‘Disgraceful’: Elon Musk’s petty spite is why the FAA had no leader to deal with the horrific DC crash

The Jan. 30 DC crash, in which a Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines commercial flight near Washington’s Ronald Reagan Airport, is one of the worst aviation disasters in years. 67 people are confirmed to have died, making this the deadliest crash since Nov. 2001.

An investigation is now underway to determine the exact cause of the crash, with black boxes and flight recorders retrieved from the icy Potomac River. However, the crucial first hours of the investigation and its immediate aftermath were much trickier than usual. Why? Because Elon Musk forced the head of the Federal Aviation Authority to resign immediately after Trump assumed power.

This was Michael Whitaker, who had been in the position for a year and personally infuriated Musk by fining SpaceX $633,009.00 for rocket launches that broke FAA rules. These consisted of a $350,000 fine for a launch in June 2023 with an unapproved control room and no T-2 hour readiness for launch poll, and a $283,009.00 fine in July 2023 for using an unauthorized rocket propellant farm.

Musk promptly threw a temper tantrum, taking to X to cry that the FAA is ensuring that “humanity will forever be confined to Earth,” accusing the FAA of “regulatory overreach,” promising legal retribution, and calling for Whitaker’s resignation. Whitaker’s position — as far as we can tell — is merely ensuring SpaceX operates at “the highest level of safety,” which is kind of what we want when ketamine-addled billionaires are launching metal tubes full of highly explosive liquids over our heads. Anyway, Musk getting his hands on the levers of power meant that nobody was in charge of the FAA when the crash took place, and he began scrambling for someone else to blame:

Soon afterward the newly-confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was quizzed by reporters on what was going on at the FAA. Sensing there’s no answer to that question that makes him, Trump, or Musk look good, Duffy beat a silent, hasty retreat:

Trump’s team went into panic mode, parachuting 20-year FAA vet Chris Rocheleau into an acting position overnight. Rocheleau will remain in the position until Trump (or, to be more precise, Musk) decides on someone suitably spineless who’ll let him chuck whatever dangerous trash he likes into orbit.

While we can’t directly blame the Trump administration for this disaster, it underlines that federal employees are not lazy blobs sitting behind their desks sipping coffee, twiddling their thumbs, and collecting a paycheck. They are responsible for maintaining the machinery that makes society possible: everything from aviation safety to disease control to road maintenance to social security.

Bribing them to resign or simply firing them en masse won’t send the country screeching to a halt overnight, but most Americans will slowly notice their lives are getting imperceptibly worse in a myriad of tiny ways. And, on occasion, a small number of people will find their lives rapidly getting worse in a big and dramatic way, like the poor passengers aboard that American Airlines flight.

Feeling gloomy? I don’t blame you. But remember that in pretty much every society in which power ends up concentrated in the hands of a few elite idiots, actual consequences tend to arrive when important things stop working. Tragically, a lot of people have to die along the way for the message to sink in, but history teaches us that even the most broken countries can eventually recover being smashed to bits.