Trump piled blame on the Biden administration during the conference
After the US suffered the deadliest plane crash since 2001 and its first major aviation incident in the last 16 years, President Donald Trump was asked by reporters whether he would be visiting the crash site.
At 8.47pm ET on Wednesday (January 29), a PSA Airlines aircraft, which is owned by American Airlines, crashed into a BlackHawk helicopter that was carrying three US soldiers taking part in a training expedition.
The jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington DC, when the mid-air collision took place as Flight 5342 approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to land.
The wreckage of both the chopper and the plane landed in the Potomac River, with 300 first responders rushing to provide aid – but sadly there were no survivors.
Now, while answering questions from the press, one reporter asked whether Trump would be paying the site a visit.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about the collision (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Questionably, the 78-year-old replied: “I have a plan to visit, not the site. What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?”
He then moved on explaining that it’s too early to draw conclusions of what happened, while also taking aim at the Biden administration for encouraging the Federal Aviation Administration to recruit its staff through the diversity, equity, and inclusion program.
He claimed that some of the workers ‘suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative’.
However, Trump did not provide evidence to suggest unqualified people were put in a critical position like flying the chopper, the plane or in air traffic control.
“They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses,” he added. “You can’t have regular people doing their job.”
Taking to Truth Social in the hours following the incident, he posted: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport.
There were 67 fatalities when a BlackHawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines owned flight (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
“The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn.
“Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!! What a terrible night this has been. God bless you all!”
After hours of scouring the river, DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly announced that the search and rescue operation was off, during a news conference yesterday (January 30).
“We are now at a point where we’re switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” he said.
“At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident.”
