Part of the plane wreckage in the Potomac River. (Supplied: US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles)
Authorities are still pulling bodies from Washington's Potomac River as they investigate the deadliest plane crash in the United States in nearly 25 years but as families mourn their loved ones a political blame game is already playing out.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has come under fire from some Republicans — led by President Donald Trump — for its diversity hiring initiatives.
According to the FAA report into the incident staffing at the Reagan National Airport tower was "not normal" the night when an army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet, killing 67 people in the US capital.
President Donald Trump speculated that DEI policies could be to blame for the crash. (Reuters: Elizabeth Frantz)
"I'll take the [FAA] at their word that it wasn't normal," US Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said on Sunday.
"There was a consolidation of air traffic controllers an hour before it was supposed to happen during the time of this crash and so what was the appropriateness of that?"Â
The staffing forms just one avenue of inquiry authorities are looking into but across the US the FAA does have a shortage of about 3000 air traffic controllers.
Vice-President JD Vance blamed the Biden administration for short staffing among air-traffic controllers. Â (Reuters: Ben Curtis)
US Vice-president JD Vance claims diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies have led to the staffing crisis.
"There is a very direct connection between the policies of the last administration and short-staffed air traffic controllers," Mr Vance told Fox News.
"That has to stop."
Decades of shortages
Former president Ronald Reagan sacked 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981. (ABC News: Eammon Ashton-Atkinson)
Air traffic controller shortages in the US can be traced back as far as the Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan.
It was 1981 and Mr Reagan was a little over six months into the job when 7000 flights were cancelled because thousands of air traffic controllers went on strike.
Negotiations over pay and conditions fell through between the FAA and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, which represented 13,000 people.
Two days later Mr Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers and banned them from ever being able to work with the FAA again.
Former [CHECK] air-traffic controller Todd Yeary says President Trump's comments are "unhelpful". (ABC News: Eammon Ashton-Atkinson )
Todd Yeary's father was one of the people fired on that day and Todd worked as a controller for 13 years.
"You created this immediate shortfall of needing to backfill rather quickly air traffic controllers that were no longer working," he told 7.30.
"It took literally more than a decade. I was in probably the latter third of the cohorts to back fill from the strike in '81 and I was hired in 1989."Â
Air traffic control is a specialised job and there is a mandatory retirement age of 56.
Mr Yeary says the mass firing in the 80s created a cycle.
"Add to that the industry has expanded … you've got more reliance on aviation from commerce to just moving people on vacation but now you've got to keep the workforce not only adequately staffed but technically proficient when technology is changing every day."
Trump 'ill-informed'
Search teams at the site of the plane wreckage in Washington's Potomac River. (AP: Mark Schiefelbein)
A day after the deadly crash in DC, Trump without evidence, speculated that DEI policies could have been to blame.
When a reporter questioned how the president could 'come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash', Trump replied "because I have common sense".
Todd Yeary says the president's comments were "unhelpful" and said a diverse workforce had been a feature of his time in air traffic control.
"I was trained by men as well as women. I worked with colleagues that were black, white, Asian, Hispanic," he told 7.30.
"Once you demonstrate the ability and the capacity to do this job, you don't get to choose who you're going to sit next to when it's time to do what we would call moving airplanes … so I think the president is ill informed.
A memorial to the crash victims at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington DC. (ABC News: Eammon Ashton-Atkinson )
"I think [Trump's commentary] is disrespectful to the families, 67 people perished in that incident … lives are at stake.
"Even while he was making that comment, the air traffic control system was working around his head while he was saying it."
The FAA was a regular target of criticism from Trump in the lead up to his election and on his second day back in the Oval Office he signed an executive order to immediately end DEI programs within the agency.
Night vision, rivers and monuments
Wreckage of the plane and the helicopter in the Potomac River. (AP: Petty Officer 2nd Class Taylor Bacon/US Coast Guard)
Federal investigators are trying to develop a clearer picture of what led to this mid-air collision after retrieving the black boxes from both aircraft.
They are also analysing recordings including a 'verbal reaction' on board the helicopter.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the three soldiers in the Black Hawk were on a routine training exercise that would utilise night vision goggles but it still doesn't know if they were wearing them at the time of the crash.
Former Black Hawk pilot Elizabeth McCormick told 7.30 that the area around the DC airport is surrounded by obstacles and that lighting could have been an issue.
Former Black Hawk pilot Elizabeth McCormick says if the helicopter crew were wearing night goggles it could have played a part in the crash. (Supplied: Elizabeth McCormick)
"There are lots of buildings, lots of bridges, lots of lights reflecting onto the water so its very light dense," Ms McCormick told 7.30.
"The airliner, has a big spotlight in the front when it's landing … so if they had night vision goggles on, did it blow out their vision?
"They were in a training environment; did they think they were clear and they looked inside the helicopter for that moment of time? These are questions we may never know the answer to."
The airport is located a short distance from Washington monuments. (ABC News: Eammon Ashton-Atkinson)
Recordings between the traffic control tower and helicopter reveal the chopper pilot acknowledged they could see the passenger jet and requested 'visual separation'.
"That's a procedure in air traffic control where a pilot can say, 'I will assume responsibility for steering clear of the aircraft' but something happened after that … and then we saw tragically what occurred as a result," Mr Yeary said.
Ms McCormick says currently the minimum crew requirement for Black Hawk helicopters is two pilots and one crew chief but she believes that needs to change.
The Black Hawk pilot told air traffic control they could see the passenger jet. (ABC News: Eammon Ashton-Atkinson )
"When you're flying visual, you're responsible for your own clearance, you're responsible for having sight lines on everything and with only one crew chief it's just not possible to see everything at the same time," she said.
"The optimal crew is four, two pilots and two crew chief — but you're not required.
"I think that this shows for safety reasons that we need to move to four for visual flights."
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