Ten days - "Special security"

Ten days is a very long time for a major airport to be closed.  WTF is going on?

UPDATE 08:36 am:

WTF?  Was it a typo meant to read 10 hours?  Was somebody being blackmailed or extorted by Trump and they caved?

From the AP:

I still think blackmail or extortion makes more sense.

UPDATE 09:03 am:  From an El Paso City Council Representative...

The FAA is said to have been worried about DOD (DOW?) counter-drone testing.  A high energy laser that could be used against drones was to be tested at a military base (Fort Bliss) near the airport.  I'm vaguely recalling an incident where some government agency was testing some weaponry near a parade??? So, yeah, I can see why the FAA would be concerned about high energy lasers being tested in the airspace over an airport.  JFC.  Pete Hegseth at his best.

UPDATE 09:19 am: Speaking of lack of communication...

LOL.  Bullshit.  These people are great with the off-the-cuff bullshit.

Well

 

I can't decide which question to ask first:

Fix it by firing FAA personnel?  or  When?

Another military jet dumped at sea

 

Another F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier has been lost in the Red Sea, the second jet lost from the carrier in just over a week.

[...]

It is not entirely clear what happened yet, as the investigation is ongoing, but two of the people said there was some kind of arrestment failure as the jet was trying to land on the carrier and the pilot and weapons systems officer had to eject. They were recovered by a rescue helicopter and are both alive, but they suffered minor injuries.

[...]

The jet crashed into the sea and has not been recovered.

[...]

Separately, the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group “took a shot” at the Truman on Tuesday, four of the people said, despite President Donald Trump announcing an apparent ceasefire with the group hours earlier. It is not clear whether the two incidents are related.

[...]

The loss of the fighter jet comes one week after another F/A-18 jet fell overboard the Truman. That time, initial reports indicated that the Truman made a hard turn to evade Houthi fire, which contributed to the fighter jet falling overboard.

An individual F/A-18 fighter jet costs more than $60 million, according to the Navy.

  CNN

And...

Is everybody getting high?  Are we getting careless?

Or maybe everyone is too stressed by Trump 2.0.

UPDATE 05/07/2025:  I know that plane incident had nothing to do with air traffic control.  Nevertheless, this doesn't look like a great idea...

Somewhat, or radically, corrupt?

 

Again, it's never been about efficiency or saving government money.  It's always been about robbing the treasury to enrich Trump and Elon.

And, in related news...DOGE is claiming savings they didn't instigate.

UPDATE 03/03/2025:

Will Verizon sue or bend the knee?

Pete just asking questions

 

One man to rule them all.  Elon Musk, Lord of the Rings.

UPDATE 03:54 pm:

Somehow, this is undoubtedly the fault of Biden and DEI.

UPDATE 04:06 pm:  A much more likely assessment...

Trump 2.0 - destroying air safety

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that beginning this weekend, the San Carlos Airport, which lies along the final approach to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), will no longer have anyone manning its control tower. The resignations came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reassigned controllers' contracts to a firm that pays less.

Airport manager Gretchen Kelly said "understandably, all current controllers have declined [the firm's new] offers."

[...]

San Carlos Flight Center owner Alessandro Franco said air traffic control at the airport is "hugely important" due to its proximity to SFO and its typically busy airspace. Aircraft approaching the San Carlos Airport alternates between communicating with air traffic controllers at San Carlos and those at SFO. Now, he's worried the resignation of controllers will mean there is "another layer of safety that’s not going to be present."

  MSN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The air crash over the Potomac

Greg Sargent spoke to Juliette Kayyem, former DHS official who looks at conditions that might have led to the crash that had trump "[seething] with anger at reporters who dared to ask tough questions about his claims." (Greg Sargent)

Sargent: This jet had 64 people on board and crashed into the Potomac River after colliding with a military helicopter at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday night. The helicopter appeared to be on a training flight.

[...]

Kayyem: The why is still being reviewed; obviously it’s just been a few hours. On the basic facts, American Airlines regional plane collided with an Army helicopter. Conditions were clear, as we know. The passenger jet from Wichita, Kansas, was just about to arrive at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, one in a succession of airliners landing about two minutes apart, and that’s not abnormal for national airport. The Black Hawk was on a very typical training mission from Virginia’s Fort Belvoir. And we had been told, and I think the basic census, both of them were on standard flight patterns, well known for the D.C. area. [...] That’s why the investigation has to determine what, in fact, happened.

[...]

There’s only three places where the error could have occurred, especially since we know that the circumstances were pretty normal: the pilot of the airplane, the pilot of the helicopter where there’s a lot of focus on what was going on, or something happened in the air traffic control room.

We have audio of the air traffic control room. It does not appear that someone wasn’t.... The helicopter pilot was notified of a visual concern. In other words, he needed visual on an airplane. He says he has it. We don’t know if he’s looking at the right plane. So in terms of miscommunication, the air traffic controller could have been more specific about which plane, or the helicopter pilot misunderstood it. Now that has nothing to do with any of the hirings that the FAA was looking at because in particular, all three of those positions—only three people who were in charge of that time—have to go through a training and standards process that are not diversity based.

[...]

The unsophisticated nature of how [Trump] deals with complexity is while most of us in the field are looking at this saying, We have a normal thing. Lots of traffic, that’s normal. Weather was normal. No suspicion of anything weird. And then a tragedy. What’s the why?, Donald Trump thinks he can answer that with his right-wing infused media consumption. He tries to fill the airwaves at a press conference that, while nothing should shock me now, I think I had forgotten how bad he is in this particular role of crisis management. [...] If you just go back to the Covid press conferences, this felt very similar to that: just a bunch of BS and then anger when those lies are confronted.

Sargent: So Trump immediately goes out there at a time when we really just don’t know a whole lot and blames Democrats and DEI for the crash.

[...]

He lumps himself in with a superior species of some amorphous type that who the hell knows exactly what he means, but I do think that there’s a deep racial component to it on some level. He’s also asked at one point what evidence he has that DEI hires were to blame, and he said, “Just could have been.” Really sloppy shit.

[...]

What actually happened over the last few administrations with the FAA?

Continue reading.  Or listen to it on Sargent's Daily Blast podcast episode.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 08:32 am:

Hmmm.  Give me a second.

Trump is insane.  What else is new, Chris?   Also, surely  Biden and DEI are still somehow responsible for the helicopter flying too high.  

Yes.

UPDATE 08:48 pm:

UPDATE 02/09/2025:

[I]t turns out that the program to offer FAA careers to people with disabilities—the program Trump specifically decried yesterday—was a Trump administration initiative from 2019.

  Bulwark

Ditch Mitch

“We have a growing concern for the safety and security of our members, our airlines, and the traveling public due to the government shutdown. This is already the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States and there is no end in sight. In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented.

“Due to the shutdown, air traffic controllers, transportation security officers, safety inspectors, air marshals, federal law enforcement officers, FBI agents, and many other critical workers have been working without pay for over a month. Staffing in our air traffic control facilities is already at a 30-year low and controllers are only able to maintain the system’s efficiency and capacity by working overtime, including 10-hour days and 6-day workweeks at many of our nation’s busiest facilities. Due to the shutdown, the FAA has frozen hiring and shuttered its training academy, so there is no plan in effect to fill the FAA’s critical staffing need. [...] There are no options to keep these professionals at work without a paycheck when they can no longer afford to support their families. When they elect to retire, the National Airspace System (NAS) will be crippled.

“The situation is changing at a rapid pace. Major airports are already seeing security checkpoint closures, with many more potentially to follow. Safety inspectors and federal cyber security staff are not back on the job at pre-shutdown levels, and those not on furlough are working without pay. Last Saturday, TSA management announced that a growing number of officers cannot come to work due to the financial toll of the shutdown. In addition, we are not confident that system-wide analyses of safety reporting data, which is used to identify and implement corrective actions in order to reduce risks and prevent accidents is 100 percent operational due to reduced FAA resources.

“As union leaders, we find it unconscionable that aviation professionals are being asked to work without pay and in an air safety environment that is deteriorating by the day. To avoid disruption to our aviation system, we urge Congress and the White House to take all necessary steps to end this shutdown immediately. “

  AFACWA

Ditch Mitch and ground Air Force 1.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 2/22:  Ditch Mitch Fund