What is the role of air traffic control at US airports?

(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump criticized aerial postulation controllers for not decently directing the subject Black Hawk chopper that collided with an American Airlines rider jet carrying 64 passengers and crew.

Trump questioned the aerial postulation power operation in a Truth Social post, asking wherefore it did not archer the chopper what to bash alternatively of asking if the aviator saw the plane. “This is simply a atrocious concern that looks similar it should person been prevented,” Trump wrote. “NOT GOOD!!!”

In a quality league Thursday, Trump said, "We bash not cognize what led to this crash, but we person immoderate precise beardown opinions and ideas." Trump said his medication would guarantee "nothing similar this happens again."

Trump told reporters that the space of the chopper was "unbelievably bad" erstwhile the aerial postulation controller began telling the aviator what to do. Trump besides formed blasted connected the chopper pilot, claiming the aviator did the other of what helium was told.

"For immoderate reason, determination weren't adjustments made," Trump said.

The relation of aerial postulation control

According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, aerial postulation controllers guarantee the information of astir 2 cardinal passengers per time and astir 1 cardinal per year. The industry’s workforce includes astir 4,000 trained employees.

Tower controllers are based successful solid towers astatine the nation’s airports and negociate aerial postulation astatine a scope of 3 to 30 miles astir the airport. Tower controllers supply pilots with taxiing and takeoff instructions, aerial postulation clearance and different instructions based connected their observations and experience, the relation said connected its website.

FILE - In this Friday Jan. 25, 2019, record photograph is the aerial postulation power operation astatine LaGuardia Airport successful New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

The controllers are tasked with providing separation betwixt landing and section craft and transferring power of craft to the en-route halfway controllers.

Employees astatine terminal radar attack power facilities enactment successful radar rooms that are located successful the airdrome towers, the relation said. These workers are besides liable for the harmless separation of departing aircraft, landing and craft maneuvering successful the airdrome environment.

NewsNation reached retired to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association for remark Thursday, but an email was not instantly returned.

Trump's enforcement bid connected hiring freezes

Almost instantly aft taking office, Trump signed an enforcement order that sparked the freezing of national civilian employees into positions that were presently open.

The bid stated that the frost affects each enforcement departments and agencies careless of their sources of operational oregon programmatic funding. A time later, the White House said that hiring wrong the Federal Aviation Administration had betrayed the agency's ngo "by elevating unsafe favoritism implicit excellence."

The House Committee connected Transportation and Infrastructure issued a connection after, saying Trump had frozen the hiring of aerial postulation controllers on with different safety-critical positions.

President Donald Trump speaks astatine a Hurricane Helene betterment briefing successful a hangar astatine the Asheville Regional Airport successful Fletcher, North Carolina, connected Jan. 24. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

In the statement, the committee, led by its ranking member, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said that the bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directed the medication to prosecute the maximum fig of aerial postulation controllers. He said that Trump's hiring frost enactment aerial travelers astatine risk.

“Hiring aerial postulation controllers is the fig 1 information contented according to the full aviation industry," Larsen said successful the statement. "Instead of moving to amended aviation information and little costs for hardworking American families, the (Trump) Administration is choosing to dispersed bogus DEI claims to warrant this decision.

"I'm not amazed by the President’s unsafe and divisive actions, but the Administration indispensable reverse course. Let’s get backmost to aviation information and let the FAA to bash its occupation protecting the flying public.”

Trump said Thursday that his enforcement bid restored the "very highest standards" of aerial postulation standards.

"We person to person our smartest people," Trump told reporters. "It doesn't substance what they look like, however they speak, who they are. It matters intellect, talent. They person to beryllium people talented geniuses."

Air postulation power occupation shortages

In 2023, past Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told NewsNation that 1 of the biggest issues facing the aviation manufacture was a deficiency of aerial postulation controllers.

“We bash spot a interest successful presumption of the availability of capable aerial postulation power staffers, that you person backups if idiosyncratic calls successful sick oregon if there’s a batch of unit connected a peculiar portion oregon tower. And successful immoderate areas, we’re not astatine the staffing levels that I privation america to see,” Buttigieg said successful the interview.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks earlier President Joe Biden during a sojourn to the U.A. Local 190 Training Center successful Ann Arbor, Mich., Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

On Thursday, Buttigieg criticized Trump's effect to the crash, writing connected X "Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should beryllium leading, not lying. We enactment information first, drove down adjacent calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercialized hose clang fatalities retired of millions of flights connected our watch.

He continued: "President Trump present oversees the subject and the FAA. One of his archetypal acts was to occurrence and suspend immoderate of the cardinal unit who helped support our skies safe. Time for the President to amusement existent enactment and explicate what helium volition bash to forestall this from happening again."

In the 2023, interview, the erstwhile proscription caput told NewsNation that helium hoped to spot much aerial postulation controllers successful place.

"I'd similar to spot america person astir 3,000 much (air postulation control) than we person close now,” Buttigieg said successful 2023. “Just to beryllium clear, that doesn’t mean determination are bare seats successful a tower. But, what it does mean is you don’t person the benignant of buffer, the benignant of redundancy, that you privation to.”

Did the airport’s determination matter?

Because of the airport’s proximity to the White House and U.S. Capitol, the magnitude of restricted airspace astir Reagan International Airport is overmuch higher than successful different cities, the BBC reported.

Aviation advisor Phillip Butterworth-Hayes told the BBC that aerial postulation involving some commercialized airliners and subject craft makes managing the aerial abstraction much complex. Butterworth-Hayes called the country “the astir secure” airspace successful the satellite and said that it should beryllium the safest considering the fig of information and civilian information organizations moving there, the BBC reported.

“You are astatine the borderline of 3 oregon 4 aviation systems here,” helium said. “And it’s astatine those borders wherever astir accidents thin to happen.”

What aerial postulation controllers saw

According to audio recordings of aerial postulation power conversations that took place, 1 aerial postulation controller asked the chopper if it had the rider pitchy successful its show little than 30 seconds earlier the collision took place. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told reporters Thursday that the chopper aviator was astatine fault, asking wherefore the craft had travel into the way of the jet.

Moments aft aerial postulation power asked the chopper if it had the level successful sight, it instructed the chopper to “pass behind” the jet,” The Associated Press reported. Air postulation power had directed the aviator of the American Airlines formation to “take runway 33” astatine Reagan Airport.

According to reports, nary effect was heard from the chopper connected the ATC audio, but the pilot’s effect was heard connected a antithetic frequence that is designed for helicopters.

The audio besides picks up an aerial postulation controller saying, "Crash, crash, crash. This is an alert three. Crash, crash, crash."

From there, aerial postulation controllers began diverting different aerial postulation distant from the area.

Audio picks up aerial postulation controllers saying that the collision took spot implicit the Potomac River arsenic the level was approaching its assigned runway. One aerial postulation controller said that each runways were closed and that nary planes were moving.

"I conscionable saw a fireball, and past it was conscionable gone,” audio picks up 1 aerial postulation controller saying. “I haven't seen thing since they deed the river. But it was a CRJ and a chopper that hit, I would accidental astir a half-mile disconnected the attack into 33.".