A preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration found that staffing at the Ronald Reagan Airport air traffic control tower was “not normal” at the time of the deadly collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet.
The internal report, released on Thursday and reviewed by The New York Times said the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity on Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways.
These jobs are typically assigned to two different controllers.
It comes as the National Transportation Safety Board promised to “leave no stone unturned” in their investigation. Whether human or mechanical factors contributed to the crash that left 67 people dead is not yet clear, officials said. Black boxes have not yet been recovered.
At a press briefing hours earlier, President Donald Trump linked the Federal Aviation Administration’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies to the incident. “You have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers,” he said.
All flights in and out of Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport were resumed at 11 a.m. Thursday.
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