Reagan National air traffic control was understaffed on the night of the crash

One person having to do the job of two seems, ah, suboptimal:

Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate the job. One reason is that the controllers can use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.

Trump’s policies of “firings and buyouts to make federal agencies even more understaffed because DEI” strikes me as a poor choice given the circumstances, irrespective of what the investigation ultimately reveals. People who just don’t think government functions like “preventing planes from falling out of the sky” are important are firmly in charge of the federal government.