Chira numbuh wan!

[Lune]

It was only a matter of time until this happened, been hearing about excessive congestion and understaffed ATC for a long time. Hear about near misses once every couple months, there was a big NYT article on it a year or two ago.

Blaming either Biden or Trump is a pretty dipshit, lizard-brained thing to do in this case. Biden was an empty chair, it was doubtful his handlers were able to interrupt enough naps to get him to look into this, and Trump's fed-firing blitz might have caused some acute chaos, but ultimately it's not like the POTUS office has a magical lever that can be pulled from the resolute desk to manage an intricate system like atc. But its easier for stupid people to think, TRUMP = BAD, PLANE CRASH = BAD, TRUMP = PLANE CRASH, WORLD = SIMPLE, MY TEAM = GOOD.

We'll know exactly what went wrong within the next few years (or maybe not, given the inspector generals were fired), but by then nobody will care or pay attention. Fire-at-the-hip speculation at this point looks like the helicopter pilot was terrible. ATC told him to go behind the plane, and he turned RIGHT (in front of the plane, and toward the airport) instead of left. But when that command was given, the landing plane was on an entirely different vector than when it was struck, so it may have been confusing.