Trump Transportation Secretary Assures Public, ‘It Is Not Standard To Have Aircraft Collide – I Wanna Be Clear on That’

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy informed the public on Thursday that it is not in fact “standard” for aircraft to collide in midair over U.S. airspace.

On Wednesday night, an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport. All 67 people on the crafts involved perished.

An investigation is underway to determine the causes(s) of the collision. Still, President Donald Trump has already blamed women, racial minorities, or LGBTQ people – or some combination thereof – for the tragedy. Trump claimed in a press conference on Thursday that former President Joe Biden had stocked the federal agencies with aerospace oversight with too many non-White people.

During a press conference at Reagan National Airport, Duffy provided updates and answered questions from reporters.

“The flight path that the helicopter was on,” one reporter began. “Is that a common flight path? And is it normal for helicopters to get clearance to cut across a busy… path?”

Duffy, a former congressman and ex-Fox Business Network host, replied by assuring the public that midair collisions are not particularly commonplace:

I don’t wanna go into too much detail about the information we have from the FAA. But obviously, it is, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I wanna be clear on that.

But prior to the collision, the flight paths that were being flown from the military and from American, that was not unusual for what happens in the D.C. airspace. And as this investigation moves forward, we will be able to provide more information to you about the details of that statement.

Mere hours after the collision on Wednesday night, Trump looked to assign blame for the crash and suggested that the helicopter pilot and/or the control tower were at fault. The next morning, the president leaned into his longstanding war against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives by accusing non-Whites of being responsible.

Watch above via MSNBC.

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