If not for the one really horrible deadly crash in DC, I don't think we'd be talking about all the minor things (that, as you say, happen all the time). My emotions tell me things are getting worse but statistically I don't think that's true.
Disagree, the FAA/NTSB needed better funding in the first place. These incidents provide a highly visible focal point that is comprehensible to any average person. Everyone understands "Plane crash bad! Planes should not crash and we should do more to make them not crash." The cause doesn't matter.
Uh, yeah, so, my point was that incidents are likely not any more frequent, just more salient. And I say “likely,” because it hasn’t really been long enough to meaningfully say for certain. You’re not actually responding to anything I said.
And to be clear, that "we" is the government. This is a great example of where government is important, and pointing that out is key at a time when Trump/Musk supporters want to portray government as exclusively useless.
Agree. Doubtful as well, but increased optics are good so we know when and if a change does happen. Clearly the sharing of data by our gov’t is eroding with DOGE so we have to be vigilant.
The go-around stuff is routine. And anyone who has been near somewhere like O’Hare has noticed how busy it is (I remember once seeing a plane dive across an active runway in Philly with plane very close to landing)
to your point, there’s a pretty high background rate of oopses
while I have no doubt that Trump/Musk’s policies are increasing this rate, I think it’s usually impossible to attribute any specific near-miss to budget cuts
I see very little reason to extend this benefit of the doubt to an Administration actively working to damage air safety. If Biden had to own post-Covid inflation, these assholes need to own every mishap after January 20th.
I looked at the statistics the other day. Setting aside the DC crash (which was terrible and unusual), most of the other incidents have been smaller craft. The number of incidents for these craft seems on par with previous years. Concern is (obviously) that it's going to get worse.
Thanks for looking! There have been other major commercial airline incidents though - the Delta crash and the near miss on the runway (now forgetting where) the other day. I imagine near misses are difficult to account for.
It's definitely tricky because of things like near misses. We typically measure "accidents" by number of injuries. One problem with the Delta plane turning over is that it occurred in Canada so it's difficult to know whether you could ever attribute it to FAA.
Got it, thank you. With the Delta plane, I was thinking about potential impacts of cuts outside of ATC - activities to support inspections and things like this. I haven’t seen any reporting on this so I don’t have a good sense for whether it’s relevant.
Agreed that the inspection angle would be the most important one to look at. I just don't have a sense of whether the crash related to this particular aircraft is a result of a lack of inspection or something else.
These problems though have been building for years and probably decades with deunionization, deregulation and increasing precarity of aviation related jobs. While technology is of course, much better now, those trends started under carter!
Runway safety, at least, is tracked very closely; incidents are categorized by severity and reported on quarterly (at least in the past 😬). Check it out here:
I do too; I've been involved in safety reporting, so I know the FAA is still collecting data; whether the public ever gets to see the results again, I dunno.
DC crash, then a *really* near miss between an American Airlines plane from Boston as it was inches from touching ground in landing and another passenger jet as it took off from *that* runway. Day earlier, a very near miss at Chicago Midway, though entirely the fault of the pilot of a corporate jet.
It's interesting we have reached the point where congestion, controller capacity, and natural stuff (eg, birds) are bigger daily risks than mechanical failures - but that's been the case for a while. (But autopilot errors like the 737 Max's and Air France 447? Hm.)
One thing that would really help to divert demand would be reliable high speed rail network at least among close metros, e.g, there are multiple daily flights to Milwaukee from ohare
Did you find 2025 stats somewhere? I've been watching the FAA's site for updates (runway safety reporting), but that wouldn't show 2025 data until after the end of Q1.
If we all refuse to fly domestically until the FAA flight control organization is fully staffed, the airlines will put pressure on government to staff it because their profits will go down. They don’t give a rat’s ass about peoples’ lives, but they sure do care about profits.
Unfortunately I kind of agree with the commentators that point out, Rs would make Biden crash plane the only news for a good month. We need to punch back
Correct — the question is whether they’ll remain relatively infrequent and well-managed. I’ve heard about a region that no longer has any techs capable of repairing equipment that ATC relies on, for example. For now, though, it’s mostly a matter of increased attention on fairly common occurrences.
Though I think it is a sign and a symbol of problems that could be solved or at least made a lot better (And could certainly get way worse under trump/musk)
I would like to know what has happened to air traffic controller staffing, but I'd be asking that even if there had been no accidents. The accident at National is definitely a concern, but that seems a uniquely overburdened airport. That said, I do know people who fly into National, so...
Comments
while I have no doubt that Trump/Musk’s policies are increasing this rate, I think it’s usually impossible to attribute any specific near-miss to budget cuts
https://bsky.app/profile/peterwj.bsky.social/post/3lj3r444ig226
https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics