American Airlines CEO Blames the ARMY for Horrifying Collision — As Transport Secretary and Trump Brand Tragedy 'Preventable'
Jan. 30 2025, Published 1:30 p.m. ET
As questions grow over the cause of the horrific midair collision outside Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C., blame for the disaster is being tossed around freely, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Officials are trying to determine why an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter crashed into each other in the deadly accident, killing 67 people. There were no survivors.
A fireball lit the sky as the plane and helicopter collided on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday evening, a packed passenger jet collided with the helicopter and plunged into the Potomac River. It was later reported that the helicopter was on an annual proficiency training flight.
New Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed in a video statement obtained: "We do know on our side who was involved. It was a fairly experienced crew, and that was doing a required annual night evaluation.
"We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the quarter at the right altitude at the time of the incident."
But American Airlines CEO Robert Isom didn't bother waiting for an investigation, when he seemed to suggest the crash was completely the fault of the helicopter pilot.
Isom didn't mince words when he said: "At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft."
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom released a statement regarding the American Airlines flight.
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said a crash could have been avoided: "It was, I would say, standard communication, so there was not a breakdown ... in communication between the military helicopter and the American airline flight.
"There was communication between the aircraft and the tower. I would say that the helicopter was aware that the plane was in the area.
"We are going to wait for all the information to come in from this vantage point, but… what I’ve seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely."
The American Airlines flight was on its way to Washington D.C. from Kansas.
President Donald Trump agreed, blasting the accident on his Truth Social platform as a "bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented."
On Thursday, the president appeared to blame so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the FAA for weakening safety.
He claimed DEI policies that push equality may have led to under-qualified workers.
Trump told reporters: "We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality and psychology. Quality is a very important element of it."
President Donald Trump blasted DEI initiatives for unqualified FAA employees.
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He then laid into his favorite punching bag, former president Joe Biden.
Trump railed: "Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite. So we don't know. But we do know that you had two planes at the same level. You had a helicopter and a plane that shouldn't have happened. And we'll see. We're going to look into that and we're going to see.
"But, certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have."
The 78-year-old doubled down, bashing diversity efforts, saying: "A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately."
Trump was asked how he could be so sure diversity played a role in the crash, without presenting any evidence. His answer to reporters was because he has "common sense."
