American Airlines Flight 5342 Tragedy: The Real Causes Behind the Crash and the Safety of Flying

The tragic crash of American Airlines Flight 5342 raises questions about safety, staffing shortages, and the future of aviation.

On January 29th 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 tragically collided with an Army helicopter just outside of Reagan National Airport. Resulting in the deaths of all 67 passengers aboard the aircrafts, the devastating crash is the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. since 2001. The confusion surrounding the nature of the crash unavoidably raised the question: is it safe to fly? Before I can answer that, it is important to recognize the causes behind such a tragedy.

Due to its close proximity to the Pentagon and military helicopter operations, the airspace surrounding Reagan National is heavily monitored by a team of flight control staff. According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, there has been a “deterioration of federal hiring standards at the Federal Aviation Administration.” 

This supposed reckless hiring would at least result in an ample amount of employees in the control tower, but reports indicate that this is far from the case. According to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report, the air traffic control staff was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” on the day of the crash. Additionally, just one controller was in charge of communication with both helicopters and planes—a job intended for two people. The staffing shortage was not a one-time incident. As of September 2023, Reagan Airport was only reaching two thirds of their targeted staffing levels, forcing many employees to work up to six day weeks and ten hour days. 

President Trump also cited poor hiring as the reason behind the crash, claiming that the FAA “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative.” Despite using people with disabilities as a scapegoat, this claim still fails to address the issue of numbers. The reality is that airlines in America are experiencing a severe shortage of workers across the board, causing an inability to effectively monitor and ensure the safety of passengers. While the FAA does commit to equal employment opportunity including the appointment of persons with intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities, it is unknown—and quite frankly, unrelated—if the control team that night was representative of that commitment. 

After analyzing recent major aviation accidents, many have concluded that there is no clear pattern to be found. Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University and a commercial pilot in the U.K. and U.S., dubbed the incident “an aberration” and claimed that flying is still quite safe. In a separate study, it was found that the worldwide death risk per boarding from 2018 to 2022 was one in 13.7 million, an immense improvement from the one in 7.9 million of 2008 to 2017. 

In the days following the tragedy above the Potomac, searches for the phrase “is it safe to fly” rose by over 800% in the United States. However, while awful, the crash of American Airlines Flight 5342 is quite literally a one in a million occurrence and should not be used as an excuse to criticize individual workers or the implementation of DEI in the workforce. 

Vincent Petti