US President Donald Trump draws an unapologetic comparison of the catastrophic crash that happened last week between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter near Washington, that claimed 67 lives, to a driving range. Donald Trump has reportedly said that the plane crash was “amazing as it would improve the air traffic control system.”
While speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast at the US Capitol, the president said that the plane crash revealed lapses in the United States’ air traffic control technology. “It’s amazing that it happened. We should have had the proper control. We should have had better equipment,” Trump said, adding the US had obsolete equipment.
Trump on the DCA plane crash: “Did you ever see, you go to a driving range in golf and you’re hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours. I never see a ball hit another ball. Balls going up all over the place. You never see ’em hit, it was amazing that could happen.” pic.twitter.com/g6fLXJXZJM
— FactPost (@factpostnews) February 6, 2025
“They were understaffed for whatever reason. I guess the helicopter was high. And we’ll find out exactly what happened,” Trump said, as reported by the Associated Press. Comparing the crash incident to a golf range, he added, “Did you ever see, you go to a driving range in golf and you’re hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours? I never see a ball hit another ball. Balls going up all over the place. You never see ’em hit. It was amazing that that could happen.”
Donald Trump claimed that instead of replacing the outdated system with a new one, the nation had spent a lot of money attempting to modernize it. He said that because the US system was “obsolete,” he had to rely on a system from another nation for his private jet. On January 29, a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, collided near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.
The 78-year old president has also claimed that instead of replacing the outdated systems with new ones, the nation’s aim has been to spend a lot of money on attempting to modernize it. Trump said that because the US system has been “obsolete,” he was forced to rely on a system from another nation for his private jet.
“What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming??”
This was Trump’s response when asked if he had visited the site of the deadly DC plane crash.
The very same ghoulish sociopath who said “it is what it is” when he was asked about 1,000 Americans dying a day from Covid.…
— Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) January 31, 2025
Donald Trump had initially blamed the plane crash on the diversity hiring programmes encouraged by Obama and Biden. He later shifted the blame to the United States’ air traffic control system’s outdated technology. After the Washington tragedy, there had been worries that Donald Trump’s efforts for reducing the size of the federal workforce might worsen the problems if some air traffic controllers plan to take on the offers of deferred resignation made to every federal employee last week. However, their union informed air controllers that that job and even other positions within the Federal Aviation Administration were exempt.
