From ‘Defund the Police’ to ‘Defund Air Traffic Control.’

This latest aviation mishap is not the new administration's fault. But it is inviting the next ones, which will be.

Screenshot from CNN, credited to John Nelson, of Delta regional jet flight 4819 upside-down after landing at Pearson Airport in Toronto, after crash landing today.

This post is about today’s crash-landing of a commuter jet, en route from Minneapolis to Toronto, which for still-unexplained reasons flipped over and landed on its back without killing any passengers.

Good news for all those aboard.

It coincides with cautionary news for anyone flying on US-based airlines. Let’s go through the de-brief:

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The big questions.

Was today’s crash-landing in Toronto directly traceable to this past weekend’s Musk-Trump mass layoffs of FAA officials in the US?

—Almost certainly not.

Will future crashes be directly traceable to this move?

—Almost certainly so.

Any future-history of US airline disasters in 2026 or beyond will probably start its narrative in this past holiday weekend of 2025. That is when the Musk tech-bro team known as DOGE, instructed by Russel Vought and empowered by Trump, began its mass layoffs of air-safety officials whose employment status showed “probationary.” (Even if they had been on the job for decades, and were classified as “probationary” only because they had recently received a promotion.)

After any aviation disaster, the careful investigators of the NTSB try to reconstruct the “accident chain.” We’re beginning the accident chain for future disaster, right now.

Let’s take this step-by-step.

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What happened in Toronto.

As with almost any aviation accident, it will take time to be sure. What is known as I write is this:

• The airplane was a Bombardier regional jet. By coincidence, this was the the same make, though a slightly different model, as the regional jet involved in the large-fatality collision near National Airport in DC this month.

• Many of the passengers have been taken to the hospital. But as of the time I write, all appear to have survived.

• The weather was challenging, and the winds were very strong and gusty, when the plane touched down at Toronto/Pearson and then apparently flipped over onto its back. Did the gusty crosswinds cause the plane to lose its balance and flip? At this moment no one can be sure. The weather and winds appear to have been bad but not unmanageable.¹ We’ll see what further data might reveal.

• Was this in any way related to the large-scale layoffs of air traffic control professionals by the new Musk-Trump-Doge regime? There’s no reason yet to think so. The recording of Air Traffic Control guidance from the Toronto tower, which you can listen to here², seems entirely routine until the moment the regional jet has a bad touch down.³

But will it be related to crashes in the future? That seems to me inevitable.

—You lay off much of the fire-fighting force, you’re inviting a destructive fire.

—You lay off teachers, you’re inviting ignorance.

—And if you lay off the people who have made air-travel safe, you are inviting unsafe air travel.

Which is what Trump, Musk, and their ninjas seem to be doing now.

But don’t ask me. Ask someone who has devoted his life to air-traffic safety.

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What will happen in our skies.

Someone I have been in touch with for many years, and whose airspace I once flew through during his time as a controller and mine as a pilot in that part of the country, sends a message today that I thought worth quoting in full. This correspondent writes:

They fired a bunch of probationery employees last night. Basically everyone other than controllers or safety inspectors, apparently.

It’s one of those things that has a slow but corrosive effect on safety. For example: Our team is bracing for cuts. One of the biggest things we do is environmental review and community engagement for proposed actions in airspace or procedures.

So if someone needs a new or amended approach [JF note: like those over the Potomac, in light of recent problems], the flight procedure team—currently staffed at 13, should be 17—designs it and gives it to us.

Our environmental specialists do the NEPA [environmental policy] review; myself and other ATC subject matter experts assist them by checking the procedures, explaining what’s going on, and checking it for any variety of things in how it fits in with everything else in the area. We also do community engagement stuff if it is called for.

[On our team] all the ‘probationary’ people got fired.

Will it lead to disaster? Not immediately. But fewer people trying to do the same amount of work will lead to stuff getting missed….

We prioritize and do the most safety-critical stuff first. But a lot will fall aside.

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‘Boys throw stones at frogs in fun…’

Let’s return to the theme of a preceding dispatch: Elon Musk and his acolytes are having fun, and perhaps preparing for a privatization of the FAA, but in the process they are putting all of the rest of us in danger.

—I submit that I know more about air safety, and about FAA procedures, than Elon Musk does, or any of the members of his zealot/ignoramus team.

—And I know at least a thousand people who are vastly more experienced and knowledgeable than I am.

The Musk/Trump people are empowering the know-nothings. Who tear things down because they have no idea of who built them up.

Conceivably this will be the barrier—the risk that constituents might die in airplane crashes—that stops them? When GOP politicians flying out of DCA think that Musk-ite shortcuts might kill them? When even Musk’s private jets have to deal with over-stressed air traffic controllers?

We don’t know. But the powers that be are pushing the limits.

—As a pilot, I trust air traffic controllers. As a passenger, I trust the multi-layer safety network that decades’ worth of relentless self-examination has built up.

—As a citizen, I do not trust the standards that the clown-corrupt Trump/Musk regime has introduced.

‘Defund the police’ became a right-wing attack-campaign slogan. ‘Defund Air Traffic Control’ will get us killed.

1. The aviation term “METAR” refers to the airport weather reports that pilots rely on in planning an approach and landing. The METAR from Pearson airport just before accident time was this:

CYYZ 171900Z 27028G35KT 6SM R24L/3000VP6000FT/U BLSN BKN034

Here’s what that means: The airport had ‘blowing snow’ (‘BLSN,’ which is also shorthand for blizzard), a ceiling of 3400 feet (‘BKN034’), and quite strong winds (‘27028G35KT’, or a baseline wind from due west at more than 30 mph, and peak gusts of more than 40 mph). I have landed in worse weather than that. But it’s a lot of wind, with a lot of passengers on board.

2. Starting at around time 10:30 of this audio: https://archive.liveatc.net/cyyz/CYYZ-Twr-Feb-17-2025-1900Z.mp3

3. I’ve flown into two different Toronto airports a number of times. The air traffic control responsibilities between the US and Canada are seamless along this northern border. The only way you know that you’re talking to a Canadian as opposed to a US controller is that they’ll say “Switch to frequency one-two-three decimal seven-five” as opposed to “one-two-three point seven-five.”