Trump omits role in FAA hiring while blaming diversity for plane crash

“A week before I entered office, they put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program," Trump said January 30, as he addressed the mid-air collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army Blackhawk helicopter a night earlier.

"The FAA's diversity push includes a focus on hiring people with 'severe intellectual' and 'psychiatric' disabilities," he said, quoting the headline from an article jointly published by Fox News and the New York Post (archived here and here).

The president, speaking from the White House briefing room, read from the articles as he pinned the crash on diversity policies under Obama and Biden, claiming the former presidents prioritized race and other factors over qualifications in hiring the critical personnel who keep the skies safe. He said Biden's openly gay transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg had "run it right into the ground with his diversity" and claimed Obama "came out with a directive: 'too white.'"

"I put safety first," Trump said. "Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first."

The Republican later shared the New York Post's headline on his Truth Social platform, writing: "This is just one reason why our Country WAS going to hell!!!" Billionaire Elon Musk, tasked by Trump to overhaul the government, also shared it on X.

The accident in the nation's capital -- the first major US crash since 2009 -- occurred as the airliner approached Reagan National Airport for a late-evening landing after a flight from Wichita, Kansas. None of the 67 people involved -- 64 on the plane and three soldiers on the helicopter -- are believed to have survived.

Investigations into what happened are ongoing, and Trump offered no evidence to support his broader claims about diversity initiatives, which follow a broader push by his administration to end such policies. Pressed by reporters on how he knew the programs spurred the crash, he cited only his "common sense."

But his statement that the FAA pushed to bring on people with disabilities "a week before" he began his second term, however, is misleading.

FAA website featured same language under Trump's first administration

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Part of the wreckage is seen as rescue boats search the waters of the Potomac River after a plane on approach to Reagan National Airport crashed into the river outside Washington, DC, on January 30, 2025 (AFP / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)

The Fox News and New York Post article from which Trump quoted was dated January 24, 2024 -- not "a week before" his inauguration. The outlets published it as conservatives, including Musk, blamed diversity measures after a safety incident involving a Boeing plane.

And while the FAA language about hiring people with disabilities highlighted was real, it was not a new addition under Biden and Buttigieg -- or something Trump "changed" during his first stint in the White House, as he claimed after the crash. The same language encouraging the hiring of people with disabilities appeared on the agency's website as early as 2013 and throughout Trump's first term, according to page captures preserved by the Internet Archive.

"Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring," the FAA’s website stated at the time, and also in 2017, 2019 and 2020, when Trump was president. "They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism."

The FAA told Fox News at the time of the 2024 article that "the agency proactively seeks qualified candidates from as many sources as possible, all of whom must meet rigorous qualifications that of course will vary by position."

Archived Department of Transportation communications show the department has pushed since at least former president George W. Bush's administration to hire people with such "targeted disabilities," in accordance with a 1973 law aimed at prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability in the federal workforce.

Reached for comment, a White House spokesperson pointed AFP to the 2024 Fox News report, plus a 2015 Fox Business article and a 2018 segment from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on FAA hiring practices under Obama.

Disability hirings under Trump

During Trump's first term, the FAA actually announced a pilot program "to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations," which was to enroll up to 20 people for training (archived here). The agency emphasized as it rolled out the initiative that candidates would receive "the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening."

The FAA under Trump continued to promote the so-called Aviation Development Program in 2020, shortly before he lost his reelection bid to Biden (archived here).

The FAA’s 2020 Aviation Safety Workforce Plan also pledged that the agency would “continue to promote and support the hiring of people with disabilities and targeted disabilities" (archived here).

Annual FAA reports show just 0.7 percent of the agency's workforce had targeted disabilities in 2016, before Trump took office the first time (archived here). By 2020, that figure was up to 1.05 percent (archived here). And under Biden in 2023, it had risen to 2.08 percent (archived here).

A 2020 workforce demographics report from American Airlines said five percent of its pilots were women, and 11.6 percent identified as minorities (archived here).

AFP contacted American Airlines for comment and updated demographic information, but no response was forthcoming.

US media identified the plane pilot involved in the Washington collision as Sam Lilley, a 28-year-old with six years' experience at American Airlines. Jonathan Jay Campos, 34, was the captain, a role he had reportedly held with the airline since 2022.

Ryan O'Hara, 29, and Andrew Eaves, 39, were identified as two of the three crew members on the helicopter.

Cause unknown

Transport officials said both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.

National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said a preliminary report on how the two collided should be compiled in 30 days but "the overall investigation will probably take a year."

According to a New York Times report, staffing was thin in the control tower at Reagan National Airport. One controller was handling both plane and helicopter traffic, the Times cited an internal preliminary FAA report as saying.

Some of Trump's critics have said that he gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee and that the FAA's director had left under pressure from Musk.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the crash here.