The Jambar
From 2025 to now, there have been numerous, dangerous incidents regarding airports and aircrafts. These include collisions with other aircrafts, and most recently, a crash involving a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York.
A Black Hawk helicopter hit an American Airlines passenger plane Jan. 29, 2025, and killed 64 passengers and three military crew members over the Potomac River near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. There are many reports that try to explain the reason for this crash.
Investigators found that an instrument failure caused the U.S. Army helicopter to display the altitude as 100 feet lower than what was true, according to NPR. It was also reported that human error may have been a factor, as the helicopter pilots didn’t see the aircraft before the collision.
Just over a year after the Black Hawk incident, an Air Canada passenger plane hit a fire truck that was crossing the tarmac March 23 when the fire truck responded to a questionable odor on a separate flight. The collision killed the pilot and copilot of the Air Canada flight.
One thing that both of these incidents have in common is that there was only one air traffic controller on duty at the time of both incidents. Staffing shortages may be to blame.
Prior to the Black Hawk incident, according to PBS, President Donald Trump enacted a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees, while firing 400 senior Federal Aviation Administration officials and 3,000 air traffic controllers.
Despite this, Trump increased the budget allocated to the FAA for this year’s fiscal year, with plans to hire and train around 2,500 air traffic controllers. This decision ended the first government shutdown of this year.
In an interview with The Times from March 23, Harvey Scolnick, retired FAA air traffic controller, said airports previously lacked the recommended minimum of air traffic controllers.
“Believe me, most shifts operate with a minimum number of controllers on every stinking shift, and it’s always been this way,” Scolnick said in the interview. “Every place I ever worked, they had the bare minimum of controllers — they never had the prescribed number of fully certified controllers.”
Scolnick also said the controller in the Air Canada incident was working two jobs at once — a ground controller, who is responsible for movement of aircrafts, and a tower controller, who is in charge of runways.
This should not be normal. It is important to ensure proper working conditions for those in these positions to ensure the safety of passengers and employees.
Whether or not these federal cuts had a direct contribution to the events that have occurred, it is important to remember that these decisions can mean life or death in high-stress, high-risk industries. It is imperative to ensure that these sectors are fully staffed to avoid overworked employees.