Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg slammed the new Trump administration for spending time re-implementing gendered language at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) instead of air safety in the aftermath of the first major commercial air crash in 16 years.
Buttigieg shared a screenshot of a post by CNN reporter Pete Muntean that showed a memo from the FAA saying that the term “NOTAM” would now refer to “Notice to Airmen” instead of “Notice to Air Missions.” Muntean noted that the meaning of the term NOTAM was changed to “Missions” in 2021 under President Joe Biden.
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“So after promising to focus on safety, they’ve gotten right down to work… on gender terminology?” Buttigieg wrote in a post on Bluesky.
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So after promising to focus on safety, they’ve gotten right down to work… on gender terminology?
— Pete Buttigieg (@petebuttigieg.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 1:14 AM
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The U.S. had not had any commercial plane crash fatalities in 16 years until last night, when a military helicopter collided with American Eagle Flight 5342 near Reagan National Airport on January 29. Over 67 people on the helicopter and the plane died that day.
Buttigieg’s replacement – Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, a former Fox News host and reality TV personality – blamed the FAA’s “focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion” when discussing air safety in the aftermath of the American Airlines crash and a medical plane crashing in Pennsylvania, killing seven people.
“You can’t focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion when you try to hire air traffic controllers, you focus on the best and brightest,” he said. “I mean, again, some people like me like to have this conversation around equity. But if it’s your pilots or if it’s your air traffic controllers, you want the best. You want the brightest protecting yourself and your family. That’s what we’re going to do with the department.”
At least three more planes have crashed since Duffy made that statement, including a small plane veering off the runway in Arizona and crashing into another plane, killing at least one person; a commuter flight in Alaska that crashed and killed 10 people; and a plane that sliced through another while taxiing at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Donald Trump also blamed diversity in the immediate aftermath of the crash without even knowing anything about the people who were involved.
“I have common sense, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t,” he said when pressed about how he could know that diversity was to blame here when the investigation has barely started.
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