> Air traffic controllers were emailed by the Trump administration urging them to quit their jobs and take mass “buyouts” just 24 hours after the D.C. plane crash. They were among hundreds of thousands of federal workers sent the email at 8.30 p.m. Thursday to push the extraordinary offer by Trump’s aides to get civil servants to quit en masse. The email dropped almost exactly 24 hours after an Army helicopter crashed into an American Airlines jet as it came into land at Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people. Just one air traffic controller was doing the work of two controllers at the time, early reports have suggested.
FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities [OIG Report AV2023035] - https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/FAA%20Controller... - June 21, 2023
Airline Close Calls Happen Far More Often Than Previously Known - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl... | https://archive.today/5qabt - August 21, 2023
Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont... | https://archive.today/h4gjo - December 2, 2023
The ATC labor force was already stretched thin before this. Tired, overworked humans make mistakes. There is no slack in the system, and it's being pushed further towards failure. Safe travels.
This being sent out to all ATC controllers means that you added an extra, unnecessary amount of uncertainty into their lives and that will directly translate to their work.
Looking this stuff up, apparently it's now being reported that Musk has taken over the Office of Personnel Management and General Services Administration.
Just go ahead and tell us how you think that affects people's cognitive load, especially in a job that already is stressful and overworked? See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-cont...
The FAA seems to disagree.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/business/air-traffic-cont...
> Staffing Was ‘Not Normal’ at Reagan Airport Tower, According to F.A.A. Report
> The report, reviewed by The New York Times, said that one controller was communicating with both helicopters and planes. Those jobs are typically assigned to two people, not one.
Here’s a write up from 2023 for example, they’re all over the internet from the last decade:
https://www.kreindler.com/articles/understaffed-and-undertra...
One article cited it’s been a concern since Bush was in office.
If the head of a company gets pushed out because the richest man in the world has a vendetta against that company (in this case the FAA was trying to fine SpaceX and upset Musk) that can cause strife within in the company, especially when that same person writes an email (fork in the road is language Musk used in very similar emails he's sent in the past) telling you that you should quit.
What does that have to do with anything? My boss takes vacations too, but if my team didn’t have a manager we would surely be worse off.
> These plane crashes are totally unrelated to politics or staffing.
Please provide a citation for this claim.
I'll revise my earlier statement. It has nothing to do with the staffing of the agency's head. Yes, if there were not enough traffic controllers, that's indeed a staffing problem. But if the former head of the agency let that go on, putting air safety at risk, then he deserved to be fired.
If anything, this incident has been predicted and warned for years and years and years, and is an indictment of FAA and ATC policy over the last couple decades, accelerating over the last 2-8 years or so.
The reason we can assume there’s no connection between the new administration and this incident is… because there’s no reason to make that assumption, based on the reality of ATC policy, (lack of) changes in the problem domain, and longstanding known risks in the status quo.
