January 30, 2025 • 36 mins
Seeking answers to the plane/helicopter crash in our nation's capital. Trump speaks to the nation and suggests DEI policies are to blame. The social media blame factory. Trump vs. the leftwing media: he said/she said. Pilots call into the show with crash insight.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in Thursday edition, Clay Travis buck Sexton show a
lot of breaking news that we are going to be
tracking throughout the course of today's program. Tragic plane crash
in Washington, d C. Between a military helicopter and American
Airlines jet going from Wichita, Kansas to Washington, d C.
(00:22):
What occurred? Many different stories out there. As this continues
to evolve, we will break it down for you, and
also let me just go ahead and say right off
the top, if you are a pilot eight hundred and
two eight two two eight A two and or if
you fly or have flown the Blackhawk helicopter that was
(00:43):
involved here, we would love to hear from you, that is,
pilots and helicopter pilots. I appreciate that a lot of
you have a variety of opinions on this, but I'd
like to have expert opinion based on what you have
seen of the evidence. We will be discussing that. Trump
just had a press conference with Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy,
(01:05):
with his new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and with Jade
Vance all there. We'll have some of those cuts for
you as well. The ongoing drama of the confirmation hearings
of Donald Trump's cabinet nominees. Cash Patel, who is Trump's
nominee to lead the FBI currently speaking, as well as
(01:27):
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's nominee to basically head up all of
the intelligence agency universe. She is also in the midst
of her confirmation hearings. But we begin with the first
and most tragic commercial airline plane crash since two thousand
and nine. Happened last night just before nine o'clock Eastern.
(01:51):
I'm assuming most of you have seen the video of
the helicopter and the plane running into each other. Trump
has just announced in the White House there are no survivors.
Sixty passengers four crew members dead on the American Airlines
flight from Wichita, as well as three military members who
died in the collision who were inside of the helicopter.
(02:16):
There is a variety of evidence out there as to
what occurred. Will get some of the cuts of what
Trump said at the press conference, But Buck it seems
as if, based on what I have seen and analyzing
this evidence and again open phone lines eight hundred two
eight two two eight eight two, that the helicopter quite
(02:40):
simply did not see this American Airlines flight coming in
to land on a runway that is not necessarily the
most popular or common of a runway, and that the
plane clearly did not see the helicopter and they had
a mid air collision.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I've ridden in black helicopters in war zones and have
some familiarity as a passenger with the aircraft and their
use is they're pretty incredible platform, very versatile. But one
of the things that I think tragically came into the
situation here is they're not easy to see at night.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
They are built to be stealthy. That's why they are
the color they are.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's why, especially in you know, in war zone contexts,
they can be flown at night very effectively and safely.
You know, you're you're not going to be able to
hit one with ground fire. That's what they're built for,
you know, They're they're not built for the civilian purpose
of flying around airfields. Now, I know that nearby there
are a lot of that, there are black Hawk flights regularly,
(03:44):
and this was not some aberrant thing. You know, the
DC airspace is a very for obvious reasons, are very
particular and incredibly tightly regimented airspace. So this seems like,
as is so often the case with major air accidents,
(04:05):
some form of pilot error. We're not sure who, and
that's obviously not casting any aspersions on anybody, but there
was some lack of communication, there was some issue that
came up, and you know, one aircraft did not see
the other, and now we have this, this terrible tragedy.
Generally you have a number of things that come together.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I've actually read a bit about airline disasters in the past.
Just as somebody who flies, I think a lot of
us get curious about how these things happen. And it's
a fear that, look, we all know that you're safe.
You're incredibly safe when you're flying at a US commercial airliner,
for example, But freak accidents happened, and this was a
freak accident, I think. So it's generally cascading error. So
(04:48):
it's one thing under certain circumstances, and then another decision made,
and then another and then another, and then all of
a sudden you have a terrible situation. But we'll find
out more. I saw as soon as this happened last night,
and there's video you can't make out much from the video,
but the likelihood that there were going to be any
survivors of this, given that both aircrafts essentially blew up
and fell into the Potomac River, was very low, and
(05:10):
as we know now there are there are no survivors.
President Trump came out and spoke about it. I know,
we'll get into some of the press conference, Clay, and
also you have other news networks and their take on this,
which is unsurprising I'm sure to everybody, which is you know,
oh look at the Trump administration that we'll we'll get
into some of this in a second. But I think
(05:31):
it's very clear just a horrible and tragic accident, and
until we know more, I don't think it's constructive to
to go to go really beyond where that is right now.
So yeah, that's that's what I've got on it so far.
I just it's it's heartbreaking. And you and I just
flew into DCA a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know,
(05:52):
I mean, and this is anyone flying anywhere knows this
is this hits home because it could have been any
of us on the plane.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And apparently some very exceptional ice skaters were on this
on this plane. And there there was a contingent of
Russian ice skaters who were on the plane, you know,
young young people.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Like yeahagers, and they just had an ice skating competition
in whichitah is the report as to why all those kids,
young people were on that plane coming back.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yes, So I can't imagine what it's like for their families.
You have look right right out out of the right
out of the gate of their confirmations. You have Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth and Department of Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy coming forward. Uh to have to have to address
a tragedy right away. I mean they've they've been in
(06:44):
office for a couple of days, but this is the
nature of taking those kinds of jobs. And I saw
Pete statement, I saw I've been watching all morning.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm no cleauve, you've been seeing it.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Also seeing a little bit of Cash's confirmation hearing go forward.
But this is a terrible tragedy, and you know they
need to look at this very closely, as I'm sure
they will. I think Trump administration is going to get
to the bottom of well, where were the errors here?
What was preventable? What was more freak accident in nature,
(07:15):
and hopefully come up with practices to prevent such a
horrific tragedy from happening again.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
This is one thing that I think America has gotten right.
Every time there is an airline crash like this, all
of the smartest people involved in aviation go and look
at all every single detail associated with it. They reconstruct
what happened, and they try to ensure that something like
(07:42):
this never happens again. And I do think it's significant. Again,
this is the first commercial airliner that has gone down
since two thousand and nine. I know there's a lot
of flying fear in general, and I'm sure for many
people who have anxiety about flying, this is your worst
possible thought and an occurrence. I will say the positive here.
(08:04):
I like the fact that heg Seth and Sean Duffy
and Trump are getting out and trying to tell us
as much as they can. Immediately. My first thought, as
I'm sure many of you's first thought when you saw
the video, was man, this is hard to imagine this
could occur, and it is. But there is some measure
(08:26):
I think of, at least some measure of satisfaction that
it does not appear to have been intentional. And I
don't say that because in some way that makes the
tragedy any less in terms of the human error aspects
of it. But it is I think good that we
(08:48):
can take off the table. Hey, this was some sort
of act of terror or this was some sort of
intentional desire to create an outcome like this, which I
think many of you out there, given what's happened on
nine to eleven with aircraft, naturally, when you see something
like this happen, have that sort of in the back
of your mind, Oh, this is awful. But was it intentional?
(09:12):
It seems to have been pilot error. Now was it
pilot error on the side of the commercial airliner or
the helicopter pilot that's what they're assessing right now, or
air traffic control.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
You know, the worst airline disaster in history, not including
obviously nine eleven is a terrorist tech right, so excluding
nine eleven, But the worst accidental airline disaster in history
was back in nineteen seventy seven in the Canary Islands,
on the island of Tenerife, you had five hundred and
eighty three people were killed when a KLM flight and
(09:45):
a pan AM flight collided on a foggy runway that
you know, the runways close airspace into the airport can
be for obvious reasons, very precarious and very high risk.
And we are it's remarkably safe given how many flights
we all take and how much is going on.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
But when something goes wrong, it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Goes wrong in a huge way, as it did Backman,
that's going back now fifty years well, and I think
this airline tragedy also for many of you out there
who are old enough to remember, it will evoke memories
of nineteen eighty two because I went back and looked
into it when an Air Florida fight flight took off
(10:27):
at National Airport was not de iced properly, and almost
immediately it actually cliffed a bridge, the fourteenth fourteenth Avenue
bridge going into DC. Killed some people on the bridge.
Plane went into icy waters. I think six people survived,
but they were in the back of the plane and
they were able to come up and be able to
(10:50):
survive that flight. But I think for many people, because
you're dealing with the Potomac River and you're dealing with
the National Airport, it also evoked I mean, that's been
forty plus years ago now, but I think for many people,
because the imagery of that was so evocative when that
flight went down, that many people probably think of that.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
As well associated with this.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Here's President Trump. This is cut to just speaking about
where the country is right now and where his thoughts
are as we learn more about this tragedy and.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Vihav for the first Lady, myself and three hundred and
forty million Americans. Our hearts are shattered alongside yours, and
our prayers are with you now and in the days
to come. We'll be working very, very diligently. In the
days to come. We're here for you to wipe away
the tears and to or for you our devotion, our love,
and our support.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
There's great support.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
In moments like this, The differences between Americans fade to
nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that
unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations.
We are one family, and today we are all heartbroken.
We're all searching for answers.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Clay, I think one thing we can count on is
that there'll be quick answers, relatively speaking, but quick answers
from this administration about just what happened here? Did someone
stray into you know, they have designated airspace for the helo,
designated airspace for the fixed wing. Did somebody just stray
into the wrong airspace? Was there some communications issue on board?
(12:21):
I mean, well, we'll get to all of that, but
I think that it'll be it'll come out a lot
faster because they have they have a promise to the
country of transparency and any problems that they can see,
especially that affect Americans' lives in such a profound way,
they're going to want to fix as fast as they.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Can, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And again for people out there, Trump direct quote, we
have the safest flying anywhere in the world. We'll keep
it that way. That's his pledge. Also in this commentary,
now blame season is afoot. We've got some cuts from
you for you associated with this again. Eight hundred two
A two two eight A two love to hear from
(12:59):
pilot's air traffic control military who have been involved in
flying those Blackhawk helicopters. Based on the evidence out there,
what might you guys have seen and or want this
audience to know. I think this is a very smart audience.
Typically when we ask questions like these, we get very
intelligent responses and information to share with this audience, so
(13:21):
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Speaker 2 (13:25):
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Speaker 5 (14:48):
You ain't imagining it.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The world has gone insane.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
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can yet your podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Bach. We're talking
about the biggest news story in the country right now,
which is the horrific fatal airline crash in Washington, d C.
Right over the Potomac River and right away over at MSNBC.
No surprise, one of their morning hosts, Mika Brzhinski. Apparently
(15:25):
she's doing fine, even though she says if Trump wins,
Hitler wins, but seems like she's doing just fine anyway.
Here she is telling everybody that she's concerned about the
nominees expertise as if one of them was flying the plane.
Speaker 7 (15:38):
Play eight So interesting, especially when you look at RFK
and what the job is he's nominated for, or Cash
Battel or Pete heg Seth who's gotten through. But you
look at a situation like the breaking news that we're
covering right now, put the politics aside. It's the expertise
that matters. And some are concerned about the expertise of
(15:59):
these nominees.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yes, I don't know what she thinks the expertise of
somebody who's been at the Pentagon for two days is
going to do about an airline crash with thousands and
thousands of flights happening every day, or the new secretary
of Transportation Like, but this is where we are a
people are making it political clay right away and Trump
(16:21):
Trump took some swings. We should get into this. I mean,
Trump is not holding back on this either. So that's
that's where the situation is unfolding.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, we'll play some of the audio from Trump in
the press availability with press questions coming up in just
a just a moment.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
We come back on the flip side.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I will say, does anyone think the mayor of South
Bend Indiana was supremely qualified to be the head of Transportation.
I mean, I mean, does Pete Hegseth have any basis
at all? I mean what Biden did was basically use
his cabinet as a opportunity to give DEI focused people jobs.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Pete Hexth got that job because he's a gay guy.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Who was the Health and Human Services secretary, our friend
majorcis Or. I mean, he didn't know. These guys were
not experts at anything. So the idea that you're gonna
be attacking suddenly expertise. They made Jennifer Granholm, who I
did a panel with Bill Maher years ago and who
was honestly an idiot, the Department of Energy secretary. What
(17:27):
about what was the Xavier Bessera or whatever, vill Clay
I'm in South Florida.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Javier, Sir, Javier.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Javier whatever that guy's name was he had I can't
even remember what he got. He had no basis in
knowledge whatsoever to be the person that got his cabinet positioned.
So look, I mean a lot of this is lunacy.
We'll come back and uh and break it down for
you the press availability that Trump just had when we
come back. But In the meantime, I got some picks
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Speaker 3 (18:53):
My name Clay.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Buck Sexton show Okay Buck
every time something bad happens in the age of social media,
there is an immediate blame factory that takes a route.
Within a few minutes of this event occurring, people like
Bacari Sellers and Aaron Ruper and CNN commentators were going
(19:17):
on and they were saying, Trump is to blame. Crash happens, helicopter, airplane.
We're still trying to figure out what happened. Immediately, Hey,
this is Trump's fault. They started sharing clips, they started
sharing tweets, some of them they later deleted.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
But this is the world we live in.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Before anybody really knows anything, the blame factory begins. Trump,
in his press conference just in the last hour or so,
responded to some of those criticisms by saying, Hey, we're
going to have the highest traff the highest talented, most
intellectually capable air traffic controllers out there. This is in
(20:03):
response to an issue that the air traffic control decided,
and some of you have seen this, that they needed
to have more diverse people working air traffic control. Trump
referenced that as part of his press conference. Caitlyn Collins
at CNN fired back with a question. Fireworks ensued, let's
(20:26):
play that cut. Here is Caitlyn Collins question and Trump's response.
It's going to get a lot of attention today. This
just happened.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Fresman.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
Yet know the names of the sixty seven people who
were killed, and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies
and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the
US military who was flying that Blackhawk helicopter. Don't you
think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
I don't think so at all.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I don't think with the names of the people, I mean,
the names of the people that are on the plane,
you think that's going to make a difference. They are
for their family, They are a group of people that
have lost their lives.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
If you want to list of the names, we can
give you that.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
We'll be giving that very soon with in coordination with
American Airlines, where in coordination very strongly obviously with the military.
But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm
surprised coming from here.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, so fiery a bit there as he has questioned
about his comments about DEEI related impact. Now, to be fair,
the President likely knows way more information than he is
sharing right now. There is he said, he wants to
get the information about what happened out as quickly as
(21:36):
possible because oftentimes, and I'm paraphrasing him here, he said,
they investigate these things for months or years, and then
eventually the story comes out and it gets some attention,
but it doesn't go a long way towards answering the
question of exactly what happened. It is simultaneously the case
that there has been a lowering of standards in air
(21:59):
traffic control and there has been a push for diversity,
equity and inclusion inside of the airlines. Also bucked the
case that, at least publicly right now, what caused this
incident we don't know. And again this goes into the
speculation side. Immediately Trump gets blamed, and then Trump comes
(22:20):
back and says, hey, we got to have the best
possible people regardless, and now it's going to turn into
a big I think, he said, She said, everybody pointing
as a part of the blame factory analysis here Before
the full conclusion of the accident is actually discussed at all.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
As we've seen with a whole range of different tragedies
and disasters, the other side is going to jump on it.
So you can let them dominate the narrative, or you
can fight back right away. I wish Clay that there
was more, especially with something like this. This was an accident.
Obviously it's horrible. Think of for all these people who
lost their lives, a terrible tragedy, all their families, frames
(23:00):
I mean, it's just absolutely brutal, and you know the
country is in mourning over it. But we also know
that whether it's a school shooting or an accident or
a natural disaster, especially in the twenty four to seven
inter always connected news world that we all live in,
they start trying to score political points right away, to
(23:23):
start attacking the other side, shaping and pushing narratives before
the facts come out. And unfortunately, I think that there's
an understanding that if you allow that to go unchallenged,
then they get their way.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So it's tricky because I think that there's an obvious
desire that normal, well adjusted people have for can we
all just take a moment here to mourn and see
what's going on? But I played what Mika said right
away on Morning Go, and there's a lot of other
stuff out there, and so Trump decided to lay right
into it here.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
This is cut three.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
He's talking about the standards of air traffic controllers and
what's going on there.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
He's getting right to at play three.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
I put safety first.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they
put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Because this was the lowest level.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse. So,
as you know, last 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. Then
my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
We have to have our smartest people.
Speaker 9 (24:39):
It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak,
who they are matters intellect, talent the word talent. Have
to be talented, naturally talented geniuses.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
You know, Clay.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
This is where the argument against DEI becomes very real
and very personal for people in just a broader sense.
It may have absolutely nothing to do with this accident.
We don't know, Okay, just to be clear, we don't
know yet, and that's that should be established. But he
is talking about policy, executive orders and how these issues
(25:11):
are framed, and when it comes to your air traffic controllers, pilots,
you know, heart surgeon, brain surgeon, the whole range of
You actually just want, you know, firemen, you know, people
fighting wildfires. What you actually just want the best people
and to people that really need them. They all understand that.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
The more significant the job, the less diversity matters. Because
I guarantee you, if your loved one or you are
going under the knife for heart surgery, you don't care
anything at all about your heart surgeon other than is
he the best damn heart surgeon or she the best
(25:53):
damn heart surgeon on the planet. And I don't know
about you, Buck, but when I walk on an airplane,
I don't want you think about anything other than this
guy or this gal is one of the best pilots
in the world. That's who I want to entrust my
safety too. And there are some things where cosmetic diversity, Okay,
(26:15):
I don't really care. I'll give you an example, sorry
for anybody out there who's working in these jobs right now. Overall,
if you work in a parking lot, you know, if
you're a parking a lot attendant, I'm not really that
concerned with what your background is. I think the job
is pretty easy relatively speaking. And so if we want
(26:36):
to have a diverse array of parking a lot of attendants,
more power to you. But the more significant the job is,
the higher the qualifications there are for it, the less
I want DEI involved at all. I fact, am I
correct about this team? Can look this up. I believe
Kamala Harris's final flight as a vice president, they were
(26:58):
bragging that she had an all female, an all black
flight crew. Isn't this like kind of thee I think
it was just all female.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I don't know if it was also all minority, but
it was all female. Look, we all understand that we
just we want that plane to take off, and we
wanted to land, and we want everyone to be safe
and any of these other considerations changing standards when lives
are at stake. That's really what we're talking about here.
This is why the lowest output jobs in our society
(27:29):
include diversity educator and diversity coordinator. And you don't do anything.
So the good news about diversity educators is, well, they
harass people and their commissars for politics. But no one's
dying because of the college diversity coordinator or whatever, right,
so that doesn't really matter the problem is they are
part of a system that pushes forward changes in standards
(27:53):
that you're not allowed to talk about. They've got to
change of standards, but you can't talk about the change standards.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
That's the rule. The same thing with firm revaction, by the.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Way, you can't talk because if you didn't have to
change the standards, you wouldn't need these things.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You wouldn't need a.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Front of action or DEI or whatever the latest incarnation
of it may be. Look, you know, and this is
this is something that affects my family, and so far
as you know, I got a father in law who's
an American Airlines pilot and this was an American Airlines flight.
He is a former naval aviator F eighteen pilot. And
you know, look, even before I met him and before
I married Kerry.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Who do you want flying your plane? A lot of
people like you.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Know what, I kind of want somebody who's a military
aviator of some kind that sounds like a good or
somebody with a lot of experience who's really done this.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You know, you just want the best. There is no
person who would ever get on a plane and here.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know, this pilot doesn't have as many hours in
this airframe as we would like for your flight. However,
they are a member of the Inuit nation and they
have a disability. Yeah, there is no part of you
that would say, I am I am happy for this
on the flight and and this is what I you know, this,
this is what comes up when we talk about this issue.
(29:02):
It's just a question of honesty. Let's all be honest
with each other.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Also, what would you have thought if you had gotten
on an airplane and Joe Biden had been your pilot.
Would you have gotten on the plane, you know when
you walk on and the pilots standing there outside of
the cockpit, if Joe Biden were standing there, would you
be like, Hey, this is an airline. I have to
really feel comfortable about it. I don't think so. I
think buck. By the way, in the investigation, one thing
(29:28):
they're really going to have to look into is the
interplay between helicopter and airplane communication, because it seems, based
on some of this evidence, that that could be a
flaw in that they're not integrating systems as well between
helicopters and airplanes like they would be between airplanes in
(29:51):
terms of air traffic control avoidance. I've flown a lot
in small planes where I wear the headset and can
hear all the air traffic control. I don't claim to
be a pilot fancy, but I do think it's instructive
to sit and listen to the conversations that are going
(30:12):
on between air traffic controllers. And also in my time
flying in helicopters, they don't seem to be integrated the
communication systems between the two. And given the amount of
aircraft that is traveling in that DC area, which you
and I both flew into last week, it is one
(30:32):
of the most commercially difficult and an air filled traffic
control out there, to say nothing buck of all the
VIPs that are constantly flying around in helicopters all over
the DC area, which is unlike any other area in
America in terms of that constant flow of traffic. Of
(30:54):
the President Defense Secretary, all these individuals flying around on helicopters, well.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is what I think.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They have to look at everything that happened here and
see and to be clear, again, we don't know anything
about the cause really yet other than it was I
think very likely pilot error on some at some level
in some capacity, But we don't know anything about the pilots.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
We don't know anything about the situation that they were in.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
There could have been some kind of equipment failure, so
it could have been some kind of a communication getting garbled.
There's a lot of other frequencies and things going on there.
You know, we just don't we don't know. But that
all said, I also think that we should remember these
are flights. These things are happening all the time, day
in and day out, and it's it's fine. So, you know,
(31:39):
we we shouldn't assume that there have to be massive
systemic changes for an incredibly rare, you know, tragic, totally
incredibly rare event. I mean our system works. I think
that airframes are built to something like a billion hours
of flight is the expected. You know, after after a
(32:00):
billion hours of flight, like something could really catastrophic can happen.
The idea being they're never going to get to the
billion hours, but something can happen at some point in
the future.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
A couple of things.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
As we go to break you got to read Vanity
Fair did an entire story on Kamala Harris being flown
back to California by an all female crew for the
first time ever.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So that was.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Legitimately the way we said goodbye to Kamala Harris and
we got buck. A bunch of pilots who want a
way in. We'll take some of these calls on the backside,
commercial airline pilots, helicopter pilots. I think we're going to
get some good takes from them coming up.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
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Is my name? Buck?
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Speaker 6 (33:28):
Want to begin to know when you're on the go?
The team forty seven podcasts shrap highlights from the week
Somedays at noon Eastern in the Clay in Buck podcast feed.
Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
We've got our expert panel joining us now, which is
all of you from across the country. Who are pilots,
helo pilots, fixed wing pilots, military, civilian. Amazing the expertise
we can draw upon when we put out the bat
signal to all of you. We got Frank in Michigan
over tied commercial airline pilot. Frank, what are you seeing here?
Thanks for calling in?
Speaker 10 (34:07):
Hey guys, Uh, you know that's a horrible situation. A
couple of things that came to mind when I watched
and read some of that was the you know, were
they both on the tower frequency, or was one on
the approach frequency and the other perhaps on the tower frequency.
They would have both been on approach frequency, I would think,
(34:27):
and about the time that PSA slash American plane was
aligning with runway three to three, they would have put
him told him to contact the tower for his landing clearance.
And that was probably about the point he would have
been configuring that airplane for landing with the year, and
so he may have been. He may have been over
to another frequency when that actually when the impact.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, a coms A cooms problems certainly could be an
is year. I'm just curious about how far out and
this is a very you know, I'm a total novice
or civilian whatever about how far out would you be
able to see a Blackhawk at night even with the
I know they have special lights that they'll hit, as
as the helo, but and how much time do you
(35:09):
have if one of them is in your flight path?
You see what I mean? I mean, what what kind
of visibility would you have on any on any helo?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Really?
Speaker 10 (35:17):
But yeah, the visibility was you know, unlimited. The helo
would have had navigation lights for sure, red and green
as far as Strobes on it. I don't know. The
other thing that came to mind was if you guys
are familiar with what's known as tea casts, a traffic
collision avoiding system on aircraft. I don't know if that
(35:40):
military helo. If you get some military helo guys on here,
you could ask them that if they have tea casts
the airline.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Good question.
Speaker 10 (35:47):
But again, you can go without it. We have what's
called an EMMY and the Elementimum Equipment List. You can
dispatch without it. It normally works very rare.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let me ask you. We're going to one quick question here.
As we go to break and we're going to take
some more of these calls and.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
We come back.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
When you get close to ground, does your avoidance systems
turn off in some way? Because this was about four
hundred feet up. I've heard from some pilots that that
avoidance system would decline as you get close.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Would that be true?
Speaker 10 (36:19):
Well, now that's a totally different system. You mean, as
far as the tea cask goes, which t could flick
their planes. It gives you fly up commands, slide out commands.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Tool.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Just stick with us, we'll come back. You're way too
smart for us to solve this in thirty seconds. We'll
come back and take some more of your calls from
pilots both military.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Please, let's get it.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
We have a black Hawk, a black Hawk pilot or
a military rotary wing pilot listening call in and we
want to hear from also the sort of black Hawk
helo perspective on this. So we'll take more calls coming
up here and dig into this some more
Welcome in Thursday edition, Clay Travis buck Sexton show a
lot of breaking news that we are going to be
tracking throughout the course of today's program. Tragic plane crash
in Washington, d C. Between a military helicopter and American
Airlines jet going from Wichita, Kansas to Washington, d C.
(00:22):
What occurred? Many different stories out there. As this continues
to evolve, we will break it down for you, and
also let me just go ahead and say right off
the top, if you are a pilot eight hundred and
two eight two two eight A two and or if
you fly or have flown the Blackhawk helicopter that was
(00:43):
involved here, we would love to hear from you, that is,
pilots and helicopter pilots. I appreciate that a lot of
you have a variety of opinions on this, but I'd
like to have expert opinion based on what you have
seen of the evidence. We will be discussing that. Trump
just had a press conference with Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy,
(01:05):
with his new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and with Jade
Vance all there. We'll have some of those cuts for
you as well. The ongoing drama of the confirmation hearings
of Donald Trump's cabinet nominees. Cash Patel, who is Trump's
nominee to lead the FBI currently speaking, as well as
(01:27):
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's nominee to basically head up all of
the intelligence agency universe. She is also in the midst
of her confirmation hearings. But we begin with the first
and most tragic commercial airline plane crash since two thousand
and nine. Happened last night just before nine o'clock Eastern.
(01:51):
I'm assuming most of you have seen the video of
the helicopter and the plane running into each other. Trump
has just announced in the White House there are no survivors.
Sixty passengers four crew members dead on the American Airlines
flight from Wichita, as well as three military members who
died in the collision who were inside of the helicopter.
(02:16):
There is a variety of evidence out there as to
what occurred. Will get some of the cuts of what
Trump said at the press conference, But Buck it seems
as if, based on what I have seen and analyzing
this evidence and again open phone lines eight hundred two
eight two two eight eight two, that the helicopter quite
(02:40):
simply did not see this American Airlines flight coming in
to land on a runway that is not necessarily the
most popular or common of a runway, and that the
plane clearly did not see the helicopter and they had
a mid air collision.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I've ridden in black helicopters in war zones and have
some familiarity as a passenger with the aircraft and their
use is they're pretty incredible platform, very versatile. But one
of the things that I think tragically came into the
situation here is they're not easy to see at night.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
They are built to be stealthy. That's why they are
the color they are.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's why, especially in you know, in war zone contexts,
they can be flown at night very effectively and safely.
You know, you're you're not going to be able to
hit one with ground fire. That's what they're built for,
you know, They're they're not built for the civilian purpose
of flying around airfields. Now, I know that nearby there
are a lot of that, there are black Hawk flights regularly,
(03:44):
and this was not some aberrant thing. You know, the
DC airspace is a very for obvious reasons, are very
particular and incredibly tightly regimented airspace. So this seems like,
as is so often the case with major air accidents,
(04:05):
some form of pilot error. We're not sure who, and
that's obviously not casting any aspersions on anybody, but there
was some lack of communication, there was some issue that
came up, and you know, one aircraft did not see
the other, and now we have this, this terrible tragedy.
Generally you have a number of things that come together.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I've actually read a bit about airline disasters in the past.
Just as somebody who flies, I think a lot of
us get curious about how these things happen. And it's
a fear that, look, we all know that you're safe.
You're incredibly safe when you're flying at a US commercial airliner,
for example, But freak accidents happened, and this was a
freak accident, I think. So it's generally cascading error. So
(04:48):
it's one thing under certain circumstances, and then another decision made,
and then another and then another, and then all of
a sudden you have a terrible situation. But we'll find
out more. I saw as soon as this happened last night,
and there's video you can't make out much from the video,
but the likelihood that there were going to be any
survivors of this, given that both aircrafts essentially blew up
and fell into the Potomac River, was very low, and
(05:10):
as we know now there are there are no survivors.
President Trump came out and spoke about it. I know,
we'll get into some of the press conference, Clay, and
also you have other news networks and their take on this,
which is unsurprising I'm sure to everybody, which is you know,
oh look at the Trump administration that we'll we'll get
into some of this in a second. But I think
(05:31):
it's very clear just a horrible and tragic accident, and
until we know more, I don't think it's constructive to
to go to go really beyond where that is right now.
So yeah, that's that's what I've got on it so far.
I just it's it's heartbreaking. And you and I just
flew into DCA a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know,
(05:52):
I mean, and this is anyone flying anywhere knows this
is this hits home because it could have been any
of us on the plane.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And apparently some very exceptional ice skaters were on this
on this plane. And there there was a contingent of
Russian ice skaters who were on the plane, you know,
young young people.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Like yeahagers, and they just had an ice skating competition
in whichitah is the report as to why all those kids,
young people were on that plane coming back.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yes, So I can't imagine what it's like for their families.
You have look right right out out of the right
out of the gate of their confirmations. You have Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth and Department of Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy coming forward. Uh to have to have to address
a tragedy right away. I mean they've they've been in
(06:44):
office for a couple of days, but this is the
nature of taking those kinds of jobs. And I saw
Pete statement, I saw I've been watching all morning.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I'm no cleauve, you've been seeing it.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Also seeing a little bit of Cash's confirmation hearing go forward.
But this is a terrible tragedy, and you know they
need to look at this very closely, as I'm sure
they will. I think Trump administration is going to get
to the bottom of well, where were the errors here?
What was preventable? What was more freak accident in nature,
(07:15):
and hopefully come up with practices to prevent such a
horrific tragedy from happening again.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
This is one thing that I think America has gotten right.
Every time there is an airline crash like this, all
of the smartest people involved in aviation go and look
at all every single detail associated with it. They reconstruct
what happened, and they try to ensure that something like
(07:42):
this never happens again. And I do think it's significant. Again,
this is the first commercial airliner that has gone down
since two thousand and nine. I know there's a lot
of flying fear in general, and I'm sure for many
people who have anxiety about flying, this is your worst
possible thought and an occurrence. I will say the positive here.
(08:04):
I like the fact that heg Seth and Sean Duffy
and Trump are getting out and trying to tell us
as much as they can. Immediately. My first thought, as
I'm sure many of you's first thought when you saw
the video, was man, this is hard to imagine this
could occur, and it is. But there is some measure
(08:26):
I think of, at least some measure of satisfaction that
it does not appear to have been intentional. And I
don't say that because in some way that makes the
tragedy any less in terms of the human error aspects
of it. But it is I think good that we
(08:48):
can take off the table. Hey, this was some sort
of act of terror or this was some sort of
intentional desire to create an outcome like this, which I
think many of you out there, given what's happened on
nine to eleven with aircraft, naturally, when you see something
like this happen, have that sort of in the back
of your mind, Oh, this is awful. But was it intentional?
(09:12):
It seems to have been pilot error. Now was it
pilot error on the side of the commercial airliner or
the helicopter pilot that's what they're assessing right now, or
air traffic control.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
You know, the worst airline disaster in history, not including
obviously nine eleven is a terrorist tech right, so excluding
nine eleven, But the worst accidental airline disaster in history
was back in nineteen seventy seven in the Canary Islands,
on the island of Tenerife, you had five hundred and
eighty three people were killed when a KLM flight and
(09:45):
a pan AM flight collided on a foggy runway that
you know, the runways close airspace into the airport can
be for obvious reasons, very precarious and very high risk.
And we are it's remarkably safe given how many flights
we all take and how much is going on.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
But when something goes wrong, it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Goes wrong in a huge way, as it did Backman,
that's going back now fifty years well, and I think
this airline tragedy also for many of you out there
who are old enough to remember, it will evoke memories
of nineteen eighty two because I went back and looked
into it when an Air Florida fight flight took off
(10:27):
at National Airport was not de iced properly, and almost
immediately it actually cliffed a bridge, the fourteenth fourteenth Avenue
bridge going into DC. Killed some people on the bridge.
Plane went into icy waters. I think six people survived,
but they were in the back of the plane and
they were able to come up and be able to
(10:50):
survive that flight. But I think for many people, because
you're dealing with the Potomac River and you're dealing with
the National Airport, it also evoked I mean, that's been
forty plus years ago now, but I think for many people,
because the imagery of that was so evocative when that
flight went down, that many people probably think of that.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
As well associated with this.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Here's President Trump. This is cut to just speaking about
where the country is right now and where his thoughts
are as we learn more about this tragedy and.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Vihav for the first Lady, myself and three hundred and
forty million Americans. Our hearts are shattered alongside yours, and
our prayers are with you now and in the days
to come. We'll be working very, very diligently. In the
days to come. We're here for you to wipe away
the tears and to or for you our devotion, our love,
and our support.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
There's great support.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
In moments like this, The differences between Americans fade to
nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that
unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations.
We are one family, and today we are all heartbroken.
We're all searching for answers.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Clay, I think one thing we can count on is
that there'll be quick answers, relatively speaking, but quick answers
from this administration about just what happened here? Did someone
stray into you know, they have designated airspace for the helo,
designated airspace for the fixed wing. Did somebody just stray
into the wrong airspace? Was there some communications issue on board?
(12:21):
I mean, well, we'll get to all of that, but
I think that it'll be it'll come out a lot
faster because they have they have a promise to the
country of transparency and any problems that they can see,
especially that affect Americans' lives in such a profound way,
they're going to want to fix as fast as they.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Can, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And again for people out there, Trump direct quote, we
have the safest flying anywhere in the world. We'll keep
it that way. That's his pledge. Also in this commentary,
now blame season is afoot. We've got some cuts from
you for you associated with this again. Eight hundred two
A two two eight A two love to hear from
(12:59):
pilot's air traffic control military who have been involved in
flying those Blackhawk helicopters. Based on the evidence out there,
what might you guys have seen and or want this
audience to know. I think this is a very smart audience.
Typically when we ask questions like these, we get very
intelligent responses and information to share with this audience, so
(13:21):
open phone lines associated with that as well.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
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Speaker 5 (14:48):
You ain't imagining it.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The world has gone insane.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
We claim your sanity with Clay and Fun.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
can yet your podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Bach. We're talking
about the biggest news story in the country right now,
which is the horrific fatal airline crash in Washington, d C.
Right over the Potomac River and right away over at MSNBC.
No surprise, one of their morning hosts, Mika Brzhinski. Apparently
(15:25):
she's doing fine, even though she says if Trump wins,
Hitler wins, but seems like she's doing just fine anyway.
Here she is telling everybody that she's concerned about the
nominees expertise as if one of them was flying the plane.
Speaker 7 (15:38):
Play eight So interesting, especially when you look at RFK
and what the job is he's nominated for, or Cash
Battel or Pete heg Seth who's gotten through. But you
look at a situation like the breaking news that we're
covering right now, put the politics aside. It's the expertise
that matters. And some are concerned about the expertise of
(15:59):
these nominees.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yes, I don't know what she thinks the expertise of
somebody who's been at the Pentagon for two days is
going to do about an airline crash with thousands and
thousands of flights happening every day, or the new secretary
of Transportation Like, but this is where we are a
people are making it political clay right away and Trump
(16:21):
Trump took some swings. We should get into this. I mean,
Trump is not holding back on this either. So that's
that's where the situation is unfolding.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, we'll play some of the audio from Trump in
the press availability with press questions coming up in just
a just a moment.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
We come back on the flip side.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I will say, does anyone think the mayor of South
Bend Indiana was supremely qualified to be the head of Transportation.
I mean, I mean, does Pete Hegseth have any basis
at all? I mean what Biden did was basically use
his cabinet as a opportunity to give DEI focused people jobs.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Pete Hexth got that job because he's a gay guy.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Who was the Health and Human Services secretary, our friend
majorcis Or. I mean, he didn't know. These guys were
not experts at anything. So the idea that you're gonna
be attacking suddenly expertise. They made Jennifer Granholm, who I
did a panel with Bill Maher years ago and who
was honestly an idiot, the Department of Energy secretary. What
(17:27):
about what was the Xavier Bessera or whatever, vill Clay
I'm in South Florida.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Javier, Sir, Javier.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Javier whatever that guy's name was he had I can't
even remember what he got. He had no basis in
knowledge whatsoever to be the person that got his cabinet positioned.
So look, I mean a lot of this is lunacy.
We'll come back and uh and break it down for
you the press availability that Trump just had when we
come back. But In the meantime, I got some picks
(17:58):
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Speaker 3 (18:53):
My name Clay.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Buck Sexton show Okay Buck
every time something bad happens in the age of social media,
there is an immediate blame factory that takes a route.
Within a few minutes of this event occurring, people like
Bacari Sellers and Aaron Ruper and CNN commentators were going
(19:17):
on and they were saying, Trump is to blame. Crash happens, helicopter, airplane.
We're still trying to figure out what happened. Immediately, Hey,
this is Trump's fault. They started sharing clips, they started
sharing tweets, some of them they later deleted.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
But this is the world we live in.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Before anybody really knows anything, the blame factory begins. Trump,
in his press conference just in the last hour or so,
responded to some of those criticisms by saying, Hey, we're
going to have the highest traff the highest talented, most
intellectually capable air traffic controllers out there. This is in
(20:03):
response to an issue that the air traffic control decided,
and some of you have seen this, that they needed
to have more diverse people working air traffic control. Trump
referenced that as part of his press conference. Caitlyn Collins
at CNN fired back with a question. Fireworks ensued, let's
(20:26):
play that cut. Here is Caitlyn Collins question and Trump's response.
It's going to get a lot of attention today. This
just happened.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Fresman.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
Yet know the names of the sixty seven people who
were killed, and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies
and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the
US military who was flying that Blackhawk helicopter. Don't you
think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
I don't think so at all.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I don't think with the names of the people, I mean,
the names of the people that are on the plane,
you think that's going to make a difference. They are
for their family, They are a group of people that
have lost their lives.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
If you want to list of the names, we can
give you that.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
We'll be giving that very soon with in coordination with
American Airlines, where in coordination very strongly obviously with the military.
But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm
surprised coming from here.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, so fiery a bit there as he has questioned
about his comments about DEEI related impact. Now, to be fair,
the President likely knows way more information than he is
sharing right now. There is he said, he wants to
get the information about what happened out as quickly as
(21:36):
possible because oftentimes, and I'm paraphrasing him here, he said,
they investigate these things for months or years, and then
eventually the story comes out and it gets some attention,
but it doesn't go a long way towards answering the
question of exactly what happened. It is simultaneously the case
that there has been a lowering of standards in air
(21:59):
traffic control and there has been a push for diversity,
equity and inclusion inside of the airlines. Also bucked the
case that, at least publicly right now, what caused this
incident we don't know. And again this goes into the
speculation side. Immediately Trump gets blamed, and then Trump comes
(22:20):
back and says, hey, we got to have the best
possible people regardless, and now it's going to turn into
a big I think, he said, She said, everybody pointing
as a part of the blame factory analysis here Before
the full conclusion of the accident is actually discussed at all.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
As we've seen with a whole range of different tragedies
and disasters, the other side is going to jump on it.
So you can let them dominate the narrative, or you
can fight back right away. I wish Clay that there
was more, especially with something like this. This was an accident.
Obviously it's horrible. Think of for all these people who
lost their lives, a terrible tragedy, all their families, frames
(23:00):
I mean, it's just absolutely brutal, and you know the
country is in mourning over it. But we also know
that whether it's a school shooting or an accident or
a natural disaster, especially in the twenty four to seven
inter always connected news world that we all live in,
they start trying to score political points right away, to
(23:23):
start attacking the other side, shaping and pushing narratives before
the facts come out. And unfortunately, I think that there's
an understanding that if you allow that to go unchallenged,
then they get their way.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So it's tricky because I think that there's an obvious
desire that normal, well adjusted people have for can we
all just take a moment here to mourn and see
what's going on? But I played what Mika said right
away on Morning Go, and there's a lot of other
stuff out there, and so Trump decided to lay right
into it here.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
This is cut three.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
He's talking about the standards of air traffic controllers and
what's going on there.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
He's getting right to at play three.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
I put safety first.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they
put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Because this was the lowest level.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse. So,
as you know, last 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. Then
my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
We have to have our smartest people.
Speaker 9 (24:39):
It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak,
who they are matters intellect, talent the word talent. Have
to be talented, naturally talented geniuses.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
You know, Clay.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
This is where the argument against DEI becomes very real
and very personal for people in just a broader sense.
It may have absolutely nothing to do with this accident.
We don't know, Okay, just to be clear, we don't
know yet, and that's that should be established. But he
is talking about policy, executive orders and how these issues
(25:11):
are framed, and when it comes to your air traffic controllers, pilots,
you know, heart surgeon, brain surgeon, the whole range of
You actually just want, you know, firemen, you know, people
fighting wildfires. What you actually just want the best people
and to people that really need them. They all understand that.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
The more significant the job, the less diversity matters. Because
I guarantee you, if your loved one or you are
going under the knife for heart surgery, you don't care
anything at all about your heart surgeon other than is
he the best damn heart surgeon or she the best
(25:53):
damn heart surgeon on the planet. And I don't know
about you, Buck, but when I walk on an airplane,
I don't want you think about anything other than this
guy or this gal is one of the best pilots
in the world. That's who I want to entrust my
safety too. And there are some things where cosmetic diversity, Okay,
(26:15):
I don't really care. I'll give you an example, sorry
for anybody out there who's working in these jobs right now. Overall,
if you work in a parking lot, you know, if
you're a parking a lot attendant, I'm not really that
concerned with what your background is. I think the job
is pretty easy relatively speaking. And so if we want
(26:36):
to have a diverse array of parking a lot of attendants,
more power to you. But the more significant the job is,
the higher the qualifications there are for it, the less
I want DEI involved at all. I fact, am I
correct about this team? Can look this up. I believe
Kamala Harris's final flight as a vice president, they were
(26:58):
bragging that she had an all female, an all black
flight crew. Isn't this like kind of thee I think
it was just all female.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I don't know if it was also all minority, but
it was all female. Look, we all understand that we
just we want that plane to take off, and we
wanted to land, and we want everyone to be safe
and any of these other considerations changing standards when lives
are at stake. That's really what we're talking about here.
This is why the lowest output jobs in our society
(27:29):
include diversity educator and diversity coordinator. And you don't do anything.
So the good news about diversity educators is, well, they
harass people and their commissars for politics. But no one's
dying because of the college diversity coordinator or whatever, right,
so that doesn't really matter the problem is they are
part of a system that pushes forward changes in standards
(27:53):
that you're not allowed to talk about. They've got to
change of standards, but you can't talk about the change standards.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
That's the rule. The same thing with firm revaction, by the.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Way, you can't talk because if you didn't have to
change the standards, you wouldn't need these things.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
You wouldn't need a.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Front of action or DEI or whatever the latest incarnation
of it may be. Look, you know, and this is
this is something that affects my family, and so far
as you know, I got a father in law who's
an American Airlines pilot and this was an American Airlines flight.
He is a former naval aviator F eighteen pilot. And
you know, look, even before I met him and before
I married Kerry.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Who do you want flying your plane? A lot of
people like you.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Know what, I kind of want somebody who's a military
aviator of some kind that sounds like a good or
somebody with a lot of experience who's really done this.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You know, you just want the best. There is no
person who would ever get on a plane and here.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know, this pilot doesn't have as many hours in
this airframe as we would like for your flight. However,
they are a member of the Inuit nation and they
have a disability. Yeah, there is no part of you
that would say, I am I am happy for this
on the flight and and this is what I you know, this,
this is what comes up when we talk about this issue.
(29:02):
It's just a question of honesty. Let's all be honest
with each other.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Also, what would you have thought if you had gotten
on an airplane and Joe Biden had been your pilot.
Would you have gotten on the plane, you know when
you walk on and the pilots standing there outside of
the cockpit, if Joe Biden were standing there, would you
be like, Hey, this is an airline. I have to
really feel comfortable about it. I don't think so. I
think buck. By the way, in the investigation, one thing
(29:28):
they're really going to have to look into is the
interplay between helicopter and airplane communication, because it seems, based
on some of this evidence, that that could be a
flaw in that they're not integrating systems as well between
helicopters and airplanes like they would be between airplanes in
(29:51):
terms of air traffic control avoidance. I've flown a lot
in small planes where I wear the headset and can
hear all the air traffic control. I don't claim to
be a pilot fancy, but I do think it's instructive
to sit and listen to the conversations that are going
(30:12):
on between air traffic controllers. And also in my time
flying in helicopters, they don't seem to be integrated the
communication systems between the two. And given the amount of
aircraft that is traveling in that DC area, which you
and I both flew into last week, it is one
(30:32):
of the most commercially difficult and an air filled traffic
control out there, to say nothing buck of all the
VIPs that are constantly flying around in helicopters all over
the DC area, which is unlike any other area in
America in terms of that constant flow of traffic. Of
(30:54):
the President Defense Secretary, all these individuals flying around on helicopters, well.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is what I think.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They have to look at everything that happened here and
see and to be clear, again, we don't know anything
about the cause really yet other than it was I
think very likely pilot error on some at some level
in some capacity, But we don't know anything about the pilots.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
We don't know anything about the situation that they were in.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
There could have been some kind of equipment failure, so
it could have been some kind of a communication getting garbled.
There's a lot of other frequencies and things going on there.
You know, we just don't we don't know. But that
all said, I also think that we should remember these
are flights. These things are happening all the time, day
in and day out, and it's it's fine. So, you know,
(31:39):
we we shouldn't assume that there have to be massive
systemic changes for an incredibly rare, you know, tragic, totally
incredibly rare event. I mean our system works. I think
that airframes are built to something like a billion hours
of flight is the expected. You know, after after a
(32:00):
billion hours of flight, like something could really catastrophic can happen.
The idea being they're never going to get to the
billion hours, but something can happen at some point in
the future.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
A couple of things.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
As we go to break you got to read Vanity
Fair did an entire story on Kamala Harris being flown
back to California by an all female crew for the
first time ever.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So that was.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Legitimately the way we said goodbye to Kamala Harris and
we got buck. A bunch of pilots who want a
way in. We'll take some of these calls on the backside,
commercial airline pilots, helicopter pilots. I think we're going to
get some good takes from them coming up.
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Speaker 3 (33:43):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
We've got our expert panel joining us now, which is
all of you from across the country. Who are pilots,
helo pilots, fixed wing pilots, military, civilian. Amazing the expertise
we can draw upon when we put out the bat
signal to all of you. We got Frank in Michigan
over tied commercial airline pilot. Frank, what are you seeing here?
Thanks for calling in?
Speaker 10 (34:07):
Hey guys, Uh, you know that's a horrible situation. A
couple of things that came to mind when I watched
and read some of that was the you know, were
they both on the tower frequency, or was one on
the approach frequency and the other perhaps on the tower frequency.
They would have both been on approach frequency, I would think,
(34:27):
and about the time that PSA slash American plane was
aligning with runway three to three, they would have put
him told him to contact the tower for his landing clearance.
And that was probably about the point he would have
been configuring that airplane for landing with the year, and
so he may have been. He may have been over
to another frequency when that actually when the impact.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, a coms A cooms problems certainly could be an
is year. I'm just curious about how far out and
this is a very you know, I'm a total novice
or civilian whatever about how far out would you be
able to see a Blackhawk at night even with the
I know they have special lights that they'll hit, as
as the helo, but and how much time do you
(35:09):
have if one of them is in your flight path?
You see what I mean? I mean, what what kind
of visibility would you have on any on any helo?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Really?
Speaker 10 (35:17):
But yeah, the visibility was you know, unlimited. The helo
would have had navigation lights for sure, red and green
as far as Strobes on it. I don't know. The
other thing that came to mind was if you guys
are familiar with what's known as tea casts, a traffic
collision avoiding system on aircraft. I don't know if that
(35:40):
military helo. If you get some military helo guys on here,
you could ask them that if they have tea casts
the airline.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Good question.
Speaker 10 (35:47):
But again, you can go without it. We have what's
called an EMMY and the Elementimum Equipment List. You can
dispatch without it. It normally works very rare.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let me ask you. We're going to one quick question here.
As we go to break and we're going to take
some more of these calls and.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
We come back.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
When you get close to ground, does your avoidance systems
turn off in some way? Because this was about four
hundred feet up. I've heard from some pilots that that
avoidance system would decline as you get close.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Would that be true?
Speaker 10 (36:19):
Well, now that's a totally different system. You mean, as
far as the tea cask goes, which t could flick
their planes. It gives you fly up commands, slide out commands.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
Tool.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Just stick with us, we'll come back. You're way too
smart for us to solve this in thirty seconds. We'll
come back and take some more of your calls from
pilots both military.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Please, let's get it.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
We have a black Hawk, a black Hawk pilot or
a military rotary wing pilot listening call in and we
want to hear from also the sort of black Hawk
helo perspective on this. So we'll take more calls coming
up here and dig into this some more
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