The crash between an airliner and a helicopter at Washington’s Reagan National Airport resulted in the tragic death of all 67 people. Conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher said that now is not the time to play partisan politics with a tragedy that took so many lives and left so many families grieving. I agree about the politics.
However, action needs to be taken to prevent such tragedies from occurring again. This is a case for Sean Duffy, the new Secretary of Transportation.
What we know and what we don’t know
What we know: The FAA has collected data on 30 near-miss air collisions at Reagan National Airport. NPR reports that “The [FAA] agency’s database of those reports contains 30 records of NMAC [near miss air collisions] reports at Reagan National since 1987.”
What we don’t know is whether the FAA recommended any corrective actions and whether it took action to implement those recommendations. My internet searches turned up nothing. Perhaps the FAA did take action but did not make it public.
In the recent case of the California wildfires, we know that recommendations had been made about wildfire containment, such as filling all reservoirs. We know that those recommendations were not followed, and the firefighters ran out of water in several locations. See my article: https://www.americaoutloud.news/competent-at-dei-incompetent-at-fighting-fires/.
30 Near Misses – What did they do about it?
The question is: What did the FAA do about the near misses? What changes did they make to procedures and protocols? We don’t know because the FAA has not made such changes public. But just like the California wildfires, this is a public safety issue and the public has the right to know. If we know that there is little wildfire protection in Pacific Palisades, we can protect ourselves by not traveling there during the Santa Anna winds. If we know that landings at Washington National are risky, we can protect ourselves by flying into BWI instead.
Near Misses are a Call to Action!
This is not complicated to understand. For example, if someone has a habit of running red lights in their car, they will have many near misses with other cars. The corrective action is to come to a full stop at a red light. Law enforcement should give tickets and fines to anyone caught running a red light. We don’t expect law enforcement officers to collect reports of near misses, file them, and forget them. We expect law enforcement officers to take action by enforcing the law. It saves lives.
The Law of Probability always catches up with you.
“When something like this happens, typically it’s something that’s slipped past many safeguards,” said retired air traffic controller Ron Bazman, quoted by Rachel Looker and Robin Levinson King on BBC News. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), approximately 75% of workplace accidents are preceded by at least one near-miss event.
Safety Software provider Prosapien stresses taking action: “After identifying the risks, mitigate them. The most in-depth incident investigation or root cause analysis is useless without acting on its findings. The near miss will happen again, except this time it might not be a near miss.”* (Emphasis added)
The common sense principle here is that if you do unsafe behavior enough times, it will eventually result in an accident. “But I run red lights all the time and never got into an accident yet!” someone says. Do you want to place a bet on the probability this person will eventually crash his car into another?
Compile Reports or Take Action?
Government bureaucracies like the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board do what bureaucracies do best: investigate and report, report, report. What they don’t do well is take action to prevent accidents and mistakes. In this case, we don’t know if they took precautionary actions; they haven’t told us.
While I’m no air safety expert, even I can see that routing helicopters across the busy landing pattern of a major airport is an accident waiting to happen. I shudder to recall how many times I have flown into Washington National Airport and trusted that the FAA would keep me safe.
If we have learned anything over the past four years of lies from the woke White House staffers standing in for Mr. Bidementia, it is: don’t trust anything the government says!
Your Action: Call or Mail the Secretary of Transportation
Contact Sean Duffy, our new Secretary of Transportation, to ask for action to change the standard flight patterns of helicopters in the Washington DC area to keep them away from Washington National Airport. The Department of Transportation lists no email contact, and the only phone number listed is the DOT Customer Service Center: 202-366-4000 Monday through Friday between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm Eastern Time, excluding Federal Holidays. The mailing address is:
Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation
c/o U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20590
Your action could save countless lives.
Michael McCarthy is the author of a Christian conservative thriller trilogy about resistance to big government tyranny: The Noah Option, The Rainbow Option, and The Timshel Option, which are available in bookstores and the America Out Loud Bookstore. Listen to an audio version of The Noah Option, now available on Audible.com.
Image: AP
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