January 30, 2025 • 31 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (01/30) - Daily Mail reporter Emma James comes on the show to talk about how she landed at Reagan Airport just minutes before the airline crash in DC. Pres. Trump blamed DEI for the airline crash in DC during a press conference this morning. More on the airline crash in DC.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Coblt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Welcome again as we continue covering the plane crash in Washington,
d C yesterday. You can follow us at John Cobelt
Radio on all social media. And next person we want
to talk to is Emma James. She's a writer for
the Daily Mail and she landed at Reagan Airport on
(00:26):
a flight from Kansas City just minutes before the crash happened,
and she saw the flashing red lights and ambulances just
I guess as soon as she got into the terminal.
Let's talk to Emma James for her story. Emma, thanks
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hi John, Thanks thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Tell us what happened last night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
You landed, The winds were strong, the landing was a
little bumpy.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Talk about what you went through.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
My colleague and I have obviously traveled to DCA fairly
often for work and it can be fairly bumpy at
the best of times. But the captain did sort of
make us aware that it was going to be windier
than usual and there may be some issues and turbulance
on landing. Our flight was fine. There was no real issues.
It was slightly bumpy, but basically I think ten minutes
(01:20):
as soon as we got into the terminal, there was
just a sudden sort of flurry of activity, a lot
of ambulances, a lot of fire, and least just on
the tarmac heading towards the river. And I think initially
we both thought there may have been sort of a
minor incident with an aircraft or a medical incident, But
then another sort of flurry came through and it became
(01:44):
fairly obvious that there was something else going on.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And how did it develop? Like how much could you
actually see?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we couldn't see. It was dark by the time
this is all happening, so it's mostly just the lights
of the emergency services and these helicopters looking over the river.
It was just sort of a line of red along
the road and that then spread onto the river. You
could see bits and pieces and slashes. You couldn't really
see exactly what was going on, but the police helicopters
(02:15):
were just circling trying to light up the water to
see if they could see anything. And obviously within the
terminal there wasn't a lot of activity at first to
be honest, I think no one was quite aware of
what was going on, and even if they were, they
didn't want to cause any panic for passengers waiting for
flights or waiting to take off.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
When did it think in that the worst had happened.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think it sunk in after we got an alert
to say that all of the flights were grounded, and
that was the moment I think everyone's like, something is
seriously wrong here. And everyone then started talking about a
smaller aircraft which had potentially been hit by a police helicopter.
And obviously it sunk in a lot further as soon
as it came to be that it was an American
(03:02):
Airlines flight, because it's just a lot more people that
are potentially involved. And then when it was confirmed that
it was an Army black Hawk helicopter, again sort of
everything heightened a little bit more just because of the
level of intensity of the situation. It was a lot
more people, a lot more damaging than we initially thought.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, and what did you do?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Then you got a news story that literally fell from
the sky in front of you.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah. I mean my colleague and I had to stay
in the terminal for about an hour just because there
wasn't exactly any guidance on whether we could get out
the safety wise, and then eventually when we were allowed
out of the terminal, we just had to go to
a hotel and start reporting from there really on what
(03:53):
we saw and what happened, because you couldn't get close
enough to the scene to really speak to anybody else.
We obviously spoke to other passengers, but everybody else was
sort of as in shocks a little bit as we were.
You know, reporting on this kind of thing gives you
a little bit of a harder skin, but not when it,
as you said, literally falls from the sky into your lap.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Did you land on the same runway or another part
of the year.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I believe we landed on the other side of the airports.
We didn't land on that exact runway.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Right, because I was wondering how close it would have
been for your plane to get hit.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
You know, I was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Really amazing this plane that crashed. All it had to
do was cross the Potomac River. It was seconds away
from landing, and it was I.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Just I feel so sorry for those people that were
on that plane, simply because you can see everything when
you land a DCA, you can see the runway, you
can see the river. It's actually you know, a thing
to a sight to behold when nothing goes wrong. But
it's also has been shown it's a dangerous airport. You know,
there's no real safety around the water. There's nothing to
(05:07):
prevent anything like that from happening, as it were.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, because it's short runway, the one that they landed on.
It's about seven thousand feet and normally runways are thirteen
thousand feet. But this airport, Washington, DC, grew up around
at the airport's many decades old, and it wasn't designed
for these huge jets, and it wasn't designed for all
this traffic that it does get now because they have
(05:34):
filled every available slot with a plane either landing or
lifting off.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, and I believe that recently they added I think
it was five more slots. I'm not entirely clear on
which airline it was, but it become even more, even
more busy, and I you know, I think that's probably
got to be part of the investigation as to whether
there should be they should have been added. I'm not
saying that that was, you know, something that caused this,
but for sure it's a much busier airport than I
(06:02):
think anyone probably realizes until something like this happens.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
When you walk up this morning, emotionally, how did you feel?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
People have said they felt relieved, they felt guilty.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
So I definitely think I felt relieved. But there's also
the aspect of you feel relief and then you know,
just a few minutes later, you feel guilty because as
much as you're happy to still be here and be
alive and have the whole I'm glad it wasn't me
thought process. There's still the sixty seven other people that
did lose their lives, and they have families and loved
(06:36):
ones that they're never going to see again. That they
were texting as they thought they were touching down to
say they arrived space, and you know, you never want
to be in that position, and you know saying, God,
I wasn't, but I, you know, feel very guilty for
not having them as your initial first thought.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But I would have felt exactly the same way. Emma
James us, senior reporter for the Dailymail dot Com. Thank
you for coming on with us.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Thanks John, Have a good day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right, Emma James. There, now we come back. Trump
went off at his press conference this morning. This is
the first one that was running, I guess probably about
eight thirty our time. And because he was he was willing,
willing to blame, willing to say that the crash was
somebody's fault, and eventually he blamed a DEI, which had
(07:31):
the reporters go into a tizzy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We've got several Trump clips.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
But as usual, while the reporters were chasing their own
tails on, it turns out that, Yeah, the FAA decided
during the Biden years to hire base based on diversity, equity,
and inclusion, and they rejected a lot of qualified candidates
in favor. And I'm not making this up, and I
(07:57):
want to tease this. They actually had in writing that
they were going to favor people who were physically paralyzed,
who had severe into severe intellectual.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Problems and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Serious emotional problems, serious psychiatric problems.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You believe this, No intellectual.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Problems, psychiatric problems, and paralysis issues. That they were going
to be favored in the hiring process at the FAA.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And this is what he was talking about. We'll tell
you about it next. You're shaking your head. Is all
you can do is grunt. I mean, there's well to
give you all the details.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's it's stunning, but it's from an actual lawsuit brought
by the people who've been rejected from jobs at the FAA,
and they finally blew the whistle on what the hiring
practices were, which were in writing, man, I can.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Get a job with the FAA, right, I can work for.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
The TSA too.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You could be well, anybody can work for the TSA,
but I could see you waving down planes.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, sure, you're.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Trump held a press conference and immediately said this crash
was could have been preventable. So did the Secretary of
State say that they had the Secretary of Transportation and
all the guys who just got hired in the last
few days suddenly had their first big crisis. And they
were very quick to say this no way they should
have happened. This wasn't some kind of act of God
(09:36):
situation here. And this gave Trump an opportunity which baffled
the reporters. He started talking about the absurd DEI requirements
that Joe Biden and Obama and Pete Bootage Edge as
the Transportation Secretary, had instituted over the years, and all
(09:56):
the reporters are going, what what was the I have
to do with this? I don't get it. And the
thing is it d I may or may not have
had anything to do with this crash. But Trump knew
that there was a lot of bad stuff in the
FA hiring policies. He had just written in an executive
order rescinding it, and he knew this was the moment
(10:19):
to bring it up because this is when people would
notice and care about it. And it's the same thing
I told you about the fires, pointing out how Karen
Bass or the fire chief or Newsome screwed up. And
some people go, well, it's just too soon. I mean,
it's just happened. It's like no, you start noticing it
and detailing it, documenting it immediately because that's when people care.
(10:45):
And then after that the emotion drains. People's attention spans drift,
memories start to fade, and it's just human nature. People
lose interest, they stop caring. Everyone should care deeply. Any organization,
any government that doesn't hire the best and brightest based
(11:05):
on merit, anything else, your company, the government, the military
is going to suffer and sometimes tragically, and Trump knew
he had a moment. Well, we've got several cuts. We'll
start with the cut number two, and he talks about
having the highest standards for air traffic controllers.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
We must have only the highest standards for those who
work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards
from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. Do you remember
that only the highest aptitude, they have to be the
highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify
(11:46):
for air traffic controllers.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
That was not so prior to getting there.
Speaker 6 (11:52):
When I arrived in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I made that change very early on because.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
I always felt this was a job that and other jobs,
but this was a job that had to be superior
intelligence and we didn't.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Really have that. And we had it, and then when I.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Left office and Biden took over, he changed them back
to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama,
Biden and the Democrats put policy first. Then they put
politics at a level that nobody's ever seen.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Because this was the lowest level.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So, as you know, last.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order
restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other
important jobs throughout the country.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So it was very interesting.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed
something last week that was an executive order, very powerful
and restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
By the way, all right, we get done, amis.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So here's the thing. This is part of a lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You had hundreds, maybe over one thousand air traffic controllers.
They were what would be air traffic controllers who couldn't
get a job.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Because this was actually in a.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Memo, a government memo, the applicant pool was too white.
They were hiring based on someone's skin color and declaring
the whole pool too white, and people were getting rejected
because of the color of their skin. Here's a piece
out of a lawsuit. From nineteen eighty nine to twenty thirteen,
(13:47):
the Collegiate Training Initiative Program was a pipeline to a
career in air traffic control. The program aimed to ensure
air traffic controllers had the skills and knowledge necessary to
carry out the job. More than ten years ago, the
Obama administration scrapped one thousand qualified candidates.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
This is from the lawsuit. The administration's justification was.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The pool of applicants was not diverse enough, so they
would be purged from consideration. Instead of hiring candidates with
the most competency, individuals were elevated for hiring consideration based
on their race. Our law seat seeks justice for all
(14:36):
the air traffic controllers who chose this career, dedicated their
lives in education, and were summarily denied a job for
no other reason than the color of their skin. In
a system with only fourteen thousand air traffic controllers, purging
a thousand of the next generation's best and brightest was
(14:56):
irresponsible and unsustainable. Now we come back, I'm going to
place some more of Trump's comments and I'm going to
read to you. In the executive order, it specifically says
that the FAA was hiring people with severe intellectual disabilities,
(15:18):
psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis, while tossing out one thousand
qualified would be air traffic controllers who graduated from the
program but were the wrong skin color.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
More coming up.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
We're on from one until four after four o'clock. John
Cobelt's show on demand on the iHeart app. If you
will talk to one hundred people on the street and
you asked them, hey, do you want air traffic controllers
to be hired based on how they perform on all
the testing that they get after taking the required training courses,
(16:04):
or would you like them to be hired based on
whether they had a disability or not, or the color
of their skin, or if should they get preferential treatment
because they have a lower measured intellectual level, Should they
(16:24):
be hired because they have a psychiatric disorder? Should they
be hired because they can't move their body they're paralyzed
in some way.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I'm not making this up.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Under the Biden administration, with Pete Boota, Jeg's trans transportation director,
a thousand healthy in minded body air traffic control candidates
were rejected because of the color of their skin and
because they weren't diverse enough. They were mostly too white,
(16:58):
they were not diverse, and what they were looking for
as people with serious intellectual impairments. And this is in
writing and psychiatric issues and paralysis issues. I'm going to
read you the exact quote in just a minute. But
Trump discussed this in his press conference this morning. Play
(17:21):
cut number three.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
I do want to point out that various articles that
appeared prior to my entering office.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And here's one.
Speaker 6 (17:32):
The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with
severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That is amazing. And then it says.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
FAA says people with severe disabilities a most underrepresented segment
of the workforce.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And they want them in and they want them they
can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
This was.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
In January fourteen, so that was a week before I
entered office. They put a big push to put diversity
into the FAA's program. Then another article the Federal Aviation Administration.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
This was before I got to office.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Recently, second term, the FAA is actively recruiting workers who
suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and
physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled
out on the agency's website. Can you imagine these are
(18:38):
people that are I mean, actually their lives are shortened.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Because of the stress that they have.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
Brilliant people have to be in those positions and their
lives are actually shortened very substantially.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Shortened because of the stress.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Where you have many, many planes coming into one target
and you need a very special talent and a very
special genius to be able to do it. Targeted disabilities
are those disabilities that the federal government, as a matter
of policy, has identified for special emphasis and recruitment and hiring.
The FAA's website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities,
(19:21):
partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability,
and dwarfism. All qualify work for the position of a
controller of aeroplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a
little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway.
(19:43):
The initiative is part of the faas Diversity and Inclusion
Hiring Plan.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Think of that.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion
Hiring Plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA's
mission of ensuring safe and efficient.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yeah, well, I don't think so. I don't think so.
I think it's just the opposite.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
This is the truth.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
This actually was the Biden Bootage edge Dei memorandum.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
This really was going on.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Some of you may be wondering what has been all
the screaming about DEI really been over.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And it's over this stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's permeated every government department, every university, most major corporations.
This stuff is everywhere like a plague, like a cancer.
And then going back to the lawsuit which spawned this
particular story, a thousand candidates were purged from consideration because
(20:46):
their pool was not diverse enough.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
This is insanity.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Diversity was supposed to be about finding qualified candidates who
might ordinarily be overlooked for one res or another, that
they were qualified and you want to add them to
the list. They just weren't in the normal places or
had the normal opportunities to apply for these jobs, and
(21:16):
that you went out of your way to make sure
that those candidates who may not have had access to
apply and present themselves for this kind of work can
do so. And nobody argued with that. But this was
about well you saw it. I mean, Biden had a
guy in red dress, red heels, and lipstick running some
(21:38):
nuclear waste storage agency. He had the highest nuclear security clearance.
You remember that guy slickballed red dress, red lipstick, and
he was the guy stealing luggage several times at airports.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
He was stealing luggage right off the carousel. He was insane.
Of course, he checked many many boxes. He checked just
about all the d.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
E boxes because he had a severe psychiatric disorder. I
don't know why he wasn't on duty last night trying
to land those planes.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
What this has been going on for ten years?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Can you imagine what's working inside the government, what's working
inside some of these control towers. I mean, we've seen
the TSA agents. Holy moly.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, most of the time they look like they're not
paying attention. I always worry about.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
That because they're not paying attention because they can't get fired.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Nobody gets fired. They're the ones that are looking for
bombs in our suitcases. They're supposed to be looking for bombs.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, it's now they're hoping like ten percent of the
workforce takes the buyout and leaves, and that's going to
save US one hundred billion dollars. And do you know,
I bet you when they finally get rid of hundreds
of thousands of workers who take the buy out, nobody
notices the difference.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do you know the.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Government hires two to three hundred thousand people a year.
They do imagine a year ago today there were two
at least two hundred thousand fewer federal employees.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
What have they been doing for the last year? How
is life better?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So you take them away and this is some kind
of terrible disaster? How many of them fit? All these
absurd characters? How many people with severe psychiatric issues were
actually recruited by the federal government and put in various departments.
I'm pretty sure I talked to a few of these people,
(23:54):
whatever you call the government.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
All Right, more coming up.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
On every day from one until four o'clock. We've got
so much still to do. After Debra's news at three o'clock,
we're going to talk with Aary Friedman. He's an attorney
of partner at Wisner Baum and they are behind a
lawsuit in La County Court against Southern California Edison, saying
so Cal Edison is substantially to blame for the Alta
(24:27):
Dina fire, the Eton fire because of neglect, mismanagement, and
repeated failures to address known risks of its aging, dangerous
infrastructure despite repeated warnings. And we'll talk about it because
this is an old story PG and E and Southern
California Edison and the other utilities have been chased around
(24:50):
and fined and sued and taken to criminal court, and
they always lose. They always end up paying enormous amounts money,
or should I say either taxpayers or ratepayers end up
paying enormous amounts of money. And these guys never ever
change their policies. Never, They just keep getting sued, they
(25:12):
keep making payouts, We keep bailing them out. It is
another it's another circular insanity because so Cal Edison doesn't
maintain its infrastructure the way LA City and La County
doesn't maintain its infrastructure and finance its its fire and
police departments, the way the federal government doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Doesn't fund its.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Air traffic controllers. As we found out. Here's another story,
and this is from John Solomon. He's a writer with
on a website called just thenews dot com, and he
wrote that the collision between the American Airlines jet and
the Blackhawk helicopter was preceded by months of harrowing misses
(26:00):
at airports across America. There have been a lot of
near misses, and he writes that fourteen months before last
night's crash, the FAA got a safety expert report saying
that America's air traffic control system is suffering from quality
control issues and staffing shortages, challenges in the area of
(26:22):
process integrity, staffing, facilities, equipment, and technology. Together these challenges
contribute to safety risk and they all have ties to
inadequate inconsistent funding for all the federal tax money. The
federal budget is like over six trillion dollars a year,
thirty six trillion in debt. We don't spend the minimum
(26:47):
amount of money for an air traffic control system. So
these guys work sixty hours a week, ten hours a day,
six days a week. And the guy last night who
is trying to land that plane and had to manage
the progress of the helicopter, according to reports, he was
doing two jobs. He was landing planes and directing planes
(27:10):
to lift off. Second job, madags do the helicopters that
fly up and down the Potomac River. And both the
planes and the helicopters are two different radio frequencies. So
when you had a helicopter approaching a plane, they don't
even speak on the same frequency, and they don't have
like different employees guiding them. He's got to do both
(27:35):
in addition to whatever other planes were landing at the time.
Over time is at historically high level, said the report.
And increasing high rates of overtime for extended periods introduces risk,
and that creates absenteeism, lower productivity, and fatigue. When traffic
(27:58):
is re routed put into holding patterns, Uh, the opportunity
for mistakes is multiplied because of the changes in the operation.
These these guys, these men and women, are tired, they're overworked, frazzled.
They've got too many planes. And Congress just increased the
allotment of planes at Reagan because they want more access
(28:22):
to fly out of town and go back home. So
that because Reagan is a relatively small airport and they
don't want to use Dulles, which is much larger, but
it's thirty miles away. This is just gross missmanagement on
every level. The way there's gross miss management of our
fire department in Los Angeles, the water in power situation
(28:47):
with the empty reservoir, with so Cal Edison's power line
starting to yet another fire.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I mean that one that one killed.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
This one killed a lot of people in Altadena, thousands,
thousands of homes burned. So anyway, we're gonna we're gonna
do the altadem thing when we come back. Aery Friedman
the attorney, and he's filed a loss against so Cal Edison.
I don't I don't know why we spend uh like
(29:20):
in this state, tens of billions of dollars every year
on things like high speed rail, on climate change policies,
on illegal aliens, on criminals, billions on homeless people. We
spend so much money on drug addicts and mental patients.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Like I showed you in La County.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
We spend more money on homeless drug addicts and mental
patients than we do in the fire department.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Why is this?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Why is Look look at all the money they have spent,
both on a national and a state local level. I'm
giving price packages to all the illegal aliens storming over
the border, including guys who came over and killed people.
They got benefits. I remember the guy who killed the
(30:11):
guy who killed Bacon Riley got a free plane ticket
from New York City to Georgia. We paid for his
plane ticket. You got to tie all.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Of this together because they choose to spend money on
the crazy people, on the criminals, on the illegals, and
they won't spend money on our fire department, our police department,
on air traffic control, on our water system, on our
power system. All right, more coming up, we'll talk to
(30:43):
Aarry Friedman Deborah Mark live in the CAFI twenty four
our newsroom.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Hey, you've been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI AM
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Coblt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Welcome again as we continue covering the plane crash in Washington,
d C yesterday. You can follow us at John Cobelt
Radio on all social media. And next person we want
to talk to is Emma James. She's a writer for
the Daily Mail and she landed at Reagan Airport on
(00:26):
a flight from Kansas City just minutes before the crash happened,
and she saw the flashing red lights and ambulances just
I guess as soon as she got into the terminal.
Let's talk to Emma James for her story. Emma, thanks
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hi John, Thanks thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Tell us what happened last night.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
You landed, The winds were strong, the landing was a
little bumpy.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Talk about what you went through.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
My colleague and I have obviously traveled to DCA fairly
often for work and it can be fairly bumpy at
the best of times. But the captain did sort of
make us aware that it was going to be windier
than usual and there may be some issues and turbulance
on landing. Our flight was fine. There was no real issues.
It was slightly bumpy, but basically I think ten minutes
(01:20):
as soon as we got into the terminal, there was
just a sudden sort of flurry of activity, a lot
of ambulances, a lot of fire, and least just on
the tarmac heading towards the river. And I think initially
we both thought there may have been sort of a
minor incident with an aircraft or a medical incident, But
then another sort of flurry came through and it became
(01:44):
fairly obvious that there was something else going on.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And how did it develop? Like how much could you
actually see?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
So we couldn't see. It was dark by the time
this is all happening, so it's mostly just the lights
of the emergency services and these helicopters looking over the river.
It was just sort of a line of red along
the road and that then spread onto the river. You
could see bits and pieces and slashes. You couldn't really
see exactly what was going on, but the police helicopters
(02:15):
were just circling trying to light up the water to
see if they could see anything. And obviously within the
terminal there wasn't a lot of activity at first to
be honest, I think no one was quite aware of
what was going on, and even if they were, they
didn't want to cause any panic for passengers waiting for
flights or waiting to take off.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
When did it think in that the worst had happened.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think it sunk in after we got an alert
to say that all of the flights were grounded, and
that was the moment I think everyone's like, something is
seriously wrong here. And everyone then started talking about a
smaller aircraft which had potentially been hit by a police helicopter.
And obviously it sunk in a lot further as soon
as it came to be that it was an American
(03:02):
Airlines flight, because it's just a lot more people that
are potentially involved. And then when it was confirmed that
it was an Army black Hawk helicopter, again sort of
everything heightened a little bit more just because of the
level of intensity of the situation. It was a lot
more people, a lot more damaging than we initially thought.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, and what did you do?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Then you got a news story that literally fell from
the sky in front of you.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah. I mean my colleague and I had to stay
in the terminal for about an hour just because there
wasn't exactly any guidance on whether we could get out
the safety wise, and then eventually when we were allowed
out of the terminal, we just had to go to
a hotel and start reporting from there really on what
(03:53):
we saw and what happened, because you couldn't get close
enough to the scene to really speak to anybody else.
We obviously spoke to other passengers, but everybody else was
sort of as in shocks a little bit as we were.
You know, reporting on this kind of thing gives you
a little bit of a harder skin, but not when it,
as you said, literally falls from the sky into your lap.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Did you land on the same runway or another part
of the year.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
I believe we landed on the other side of the airports.
We didn't land on that exact runway.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Right, because I was wondering how close it would have
been for your plane to get hit.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
You know, I was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Really amazing this plane that crashed. All it had to
do was cross the Potomac River. It was seconds away
from landing, and it was I.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Just I feel so sorry for those people that were
on that plane, simply because you can see everything when
you land a DCA, you can see the runway, you
can see the river. It's actually you know, a thing
to a sight to behold when nothing goes wrong. But
it's also has been shown it's a dangerous airport. You know,
there's no real safety around the water. There's nothing to
(05:07):
prevent anything like that from happening, as it were.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, because it's short runway, the one that they landed on.
It's about seven thousand feet and normally runways are thirteen
thousand feet. But this airport, Washington, DC, grew up around
at the airport's many decades old, and it wasn't designed
for these huge jets, and it wasn't designed for all
this traffic that it does get now because they have
(05:34):
filled every available slot with a plane either landing or
lifting off.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, and I believe that recently they added I think
it was five more slots. I'm not entirely clear on
which airline it was, but it become even more, even
more busy, and I you know, I think that's probably
got to be part of the investigation as to whether
there should be they should have been added. I'm not
saying that that was, you know, something that caused this,
but for sure it's a much busier airport than I
(06:02):
think anyone probably realizes until something like this happens.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
When you walk up this morning, emotionally, how did you feel?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
People have said they felt relieved, they felt guilty.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
So I definitely think I felt relieved. But there's also
the aspect of you feel relief and then you know,
just a few minutes later, you feel guilty because as
much as you're happy to still be here and be
alive and have the whole I'm glad it wasn't me
thought process. There's still the sixty seven other people that
did lose their lives, and they have families and loved
(06:36):
ones that they're never going to see again. That they
were texting as they thought they were touching down to
say they arrived space, and you know, you never want
to be in that position, and you know saying, God,
I wasn't, but I, you know, feel very guilty for
not having them as your initial first thought.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But I would have felt exactly the same way. Emma
James us, senior reporter for the Dailymail dot Com. Thank
you for coming on with us.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Thanks John, Have a good day.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right, Emma James. There, now we come back. Trump
went off at his press conference this morning. This is
the first one that was running, I guess probably about
eight thirty our time. And because he was he was willing,
willing to blame, willing to say that the crash was
somebody's fault, and eventually he blamed a DEI, which had
(07:31):
the reporters go into a tizzy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We've got several Trump clips.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
But as usual, while the reporters were chasing their own
tails on, it turns out that, Yeah, the FAA decided
during the Biden years to hire base based on diversity, equity,
and inclusion, and they rejected a lot of qualified candidates
in favor. And I'm not making this up, and I
(07:57):
want to tease this. They actually had in writing that
they were going to favor people who were physically paralyzed,
who had severe into severe intellectual.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Problems and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Serious emotional problems, serious psychiatric problems.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You believe this, No intellectual.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Problems, psychiatric problems, and paralysis issues. That they were going
to be favored in the hiring process at the FAA.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And this is what he was talking about. We'll tell
you about it next. You're shaking your head. Is all
you can do is grunt. I mean, there's well to
give you all the details.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's it's stunning, but it's from an actual lawsuit brought
by the people who've been rejected from jobs at the FAA,
and they finally blew the whistle on what the hiring
practices were, which were in writing, man, I can.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Get a job with the FAA, right, I can work for.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
The TSA too.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You could be well, anybody can work for the TSA,
but I could see you waving down planes.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, sure, you're.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Trump held a press conference and immediately said this crash
was could have been preventable. So did the Secretary of
State say that they had the Secretary of Transportation and
all the guys who just got hired in the last
few days suddenly had their first big crisis. And they
were very quick to say this no way they should
have happened. This wasn't some kind of act of God
(09:36):
situation here. And this gave Trump an opportunity which baffled
the reporters. He started talking about the absurd DEI requirements
that Joe Biden and Obama and Pete Bootage Edge as
the Transportation Secretary, had instituted over the years, and all
(09:56):
the reporters are going, what what was the I have
to do with this? I don't get it. And the
thing is it d I may or may not have
had anything to do with this crash. But Trump knew
that there was a lot of bad stuff in the
FA hiring policies. He had just written in an executive
order rescinding it, and he knew this was the moment
(10:19):
to bring it up because this is when people would
notice and care about it. And it's the same thing
I told you about the fires, pointing out how Karen
Bass or the fire chief or Newsome screwed up. And
some people go, well, it's just too soon. I mean,
it's just happened. It's like no, you start noticing it
and detailing it, documenting it immediately because that's when people care.
(10:45):
And then after that the emotion drains. People's attention spans drift,
memories start to fade, and it's just human nature. People
lose interest, they stop caring. Everyone should care deeply. Any organization,
any government that doesn't hire the best and brightest based
(11:05):
on merit, anything else, your company, the government, the military
is going to suffer and sometimes tragically, and Trump knew
he had a moment. Well, we've got several cuts. We'll
start with the cut number two, and he talks about
having the highest standards for air traffic controllers.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
We must have only the highest standards for those who
work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards
from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. Do you remember
that only the highest aptitude, they have to be the
highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify
(11:46):
for air traffic controllers.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
That was not so prior to getting there.
Speaker 6 (11:52):
When I arrived in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I made that change very early on because.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
I always felt this was a job that and other jobs,
but this was a job that had to be superior
intelligence and we didn't.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Really have that. And we had it, and then when I.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Left office and Biden took over, he changed them back
to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama,
Biden and the Democrats put policy first. Then they put
politics at a level that nobody's ever seen.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Because this was the lowest level.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So, as you know, last.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order
restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other
important jobs throughout the country.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So it was very interesting.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed
something last week that was an executive order, very powerful
and restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
By the way, all right, we get done, amis.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So here's the thing. This is part of a lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You had hundreds, maybe over one thousand air traffic controllers.
They were what would be air traffic controllers who couldn't
get a job.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Because this was actually in a.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Memo, a government memo, the applicant pool was too white.
They were hiring based on someone's skin color and declaring
the whole pool too white, and people were getting rejected
because of the color of their skin. Here's a piece
out of a lawsuit. From nineteen eighty nine to twenty thirteen,
(13:47):
the Collegiate Training Initiative Program was a pipeline to a
career in air traffic control. The program aimed to ensure
air traffic controllers had the skills and knowledge necessary to
carry out the job. More than ten years ago, the
Obama administration scrapped one thousand qualified candidates.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
This is from the lawsuit. The administration's justification was.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The pool of applicants was not diverse enough, so they
would be purged from consideration. Instead of hiring candidates with
the most competency, individuals were elevated for hiring consideration based
on their race. Our law seat seeks justice for all
(14:36):
the air traffic controllers who chose this career, dedicated their
lives in education, and were summarily denied a job for
no other reason than the color of their skin. In
a system with only fourteen thousand air traffic controllers, purging
a thousand of the next generation's best and brightest was
(14:56):
irresponsible and unsustainable. Now we come back, I'm going to
place some more of Trump's comments and I'm going to
read to you. In the executive order, it specifically says
that the FAA was hiring people with severe intellectual disabilities,
(15:18):
psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis, while tossing out one thousand
qualified would be air traffic controllers who graduated from the
program but were the wrong skin color.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
More coming up.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
We're on from one until four after four o'clock. John
Cobelt's show on demand on the iHeart app. If you
will talk to one hundred people on the street and
you asked them, hey, do you want air traffic controllers
to be hired based on how they perform on all
the testing that they get after taking the required training courses,
(16:04):
or would you like them to be hired based on
whether they had a disability or not, or the color
of their skin, or if should they get preferential treatment
because they have a lower measured intellectual level, Should they
(16:24):
be hired because they have a psychiatric disorder? Should they
be hired because they can't move their body they're paralyzed
in some way.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I'm not making this up.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Under the Biden administration, with Pete Boota, Jeg's trans transportation director,
a thousand healthy in minded body air traffic control candidates
were rejected because of the color of their skin and
because they weren't diverse enough. They were mostly too white,
(16:58):
they were not diverse, and what they were looking for
as people with serious intellectual impairments. And this is in
writing and psychiatric issues and paralysis issues. I'm going to
read you the exact quote in just a minute. But
Trump discussed this in his press conference this morning. Play
(17:21):
cut number three.
Speaker 6 (17:22):
I do want to point out that various articles that
appeared prior to my entering office.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
And here's one.
Speaker 6 (17:32):
The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with
severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
That is amazing. And then it says.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
FAA says people with severe disabilities a most underrepresented segment
of the workforce.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And they want them in and they want them they
can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
This was.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
In January fourteen, so that was a week before I
entered office. They put a big push to put diversity
into the FAA's program. Then another article the Federal Aviation Administration.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
This was before I got to office.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Recently, second term, the FAA is actively recruiting workers who
suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and
physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled
out on the agency's website. Can you imagine these are
(18:38):
people that are I mean, actually their lives are shortened.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Because of the stress that they have.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
Brilliant people have to be in those positions and their
lives are actually shortened very substantially.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Shortened because of the stress.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Where you have many, many planes coming into one target
and you need a very special talent and a very
special genius to be able to do it. Targeted disabilities
are those disabilities that the federal government, as a matter
of policy, has identified for special emphasis and recruitment and hiring.
The FAA's website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities,
(19:21):
partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability,
and dwarfism. All qualify work for the position of a
controller of aeroplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a
little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway.
(19:43):
The initiative is part of the faas Diversity and Inclusion
Hiring Plan.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Think of that.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion
Hiring Plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA's
mission of ensuring safe and efficient.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yeah, well, I don't think so. I don't think so.
I think it's just the opposite.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
This is the truth.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
This actually was the Biden Bootage edge Dei memorandum.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
This really was going on.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Some of you may be wondering what has been all
the screaming about DEI really been over.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
And it's over this stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
It's permeated every government department, every university, most major corporations.
This stuff is everywhere like a plague, like a cancer.
And then going back to the lawsuit which spawned this
particular story, a thousand candidates were purged from consideration because
(20:46):
their pool was not diverse enough.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
This is insanity.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Diversity was supposed to be about finding qualified candidates who
might ordinarily be overlooked for one res or another, that
they were qualified and you want to add them to
the list. They just weren't in the normal places or
had the normal opportunities to apply for these jobs, and
(21:16):
that you went out of your way to make sure
that those candidates who may not have had access to
apply and present themselves for this kind of work can
do so. And nobody argued with that. But this was
about well you saw it. I mean, Biden had a
guy in red dress, red heels, and lipstick running some
(21:38):
nuclear waste storage agency. He had the highest nuclear security clearance.
You remember that guy slickballed red dress, red lipstick, and
he was the guy stealing luggage several times at airports.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
He was stealing luggage right off the carousel. He was insane.
Of course, he checked many many boxes. He checked just
about all the d.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
E boxes because he had a severe psychiatric disorder. I
don't know why he wasn't on duty last night trying
to land those planes.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
What this has been going on for ten years?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Can you imagine what's working inside the government, what's working
inside some of these control towers. I mean, we've seen
the TSA agents. Holy moly.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, most of the time they look like they're not
paying attention. I always worry about.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
That because they're not paying attention because they can't get fired.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Nobody gets fired. They're the ones that are looking for
bombs in our suitcases. They're supposed to be looking for bombs.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, it's now they're hoping like ten percent of the
workforce takes the buyout and leaves, and that's going to
save US one hundred billion dollars. And do you know,
I bet you when they finally get rid of hundreds
of thousands of workers who take the buy out, nobody
notices the difference.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do you know the.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Government hires two to three hundred thousand people a year.
They do imagine a year ago today there were two
at least two hundred thousand fewer federal employees.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
What have they been doing for the last year? How
is life better?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So you take them away and this is some kind
of terrible disaster? How many of them fit? All these
absurd characters? How many people with severe psychiatric issues were
actually recruited by the federal government and put in various departments.
I'm pretty sure I talked to a few of these people,
(23:54):
whatever you call the government.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
All Right, more coming up.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
On every day from one until four o'clock. We've got
so much still to do. After Debra's news at three o'clock,
we're going to talk with Aary Friedman. He's an attorney
of partner at Wisner Baum and they are behind a
lawsuit in La County Court against Southern California Edison, saying
so Cal Edison is substantially to blame for the Alta
(24:27):
Dina fire, the Eton fire because of neglect, mismanagement, and
repeated failures to address known risks of its aging, dangerous
infrastructure despite repeated warnings. And we'll talk about it because
this is an old story PG and E and Southern
California Edison and the other utilities have been chased around
(24:50):
and fined and sued and taken to criminal court, and
they always lose. They always end up paying enormous amounts money,
or should I say either taxpayers or ratepayers end up
paying enormous amounts of money. And these guys never ever
change their policies. Never, They just keep getting sued, they
(25:12):
keep making payouts, We keep bailing them out. It is
another it's another circular insanity because so Cal Edison doesn't
maintain its infrastructure the way LA City and La County
doesn't maintain its infrastructure and finance its its fire and
police departments, the way the federal government doesn't.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Doesn't fund its.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Air traffic controllers. As we found out. Here's another story,
and this is from John Solomon. He's a writer with
on a website called just thenews dot com, and he
wrote that the collision between the American Airlines jet and
the Blackhawk helicopter was preceded by months of harrowing misses
(26:00):
at airports across America. There have been a lot of
near misses, and he writes that fourteen months before last
night's crash, the FAA got a safety expert report saying
that America's air traffic control system is suffering from quality
control issues and staffing shortages, challenges in the area of
(26:22):
process integrity, staffing, facilities, equipment, and technology. Together these challenges
contribute to safety risk and they all have ties to
inadequate inconsistent funding for all the federal tax money. The
federal budget is like over six trillion dollars a year,
thirty six trillion in debt. We don't spend the minimum
(26:47):
amount of money for an air traffic control system. So
these guys work sixty hours a week, ten hours a day,
six days a week. And the guy last night who
is trying to land that plane and had to manage
the progress of the helicopter, according to reports, he was
doing two jobs. He was landing planes and directing planes
(27:10):
to lift off. Second job, madags do the helicopters that
fly up and down the Potomac River. And both the
planes and the helicopters are two different radio frequencies. So
when you had a helicopter approaching a plane, they don't
even speak on the same frequency, and they don't have
like different employees guiding them. He's got to do both
(27:35):
in addition to whatever other planes were landing at the time.
Over time is at historically high level, said the report.
And increasing high rates of overtime for extended periods introduces risk,
and that creates absenteeism, lower productivity, and fatigue. When traffic
(27:58):
is re routed put into holding patterns, Uh, the opportunity
for mistakes is multiplied because of the changes in the operation.
These these guys, these men and women, are tired, they're overworked, frazzled.
They've got too many planes. And Congress just increased the
allotment of planes at Reagan because they want more access
(28:22):
to fly out of town and go back home. So
that because Reagan is a relatively small airport and they
don't want to use Dulles, which is much larger, but
it's thirty miles away. This is just gross missmanagement on
every level. The way there's gross miss management of our
fire department in Los Angeles, the water in power situation
(28:47):
with the empty reservoir, with so Cal Edison's power line
starting to yet another fire.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I mean that one that one killed.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
This one killed a lot of people in Altadena, thousands,
thousands of homes burned. So anyway, we're gonna we're gonna
do the altadem thing when we come back. Aery Friedman
the attorney, and he's filed a loss against so Cal Edison.
I don't I don't know why we spend uh like
(29:20):
in this state, tens of billions of dollars every year
on things like high speed rail, on climate change policies,
on illegal aliens, on criminals, billions on homeless people. We
spend so much money on drug addicts and mental patients.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Like I showed you in La County.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
We spend more money on homeless drug addicts and mental
patients than we do in the fire department.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Why is this?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Why is Look look at all the money they have spent,
both on a national and a state local level. I'm
giving price packages to all the illegal aliens storming over
the border, including guys who came over and killed people.
They got benefits. I remember the guy who killed the
(30:11):
guy who killed Bacon Riley got a free plane ticket
from New York City to Georgia. We paid for his
plane ticket. You got to tie all.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Of this together because they choose to spend money on
the crazy people, on the criminals, on the illegals, and
they won't spend money on our fire department, our police department,
on air traffic control, on our water system, on our
power system. All right, more coming up, we'll talk to
(30:43):
Aarry Friedman Deborah Mark live in the CAFI twenty four
our newsroom.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Hey, you've been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI AM
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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