter may have somehow malfunctioned, and that a belated warning was “stepped on” by an interruption and hence may not have been heard. But air traffic controllers should ensure their messages are timely heard and acted upon, or else take immediate action to warn others as the DC controllers failed to do.
The NTSB is happy to point fingers and cover for other agencies, but they, as the investigative crew, must be reined in and put in check just like the rest of our bloated bureaucracies. No more scooting along with minimal work.
This post originally appeared at https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/liberalism-and-conservatism/air-traffic-safety-investigators-bear-some-blame/
Phyllis Schlafly 