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U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 2025 Republican Issues Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami on January 27, 2025 in Doral, Florida. The three-day planning session was expected to lay out Trump's ambitious legislative agenda. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) / Emergency response teams including Washington, DC Fire and EMS, DC Police and others, asses airplane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport on January 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. An American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas collided with a helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Photos by Joe Raedle/ Andrew Harnick /Getty Images

‘NOT GOOD!!!’: Donald Trump learns in real time why federal aviation safety is important as news of horrific mid-air collision sinks in

A sneak preview of the next four years as the federal government is slashed to ribbons.

All kinds of horrors are washing up on the banks of the Potomac this morning after a devastating mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington DC. At around 21:00 ET an American Airlines flight had a mid-air collision with a Black Hawk military helicopter, with each craft bursting into flame and plummeting into the Potomac River. There are not expected to be any survivors.

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American Airlines flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ701ER airliner, was arriving from Wichita, Kansas with 60 passengers and four crew members, and the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter of the U.S. Army that collided with it had three crew on board. As of writing 19 bodies have already been recovered from the water, and more deaths are expected to be confirmed as the debris is retrieved.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1884831965016109182

The cause of the collision is unknown, but since 2023 the Washington airport saw several near misses. Plans were already in place to install new tech to warn air traffic control of potential collisions and a hiring spree was underway to lighten the workload on fatigued federal staff working extended shifts.

At times of national disaster and tragedy a nation looks to its leader for answers, inspiration, and guidance. But, well, we have Donald Trump, so what we’re getting is his usual incoherent blather. Over on Truth Social Trump was less concerned with mourning the lives lost and instead decided to play armchair helicopter pilot:

Donald Trump Truth Social post
Image via Truth Social

Thanks, Don — the world can sleep a little better tonight knowing that if you were behind the controls of the Black Hawk the collision would definitely have been averted. If only the pilot had known that the craft could “go up or down, or turn.” In a way, the real tragedy is that your apparent expertise in piloting military helicopters isn’t used more often. But hey, at least we’re in agreement about one thing, this really is “a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.”

So, whose job is that? Oh right, the people targeted by Trump with an executive order freezing the hiring of new air traffic controllers. Awkward.

https://twitter.com/MrMrk84/status/1884808730895650886

Let’s be clear here. Trump has been back in office for mere days and it’s not reasonable to blame him directly for this accident, which is likely the consequence of years of funding cutbacks, fatigue, and just plain bad luck. But, with Trump and Elon Musk’s plan to strip the federal government back to a skeleton, this is the kind of news you should expect to wake up to more often.

The Trump administration’s plans to drastically scale back federal services will mean fewer people working longer shifts monitoring airspace, raising your chances of pointlessly dying in an accident just like this one. Rinse and repeat for bridge collapses, dam failures, tunnel collapses, and any other major infrastructure under the federal government’s purview.

So yes, Mr. President, “NOT GOOD!!!” indeed. Perhaps a fiery explosion on your doorstep that seems to be a consequence of overstretched and exhausted federal workers might be a little wake-up call that taking an axe to the safety apparatus designed to prevent stuff like this happening isn’t a great idea.


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Image of David James
David James
I'm a writer/editor who's been at the site since 2015. Love writing about video games and will crawl over broken glass to write about anything related to Hideo Kojima. But am happy to write about anything and everything, so long as it's interesting!