The deadly plane crash in Washington becomes a political scandal – just as it was predicted by President Trump. Now it turns out that the FAA is critically understaffed because of its diversity policy – and was understaffed of the evening of the collision.
The Federal Aviation Administration is fighting a class-action lawsuit alleging it denied 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers jobs because of diversity hiring targets — as it was revealed that staffing levels were “not normal” at the time of this week’s deadly midair collision.
Complaints about the FAA’s hiring policies resurfaced after the American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, killing 67 people in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter-century.
Details of the litigation re-emerged, too, as Andrew Brigida, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed in 2015, suggested the federal aviation agency’s obsession with diversity hiring and inclusion had only ensured that an accident was likely to happen.
The crux of the lawsuit is that the FAA, under the Obama administration, dropped a skill-based system for hiring controllers and replaced it with a “biographical assessment” in an alleged bid to boost the number of minority job applicants.Brigida, who is white, alleges he was discriminated against solely based on his race when his application was rejected, court papers state.
The would-be air traffic controller, who graduated from Arizona State University’s collegiate training initiative in 2013, was turned down for a job even though he had scored 100% on his training exam, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit adds to the mounting criticism the FAA has faced this week over its hiring policies — with some, including President Trump, claiming diversity programs were in part to blame for understaffing and overall lower standards for air traffic controllers.
Asked if he thought years of diversity hiring ensured that an aviation accident was bound to happen, Brigida told the Telegraph, “Yes, that’s kind of accurate.”
His assessment came as the FAA revealed that the air traffic controller on duty at the time of the passenger plane-Black Hawk helicopter crash late Wednesday was doing the work of two people.
Staffing in the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the FAA found in its preliminary report into the crash.
The understaffing resulted in a controller pulling double duty — overseeing helicopters while also guiding arriving and departing planes on the busy airport’s runways, according to the report, which added that the responsibilities are typically split between two controllers.
The airport’s air traffic control facilities have a history of staffing shortages — with only 19 fully certified controllers on deck as of September 2023, according to Congress’ Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan report.
The facility should ideally have had 30 on deck, as per the goal set by the FAA and controllers’ union.
However, on Friday, the FAA confirmed that Ronald Reagan National Airport has 25 fully certified air traffic controllers. Three more controllers who have been fully certified at other facilities are also in training at the airport.
The air-traffic control tower in the nation’s capital is authorized to have 28 controllers, the agency said.Still, the FAA as a whole has suffered staffing issues since pandemic-era mass layoffs in 2020 from which it has yet to recover.
Brigida, who now works in the FAA as a program manager, said he hoped Trump would “immediately” work to fix the apparent staffing crisis within the agency.
“He obviously sees the issue at hand and if he didn’t, I’m sure people that work in the Department of Transportation and the FAA informed him that there is an issue with staffing and air traffic control and I’m hoping they can work on it immediately,” he told the Telegraph.
During President Trump’s first term, Federal Transportation Department lawyers argued to toss Brigida’s case, saying deciding to open up applications to more diverse candidates isn’t legitimate grounds for a discrimination suit.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employers from discriminating “based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.”
Yet “an employer’s decision to broaden the pool of potential applicants between rounds of hiring is not a personnel action cognizable under Title VII,” the government wrote in a November 2020 motion.
The government added that Brigida can’t claim discrimination just because the new system no longer benefits him.
“Title VII protects equal treatment, not preferential treatment,” officials wrote.
“Accordingly, even if Plaintiffs would have had an advantage if they applied under the old hiring process, Title VII does not give them a claim to seek to preserve that advantage. Instead, Plaintiffs must show that the hiring process in which they actually participated discriminated against them on the basis of some protected characteristic.”
