The Cascading Failures of DEI

It is axiomatic among those investigating aviation crashes that such incidents generally occur as the result of a cascade of failures rather than as a single catastrophic mistake or defective airplane part. Or, as an Air Force T-6 trainer aircraft instructor told me once, it’s the “Swiss cheese effect”—when all the holes line up, bad things can happen.

Modern airliners are built with double and often triple redundancies in their systems, such that no single part should result in total loss of the airplane. Similarly, two pilots (and sometimes three or four on long-haul flights) are usually present in large jetliners in case of a health incident involving a pilot, enabling others to aviate, if necessary. Modern commercial airliners can practically fly themselves, although pilots typically handle takeoffs and landings manually.

As Victor Davis Hanson has estimably described, though, the recent disaster at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport appears to have resulted from a series of unfortunate events, at least partially due, it seems, to the malign influence of the pernicious “progressive” policies embodied in diversity, equity, and inclusion. DEI may have mutated into DIE in a very stark, visible, and tragic way over the Potomac River on January 29 when a passenger-filled Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and a Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk military helicopter collided, taking the lives of 64 passengers and crew on the jet and three crew on the helicopter. The former was descending for a landing at Reagan National and the latter was in the path of the jet, appearing to have been 100 to 200 feet above its allowable maximum 200-foot altitude in the plane’s glide path.

President Trump, who was surely briefed on and privy to information about the circumstances and military pilots involved in the crash unlike anyone else, suggested in a press conference the following day that DEI policies contributed to the disaster. A full report following a thorough investigation of the accident is yet to be forthcoming. To what extent that report will assign blame to DEI-related policies as contributing factors remains to be seen. But a few observations can already be made.

Many analysts, including airline pilots, helicopter pilots, and air traffic controllers, have already noted that the airspace around Reagan National Airport is some of the most challenging in the world, particularly at night. The volume of commercial air traffic from Reagan National is enormous. Numerous light sources can confuse pilots. Then you have the additional problem of frequent military helicopter flights from Fort Belvoir and the Pentagon flying, almost inexplicably to us laymen, in corridors overlaid on Reagan National’s commercial air corridors. What could possibly go wrong? That’s for starters.

Then there’s the issue of a reported dearth of air traffic controllers. Reagan National was reportedly assigned 30 ATCs but only had 19 on staff. An internal preliminary FAA report indicated that the number of ATCs on duty the night of the midair collision at Reagan National was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.” The tower supervisor had reportedly allowed one of the ATCs to leave early, doubling up the duties of another ATC, who was required to handle both airplane and helicopter traffic.

The shortage of ATCs is a nationwide problem, and many have pointed to bizarre DEI policies that place as great, or greater, emphasis on the race, gender, or gender orientation of ATC candidates than on their ability to do the job.

According to an ongoing class action lawsuit, originally filed in 2015, a white applicant alleged he had been turned down by the FAA for an ATC position, despite his high score on a skills-based test. The suit alleged that 1,000 or so ATC applicants had similarly been denied acceptance based on the color of their skin. According to the lawsuit, the FAA dropped a skills-based system in favor of a “biographical assessment,” designed to bolster the representation of favored interest groups among ATC ranks. Another class action lawsuit filed in 2019 by 2,500 other ATC applicants also alleged that they had been turned down based on discriminatory FAA hiring practices instituted by the Obama administration.

In his press conference, President Trump noted that the FAA was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions” to fill its ATC positions.

The qualifications and training of the pilots in the Blackhawk helicopter, which initial reports indicate was flying well above its maximum allowable height at the location of the collision and appeared to disregard or not understand the instructions of an airport controller who told them to fly behind the CJR aircraft, are going to be closely scrutinized. As the Pentagon, under the new leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, undergoes an intensive scrubbing of all its DEI programming, the background of the pilot, who was apparently undergoing training and evaluation in the Blackhawk at the time of the crash, Capt. Rebecca Lobach, will be scrutinized. Was she a beneficiary of favorable treatment?

Other seeming deficiencies have been pointed out by experts as potentially part of the “cascade of failures.” Retired Blackhawk pilot Elizabeth McCormick has noted that at least three failures were evident to her.

First, when flying under visual flight rules in crowded airspace, there should have been two crew chiefs along, instead of just the one present, to ensure that all airspace to the rear of the helicopter could be observed.

Second, she noted that the crew may have been using night-vision goggles, which, given the multiple light sources over Reagan National, she suggests may have led to the incorrect altitude the helicopter was at at the time of collision. This mistake she attributes to pilot error.

Third, the ATC in the tower directing them asked the helicopter pilots if they had the CRJ in sight but did not specify the location of the CRJ in his communication, thus possibly leading to confusion in the minds of the pilots as to which aircraft the ATC was referring to in the crowded airspace. This failure by the ATC to adequately communicate is another in the cascade of failures. Another hole in the Swiss cheese.

What is clear is that this tragedy was avoidable, and the fault may not lay with one individual but multiple individuals, as well as policies—whether in regard to DEI considerations preventing ATC ranks from being adequately staffed, military helicopters flying in crowded commercial airspace, or too much workload being placed on one air traffic controller.

This cascade of failures will, no doubt, be scrutinized and changes will be made both in terms of policy and individual training to prevent such horrors in the future. That is, of course, little consolation to the families of the victims of this tragedy, but remedial actions from past air disasters are one reason why air travel is among the safest forms of travel today.

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William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and nonprofit sectors for more than 35 years. He is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc., and has been a contributor to Townhall, American Thinker, Epoch Times, The Federalist, American Greatness, and other publications. (The views expressed are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)