“Is air travel safe?”
For more than a decade and a half, answering that question in the U.S. was a simple “yes,” owed to a remarkable stretch of safety that had seen 16 years pass without a deadly crash involving a U.S. airline.
Last month, that long-running streak came to a tragic halt when a U.S. Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet as the PSA Airlines-operated aircraft prepared to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
None of the 64 people on board the Bombardier CRJ700 — or the three soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter — survived, first responders shared in the wake of the crash.
Before January ended, 2025 was already the deadliest year for aviation in America in nearly a quarter century.
How could it happen? And what does it mean for a mode of transportation so many of us took for granted as the gold standard for safety?
“Air travel, as a whole, is still safe,” Shawn Pruchnicki, former airline pilot and aviation accident investigator at Ohio State University’s Center for Aviation Studies, told TPG.
“But what this accident highlights for us,” Pruchnicki said, “is that our large margin of safety that we have built into the system over decades has been eroded to some degree.”
Safest mode of transportation
The relative safety of getting on a plane versus — say, getting in your car to commute — remains so stark, the statistics are almost hard to comprehend.
Daily Newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts
According to a report published last year by the International Air Transport Association, the odds, backed by current safety statistics, work out so that any one traveler would have to fly every day for 100,000 years to experience a fatal accident.
2023, that same report noted, was the safest year on record for commercial air travel.
Consider, too, the fact that some 45,000 aircraft take off and land across America each day — the overwhelming majority of them without incident.
Even the nation’s top transportation safety advocate — often a critic of airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration — has put the overall safety of flying in perspective:
“The fact is, our aviation system is the safest in the world,” National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy wrote in a social media post last spring — comments that came amid a barrage of head-turning aviation headlines in the months following an inflight emergency on an Alaska Airlines jet last January.
Wide-ranging investigation
But the tragic death of 67 people in a major commercial airline accident demands significant scrutiny, nonetheless.
In keeping with long-standing aviation practices, the NTSB is charged with leading the investigation — an exhaustive probe that’s surely examining everything from factors on board the American Eagle flight deck to the altitude of the Army helicopter and operating conditions inside the DCA control tower.
“We will find out what happened. We will do it factually, and we will do it accurately,” Todd Inman, NTSB member, said at a news conference a day after the crash, promising a preliminary report within 30 days.
A spotlight on air traffic control
Already, though, the aftermath of the collision has sparked widespread discussion about the state of our nation’s air traffic control facilities — the critical nerve centers of our national airspace, where highly-trained and essential professionals give instructions to the tens of thousands of aircraft that take off and land each day in America.
To be clear: It remains too early to say precisely what factors led up to the 8:47 p.m. collision on Jan. 29 — let alone whether air traffic control played any role, whatsoever, cautioned Michael McCormick, longtime controller now on the faculty at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“I see it as speculation, as way too early to engage in,” McCormick said. “Until we know the circumstances behind it, we shouldn’t be laying any kind of fault, blame, on any individual or group.”
Still, leaders across the aviation industry widely agree outdated technology and a shortage of air traffic controllers is among the most pressing concerns facing air travel in the U.S. today.
Those concerns were percolating long before the Blackhawk helicopter and American Eagle 5342 collided.
That same night, The New York Times reported staffing levels at DCA’s control tower were “not normal” — albeit, likely not terribly unusual, considering more than 90% of Federal Aviation Administration facilities are understaffed nationwide.
Staffing shortage a longstanding concern
By any stretch, the shortage of air traffic controllers is a major problem facing the industry. For perspective: More than 943 million people boarded commercial flights in the U.S. in 2023, according to FAA data. That was up about 30% from 2012, 11 years prior.
Yet, in 2023, America’s skies were patrolled by more than 1,000 fewer fully certified air traffic controllers than in 2012, according to a 2023 safety study commissioned by the FAA.
Today, the agency remains thousands of controllers short of its ideal target, in part due to a slew of factors that disrupted hiring and training over the past decade, from sequestration in the 2010s to multiple government shutdowns and the coronavirus pandemic.
The controllers the FAA does have regularly work six-day weeks and 10-hour days, the head of the nation’s largest air traffic controllers union said at an industry conference I attended last fall in D.C.
“We are not in a good place,” Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said while speaking at the Regional Airline Association Leaders Conference in September. “It’s unsustainable.”
Outdated facilities
It’s not just staffing, either.
Increasingly, our nation’s aviation operations are strained by outdated technology and facilities — from decades-old computer programs to more practical hurdles like leaky roofs and faulty heating, ventilation and cooling systems, a 2023 report revealed.
The FAA has invested years — and billions of taxpayer dollars — into upgrading its infrastructure, but those improvements haven’t come close to fruition; look no further than the January 2023 outage to a critical pilot information system that triggered the first nationwide ground stop since Sept. 11, 2001. A glitch plagued that same system earlier this month.
Just in December, a top government official called fixing the FAA’s systems “the work of many years and billions of dollars” while speaking on Capitol Hill.
“A snap of Iron Man’s fingers cannot fix this,” Kevin Walsh, I.T. and cybersecurity director at the Government Accountability Office during the Biden administration, testified to a Senate subcommittee on Dec. 12.
Usually a minor inconvenience
Now, in the vast majority of cases, these air traffic control hurdles manifest in mere inconvenience: namely, flight delays, when the FAA has to slow the flow of air traffic to a manageable level for the controllers it has on duty that day — moves made specifically in the interest of safety.
Those backups are especially common along busy East Coast corridors, and they’re often made worse when a summer thunderstorm throws a wrench in an airport’s tightly packed departure schedule — or when wintry conditions lead to a deicing backlog.
Overall, one in five flights on U.S. carriers were delayed last year, according to FlightAware — up from 16% five years prior, even as cancellation rates dropped sharply from all those meltdowns we saw a few years ago.
Safety risks the primary concern
But aviation safety experts have worried that staffing shortages and outdated technology could one day contribute to a major accident. Those fears grew louder after a series of hair-raising near misses near U.S. airports over the last couple of years, which Homendy, the NTSB chair, spoke about last fall in Washington.
“What we’ve seen in a lot of our investigations is pilot deviation. We’ve seen some fatigue. We’ve seen training issues, especially in air traffic control,” Homendy said, speaking at the Regional Airline Association Leaders Conference in September.
“We’re seeing that, as people are getting trained,” Homendy continued, ” … that they’re not even remembering some of their training that they got a week or two ago. So, we’re trying to understand, ok, should we be looking at other methods of training?”
Reassurance, with an eye on needed changes
Now, it’d be easy to digest everything you just read and feel fearful about getting on a commercial flight.
The reality is, these are but the most glaring concerns in a remarkably safe air travel system that, until two weeks ago, hadn’t seen a deadly U.S. airline crash since the Colgan Air disaster in Buffalo, 16 years ago this week.
“You assume greater risk driving to the airport than you do flying to or from the airport,” McCormick, the longtime air traffic controller, said. “I have no qualms about getting on a plane and flying somewhere.”
“We have the safest airspace in the world,” newly installed Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy added during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” last week.
“We’ve seen some cracks. And it rattles people when they see these disasters. But air travel is safe,” Duffy said, while pledging to “surge controllers” to the FAA’s facilities.
A spotlight on making necessary changes
What else might be done to shore up aviation safety gaps remains a lingering question.
We should note, the arrival of a new administration in Washington did bring new upheaval at the FAA — including the resignation of a widely respected administrator, Michael Whitaker, who oversaw the agency reaching its hiring goal of 1,800 air traffic controllers last year.
At the same time, many industry insiders I’ve spoken with in recent days are hopeful the recent accident could inspire the badly-needed improvements to our national air system that have evaded both political parties over the years.
“I think this is actually a very good opportunity as compared to past accidents to actually solving some problems,” Pruchnicki said. “We’ve all been holding our breath for years.”
The nonpartisan U.S. Travel Association, for one, said it was “encouraged” by President Trump’s recent comments calling for a bill modernizing air traffic control, even as the president drew criticism for speculating, early, about causes of the recent crash.
More recently, a newly-formed alliance of airline and industry leaders has emerged, reiterating the safety of air travel while vowing to learn lessons from the worst air disaster the U.S. has seen in a generation.
“Over the last few decades, it’s been very hard to get our industry … to agree on anything,” Rob Land, JetBlue’s government affairs chief, told me this week. “Air traffic control is number one for everybody now. It will increase efficiency, add to safety, everyone gets that. I think, finally, the government’s starting to get it.”
ADVERTISEMENT:
Hello, sobat pencinta slots Pernah mendengar semboyan “slot gacor”? Kalau belum, bersiaplah jatuh hati sama konsep ini. slot gaco adalah mesin slots yang sering memberi kemenangan. Yup, slot-slot ini bisa disebut sebagai andalannya buat bawa pulang hasil. tapi, cemana sih
tekniknya nemuin slot demo yang benar? Santai Bro, kita bahas santai aja di tempat ini
Gaming terbaik saat ini hanya satu di Indonesia hanya di pasti menyediakan return terbaik
SEGERA dengan di :
Informasi mengenai KING SLOT, Segera Daftar Bersama king selot terbaik dan terpercaya no satu di Indonesia. Boleh mendaftar melalui sini king slot serta memberikan hasil kembali yang paling tinggi saat sekarang ini hanyalah KING SLOT atau Raja slot paling gacor, gilak dan gaco saat sekarang di Indonesia melalui program return tinggi di kingselot serta pg king slot
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
situs slot terbaru
situs slot terbaru permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
slot terbaru
slot terbaru permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
elangwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama elangwin88.me
eyangslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama eyangslot88.biz
fendi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama fendi88.asia
gaco888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gaco888.net
gacoan888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gacoan888.biz
gacor666 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gacor666.biz
gambar88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gambar88.org
gameboy777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gameboy777.com
ganas88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ganas88.me
gasing77 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gasing77.asia
gasing88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gasing88.info
geber888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama geber888.net
gemoy77 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gemoy77.live
gercep888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gercep888.asia
giga333 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama giga333.live
happybet88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama happybet88.asia
harum88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama harum88.live
heroslot888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama heroslot888.info
jejuslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jejuslot88.co
kenzo88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kenzo88.me
kerangwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kerangwin88.com
kijangwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kijangwin88.asia
kingdomtoto4d permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingdomtoto4d.asia
kingdomtoto77 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingdomtoto77.asia
king selot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingselot.com
king slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingslot.bio
king slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingslot.com
kingselot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingselot.com
kuta88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kuta88.asia
ladangtoto88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ladangtoto88.asia
ligaciputra88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ligaciputra88.asia
mabar888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mabar888.info
mamen88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mamen88.info
mami88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mami88.live
maniaslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama maniaslot88.pro
mantra888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mantra888.asia
mawartoto4d permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mawartoto4d.pro
maxwin888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama maxwin888.pro
mega88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mega88.org
mekar999 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mekar999.asia
milan96 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama milan96.asia
olxtoto77 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama olxtoto77.asia
olxtoto88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama olxtoto88.life
panen4d permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama panen4d.asia
pisang88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pisang88.org
planet7777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama planet7777.com
prediksi777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama prediksi777.live
prediksi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama prediksi88.asia
preman88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama preman88.asia
preman96 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama preman96.asia
premium88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama premium88.asia
prima88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama prima88.live
kingselot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingselot.com
rajaslotjp88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama rajaslotjp88.com
roma88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama roma88.asia
salju888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama salju888.asia
semutwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama semutwin88.info
king slot.com permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kingselot.com
sultan777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama sultan777.asia
sultan888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama sultan888.asia
sultan99 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama sultan99.asia
super333 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama super333.live
suster12 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama suster12.com
tokekwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama tokekwin88.info
tokyo777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama tokyo777.info
tumi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama tumi88.live
vioslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama vioslot88.asia
dora777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama dora777.asia
dp88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama dp88.biz
fila888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama fila888.org
gaco888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gaco888slot.com
gadunslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gadunslot88.asia
gagah88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gagah88.info
gaskan888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gaskan888.biz
gatotkaca88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gatotkaca88.info
gemoy888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gemoy888.biz
gemoy888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gemoy888slot.info
gocap888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gocap888.net
god777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama god777.biz
hari888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama hari888.biz
hermes88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama hermes88.biz
holywin999 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama holywin999.com
indojaya88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama indojaya88.org
indomaster88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama indomaster88.asia
jablay88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jablay88slot.net
janjigacor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama janjigacor88.net
jeniustoto88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jeniustoto88.com
jeniustoto88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jeniustoto88slot.com
juara88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama juara88.info
juara88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama juara88slot.org
jwtogel88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jwtogel88.net
kasih88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kasih88.info
kawantogel88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kawantogel88.com
kawantogel88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kawantogel88.net
kedai88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kedai88.asia
king9999 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama king9999.org
kkslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kkslot88.info
kongsi888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kongsi888.com
kutu88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kutu88slot.com
liga899 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama liga899.org
lisboa777slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama lisboa777slot.com
