Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system. In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.

Here’s the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees. Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.

Mayor Pete chose to use this amazing department—that is so critical to America’s success—as a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense. Not to mention that over 90% of the workforce under his leadership were working from home - including him. The building was empty!

When we finally get a full accounting of his mismanagement, I look forward to hearing from him.In the meantime, I will not rest until I return the Department of Transportation and its incredible employees to its mission of efficiency and safety. //

jri500
8 hours ago
For 2 years during the Idiot Biden administration, the FAA DID NOT HAVE one single training classes for new Air Traffic Controllers (ATC). In the meantime, Biden's FAA refused to hire 1,000 newly qualified ATC graduates because they were WHITE.

When training finally resumed, FAA couldn't fill training classes because they couldn't find enough woke, minority, physically or psychologically challenged (WTF???) candidates to fill them. ANYTHING BUT WHITE. FAA is currently short about four (4) thousand ATCs. Add to that, the mandatory retirement age is 54!

The tower in DC called for a full staff of 30 ATCs. They had about half that. And the night the crash happened, 1 controller was doing the job of 2. Every airport in the country is short staffed. And democRATS are trying to blame Trump? He's been in office less than a month.

Karoline Leavitt @PressSec
·
More fake news from the @AP

1. DOGE doesn’t even have a Facebook page

2. No air traffic controllers nor any professionals who perform safety critical functions were terminated

Tara Copp @TaraCopp
.@FAANews: FAA staff fired over the weekend included personnel that worked radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others. Hundreds were fired, just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision in DC killed 67. One employee said they were harassed on Facebook by @DOGE…
10:21 PM · Feb 17, 2025. //

Chuck Todd @chucktodd
·
Replying to @PressSec @GNHarben and @AP
The report never says DOGE had a facebook page nor does the report say there were air traffic controllers fired. So you are denying facts or accusations that were not reported or made.

Sister Toldjah 💙 @sistertoldjah
·
Classic "our sources told us" trick. But the report never noted that DOGE doesn't have a Facebook group, which is kinda critical information to put in a story where a source is alleging DOGE's Facebook group (which doesn't exist) targeted him. #Journalism
11:43 PM · Feb 17, 2025

Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy
Big News - Talked to the DOGE team. They are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system.

Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton
·
8h
They have no relevant experience.

Most of them aren't old enough to rent a car.

And you're going to let them mess with airline safety that's already deteriorated on your watch?

Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy
·
Madam Secretary, with all due respect, “experienced” Washington bureaucrats are the reason our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling. You need to sit this one out. ///

She quote tweeted a screenshot of his tweet and turned off replies so that nobody who replies shows up in her "mentions" and her account has the last word.

Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
·
Follow
"I don't care your race, your religion, your color, your sex, your sexual preference. I don't care about any of that. I just want the best and the brightest keeping Americans safe — and that should be the standard," says @SecDuffy.

"We're going back to our mission of SAFETY."

9:33 AM · Feb 2, 2025

"The bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the Administration to hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers. That’s what the law says, so the Administration must rescind this ridiculous executive order,” Ranking Member Larsen said. “Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the Administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision. I'm not surprised by the President’s dangerous and divisive actions, but the Administration must reverse course. Let’s get back to aviation safety and allow the FAA to do its job protecting the flying public.”

The Obama administration dropped a skill-based system for selecting and hiring air traffic controllers (ATCs), and replaced it with a new system designed to favor applicants on the basis of their race. It makes no sense. Worse yet, it is illegal and unconstitutional. The FAA purged its system of thousands of previously-qualified, ready-to-hire applicants simply because they did not fit the right biographical profile. The government endangered public safety and owes restitution for this grave injustice.

Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

...

The tower [at Reagan] was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels. The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers’ union call for 30. //

This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude. During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence. But the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous "diversity equity and inclusion" tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with "severe intellectual" disabilities in the FAA.

On my second day in office, I ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion, elevating safety and ability as the paramount standard. Yesterday's devastating accident tragically underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA.

the FAA indicated that it will grant SpaceX permission to increase the number of Starship launches in South Texas to 25 per year from the current limit of five. Additionally, the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage. //

For example, the number of large trucks that deliver water, liquid oxygen, methane, and other commodities will increase substantially. According to the FAA document, the vehicle presence will grow from an estimated 6,000 trucks a year to 23,771 trucks annually. This number could be reduced by running a water line along State Highway 4 to supply the launch site's water deluge system. //

During recent public meetings, SpaceX's general manager of Starbase, Kathy Lueders, has said the company aims to launch Starship 25 times next year from Texas. The new regulations would permit this.

Additionally, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company intends to move to a larger and more powerful version of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket about a year from now. This version, dubbed Starship 3, would double the thrust of the upper stage and increase the thrust of the booster stage from about 74 meganewtons to about 100 meganewtons. If that number seems a little abstract, another way to think about it is that Starship would have a thrust at liftoff three times as powerful as NASA's Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the Moon decades ago. The draft environmental assessment permits this as well.

Finally, the document also grants SpaceX permission to land all 25 of the first and second stages back at the Starbase facility.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to "X," the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to promise the FAA would stop interfering with private humanitarian flights into hurricane-devasted Western North Carolina:

Elon Musk @elonmusk
Oct 4, 2024
·
Replying to @SecretaryPete
Thanks for expediting approval for support flights.

Just wanted to note that Sec Buttigieg is on the ball.

Secretary Pete Buttigieg @SecretaryPete
·
Glad we could address —thanks for engaging.
7:50 PM · Oct 4, 2024 //

The FAA's effort to force civilian aircraft out of the area seems to be documented in this NOTAM dated October 1 that closes the critical part of the disaster area to all aircraft except those "UNDER THE DIRECTION OF North Carolina task force 8." [That is their spelling, not mine.]

SpaceX allegedly used an “unapproved launch control room” and “did not conduct the required T-2 hour poll” for the June 2023 Falcon 9 flight for the PSN SATRA Mission, which involved launching an Indonesian communication satellite. In July, SpaceX then allegedly used an unapproved, newly constructed “rocket propellant farm,” or a specialized facility to fuel the EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter mission. SpaceX now has 30 days to respond to the civil penalty.

The proposed fine is raising speculation that the FAA wants to get tough with SpaceX, which is also facing allegations that it violated environmental regulations with Starship rocket launches. Last month, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket also failed to stick its landing, resulting in a fiery explosion. It's unclear what caused the malfunction, but the FAA has cleared the company to continue Falcon 9 flights in the interim. //

Last week, SpaceX also blasted US government regulations for pushing back the next launch of Starship to possibly late November when the vehicle is ready to fly for its next test. “The narrative that we operate free of, or in defiance of, environmental regulation is demonstrably false,” the company said at the time.

In response, the FAA told PCMag it's conducting a more in-depth review of the next Starship flight due to changes made by SpaceX. "In addition, SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously reviewed. This requires the FAA to consult with other agencies," the agency said.

In February 2023, the FAA also fined SpaceX $175,000 for failing to submit pre-launch data to the agency for an earlier Starlink mission. SpaceX later paid the fine in October 2023.

The Terminal Procedures Search application allows searching, viewing, and downloading of the U.S. Terminal Procedure Publications (TPPs) as PDF files

While American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have used all their lobbying might to try to get the federal government to shut down competitor JSX - because JSX offers a product that consumers prefer to their own - the origin of the fight against JSX stems from the big pilot union. And it wasn't even JSX they were really concerned with. //

That triggered the Air Line Pilots Association, which fought hard to make it more expensive and take longer to become a pilot. They didn’t want an expansion of flying outside of rules meant to limit the supply of pilots.

To go after SkyWest Charter – which fully complies with current rules, but DOT has simply sat on the application for no valid reason – they had to go after JSX which is a bigger scheduled charter operation. There are others, like Contour, but they saw the space growing.

Once the union started going after Dallas-based JSX, they were able to get Dallas-based Southwest Airlines and American Airlines on board for the fight. //

Nonetheless, the FAA plans to issue regulations cracking down on part 135 carriers and then investigate whether there are actual safety issues. This is a solution in search of a problem, because no one wants to talk about the real reason lobbyists have been pushing this.

There is simply no legitimate safety concern with JSX operations.

The Federal Aviation Administration is the subject of a massive class action lawsuit alleging that since 2013, thousands of qualified applicants have been denied employment as air traffic controllers based on race. //

These programs, run in cooperation with the FAA since 1991 to train and test future air traffic controllers, were the entry point for the overwhelming majority of the ATC workforce.

In 2013, the Obama Administration ended the program to increase diversity in ATC hiring. The screening test stopped being ATC-specific coursework and became a "biographical questionnaire." Allegedly, this questionnaire was based on the personality traits of successful ATCs. But its real purpose was to increase the number of "underrepresented" demographics. As if to underscore the point, the FAA provided the correct candidates with a list of buzzwords to use on the questionnaire. Minority applicants were also coached on how to format their job applications so friendly selection board members could recognize them. //

For reasons that aren't all that clear, this racially discriminatory hiring program continued under Donald Trump, but it really hit high gear under Joe Biden. I swear I'm not making any of this up.

The Secretary of Transportation has set a hiring goal of three (3) percent per fiscal year for individuals with targeted (severe) disabilities. //

In 2023, the situation had deteriorated to the point that even the New York Times had noticed.

They were part of an alarming pattern of safety lapses and near misses in the skies and on the runways of the United States, a Times investigation found. While there have been no major U.S. plane crashes in more than a decade, potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes — a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress. //

It is difficult to see how this policy survives a legal challenge. The American Bar Association cautions that under current Supreme Court precedents, diversity hiring cuts two ways.

Diversity initiatives should not be a zero sum game. Lawful diversity initiatives should be designed to expand opportunity for underrepresented groups without also negatively impacting opportunities for those in the majority.

Q1. What kinds of batteries does the FAA allow in carry-on baggage (in the aircraft cabin)?

Q2. What kinds of batteries does the FAA allow in checked baggage (including gate-checked bags)?

The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.

The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer "severe intellectual" disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.

"Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring," the FAA’s website states. "They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism."

The initiative is part of the FAA’s "Diversity and Inclusion" hiring plan, which claims "diversity is integral to achieving FAA's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond." The FAA’s website shows the agency’s guidelines on diversity hiring were last updated on March 23, 2022. //

At what, precisely, does the FAA plan to put these people to work doing? It's safe to assume that by "severe intellectual disability," one means at best a substandard IQ, if not an outright inability to function in any organized workplace; //

The FAA - who I remind you, is responsible for ensuring safe air travel - is planning to ramp up hiring of those with "psychiatric disabilities." What kind of psychiatric disabilities? Sociopathy, I would posit, is a psychiatric disability, as is schizophrenia or "other psychotic disorders," bipolar disorder, or manic-depressive disorder. Surely the FAA isn't going to be hiring people with these kinds of disorders to do, well, anything the FAA needs done?

Has our federal government gone absolutely bonkers?

Air Traffic Plans and Publications