Summary

Two planes collided while taxiing at Reagan National Airport, one carrying lawmakers including Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who blamed the incident on Trump-era FAA staffing cuts.

The White House denied cuts occurred, despite confirmed reductions of 400 FAA positions in February.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat described feeling the impact and accused the administration of misleading the public about aviation safety.

The crash follows a series of safety failures at Reagan, including a fatal January collision and an air traffic control tower fight last week that led to arrests and firings.

    • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Flying is never gonna be fine, as it burns away our future. Keep living in the usa, if you can endure it.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Some quick napkin math tells me a Boeing 767 gets about 7.8 miles per gallon. This is for longer flights thay can spend more time at cruising speed and altitude, short flights are way worse. Travel over 1500 miles (2500km) is a big efficiency jump. Compares favorably to a cross-country road trip.

        It’s still far worse than ground-based mass transit but the time factor is hard to ignore. The world needs more high-speed rail.

        • Uranus_Hz@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          7.8 miles per gallon, while carrying around 300 people. That’s not really all that bad.

      • Fredthefishlord
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        2 days ago

        It’s my personal belief that the cultural exchange flying allows is beneficial enough to justify the waste, though I hate private jets.

        Sidenote, did you know some planes get 60mpg? Hobby ones though. I’m ever against gas usage in most cases, and hope they can bring back an alternative

          • pycorax@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Trains can be faster than planes once you include the time needed to go to a airport and the check in process. Bullet trains in Japan are much faster than taking the plane and are more expensive sometimes as a result for certain routes.

            • Fredthefishlord
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              15 hours ago

              Bullet trains in Japan are much faster than taking the plane

              Ehhhhhhhhhhhh. Depends on your destination, where you’re coming from. The routes I saw were pretty comparable