Investigators on Thursday recovered the black boxes from a passenger plane that collided midair with a military helicopter over Washington’s Potomac River, killing all 67 people, as rescuers pulled bodies from the freezing water.
US President Donald Trump launched a political attack blaming diversity and inclusion policies championed by his Democratic predecessors for causing the incident.
Trump’s politicization of the tragedy came as the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary that collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter late on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation,” the agency said in a statement.
A New York Times report said that staffing was thin in the control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where the airliner was about to land when the collision occurred.
One controller, rather than the usual two, was handling both plane and helicopter traffic, the Times quoted a preliminary US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report as saying.
A fireball erupted in the night sky and both aircraft tumbled into the icy Potomac, leaving rescue crews to search for victims in the dark and cold.
As of Thursday evening, 40 bodies had been recovered, US media reports said.
The passenger plane was carrying 64 people and the Black Hawk had three aboard.
Trump, who took office 10 days ago, turned a news conference on the disaster into a platform for his crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — a series of often decades-old measures meant to combat racism and sexism across the nation.
Accusing his Democratic predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama of having kept good employees out of the aviation agency in pursuit of DEI, he said: “They actually came out with a directive: ‘too white.’ And we want the people that are competent.”
Trump aimed criticism directly at Biden’s openly gay transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity,” Trump said.
The message was hammered home, as US Vice President J.D. Vance and new US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took turns at the podium to repeat — without evidence — the hard-right theory that diversity measures keep capable Americans out of responsible jobs.
Asked again by reporters whether he was blaming workplace diversity for the crash, Trump answered: “It could have been.”
Buttigieg responded on X, calling Trump “despicable.”
“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he said.
US Senator Chris Murphy posted that Trump’s comments “blaming the FAA’s hiring of women and black people for the crash — was disgusting.”
“He’s in charge. This happened on his watch,” Murphy said.
Trump later issued an official memo directing the government to investigate “deterioration in hiring standards” under Biden and “replacement” of anyone unqualified.
Among those on the airliner were several US skaters and coaches, US Figure Skating said. Officials in Moscow also confirmed the presence of Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world pairs title.
Two Chinese citizens were also among the victims of the crash, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Chinese embassy.
A Filipino police officer was also on board, Philippine police said.
The force of the collision made it clear early on that survivors were unlikely.
“I just saw a fireball and it was gone,” one air traffic controller was heard telling a colleague after communication with the helicopter was cut.
Transport officials said both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.
Hegseth said the chopper had “a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS