President Donald Trump held a press briefing at the White House on Thursday morning to address the tragic aviation disaster that took place over the Potomac River near the Reagan Airport this week.
When he entered the briefing room, he asked the press to observe a moment of silence to honor over 60 souls who perished in the collision between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. military Black Hawk.
“I speak to you this morning in an hour of anguish for our nation,” the president said.
He called the incident a “real tragedy” and sadly confirmed that there are no survivors.
“This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital and our nation’s history,” he stated. “As one nation we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly.”
The president reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to assist the families of those who have lost loved ones in this terrible accident. “Their journey ended not in the cold waters of the Potomac but in the warm embrace of a loving God,” Trump said.
He said there would be a rapid systematic investigation into “how this disaster occurred” and promised to “work tirelessly” to deliver answers on how such an accident could take place.
The president also spent a significant amount of time criticizing prior DEI hiring protocols within the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and seemed to suggest that there may have been a deficiency in such Biden-era hiring processes that could have contributed to this tragedy.
However, no official cause for this incident has been released at this time.
“We’ll restore faith in American air travel,” Trump vowed.
He emphasized that it was important to only have the “smartest people” who possessed both intellect and talent working in aviation.
The president additionally offered some more information on the incident. He said the weather was clear and pilots’ vision should have been unobstructed when the incident occurred.
“What you did have, is you had vision,” he said. “…For some reason, there weren’t adjustments made. Again, you could have slowed down the helicopter substantially.”
He added, “It just seems to me…some really bad things happened.”
The president further said that they didn’t know for sure if the accident was the fault of an air traffic controller, but again emphasized that there was plenty of “vision” for the control tower to have anticipated the Black Hawk and the passenger jet’s collision course.
“This is a tragedy that should not have happened,” Trump said.
Vice President J.D. Vance also took the podium to offer comments.
“Something the president said that I think bears re-emphasizing, which is that when you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring it means on one hand that you’re not getting the best people in government, but on the other hand, puts stresses on the people who are already there,” he said.
Later, President Trump fielded a few questions from members of the press. One reporter asked him if the crash was indeed the direct result of DEI hiring standards and whether there was any evidence of that.
“It just could have been,” Trump replied.
He noted how important it was for the FAA to hire highly intelligent people to work in aviation.
“Certainly, for an air traffic controller we want the brightest, the sharpest, [and] the smartest,” he said.
