BBC Verify<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n President Donald Trump has caused controversy after suggesting that diversity programmes supported by his predecessors played a role in Wednesday’s mid-air collision between a passenger jet and helicopter in Washington DC.<\/p>\n In a news conference on Thursday, Trump said that under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden candidates with “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” could be hired<\/a> as air traffic controllers (ATCs). He suggested, without offering any evidence, that this could be to blame for the crash.<\/p>\n When challenged by reporters about why he thought this, he responded: “Because I have common sense.”<\/p>\n The investigation into the cause of the crash – which officials say killed 67 people – is continuing. The president has also blamed the helicopter’s flight path for the collision.<\/p>\n Some aviation experts said that while there had been diversity recruitment schemes within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ATC candidates still had to pass rigorous medical and psychological tests.<\/p>\n BBC Verify has looked into the facts behind the president’s claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n President Trump said a “diversity push” by the FAA – the US government agency in charge of civil aviation – had focused “on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities”.<\/p>\n He added: “They can be air traffic controllers.”<\/p>\n The president appeared to be referring to diversity and inclusion policies established during the Obama administration. They included “targeted disabilities that the federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring”.<\/p>\n Details were available on the FAA website until December. BBC Verify found an archived version of the page<\/a>.<\/p>\n It listed a number of “targeted disabilities”: “Hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism”.<\/p>\n The FAA employs around 45,000 people, of which ATC staff number about 14,000.<\/p>\n A new programme was established in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office, seeking to give people with disabilities a pathway to work in air traffic operations.<\/p>\n An FAA press release at the time said<\/a> the aim was to “help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations” and that up to 20 people would train for up to one year at a number of air traffic control centres.<\/p>\n It also emphasised that “candidates in this program will receive the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening for air traffic controller jobs”.<\/p>\n One of the first three graduates of the program became an air traffic control trainee in August 2021, the FAA said in a blogpost<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Candidates seeking to become ATCs have to go through years of training, as well as physical and mental tests. The FAA says they are screened during the recruitment process<\/a> for psychological issues.<\/p>\n Randy Babbitt – a former head of the FAA – told the NewsNation network: “They have very, very high standards to be an air traffic controller. Diversity has nothing to do with it.”<\/p>\n BBC Verify has asked the FAA if it has hired any air traffic controllers with severe intellectual or psychiatric disabilities since 2013, but is yet to hear back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When talking about standards in the aviation agency under the Obama administration, Trump said: “They actually came out with a directive, too white.”<\/p>\n In 2011 Obama did introduce an initiative<\/a> to make the FAA a “more diverse and inclusive workplace” – although this didn’t label the agency “too white”.<\/p>\n The Obama administration also added a “biographical questionnaire” to the air traffic control recruitment process as part of efforts to hire more diverse candidates.<\/p>\n This came after several reviews had found equal opportunity issues with the FAA’s hiring process.<\/p>\n In 2019, a legal firm filed a lawsuit against the FAA because of this questionnaire on behalf of more than 2,500 aspiring air traffic controllers.<\/p>\n According to the firm, the questionnaire awarded higher points to candidates for selecting certain answers to multiple choice questions about their socio-economic background.<\/p>\n On one question about job history, it claimed, an applicant would be awarded the highest points available if they indicated that they had not been employed in the last three years.<\/p>\n BBC Verify has not been able to independently verify the marking system for the questionnaire.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue that they were discriminated against by the FAA because they did not fit its “preferred ethnic profile as determined in the biographical questionnaire”.<\/p>\n The FAA and the Department of Transportation are contesting the lawsuit. <\/p>\n The questionnaire was removed for air traffic controllers in 2018 under Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2024, it was removed for wider FAA hiring, after Republicans in Congress introduced a provision to scrap the biographical questionnaire into a funding bill<\/a>, which was signed by then-President Biden.<\/p>\n The diversity of the FAA workforce, on some measures, has gradually increased in recent years, according to the agency’s Office of Civil Rights.<\/p>\n In 2016, under Obama, white men made up 59%<\/a> of the workforce and people with targeted disabilities made up 0.7%. <\/p>\n In 2020, the final year of Trump’s first term, 57% were white men<\/a> and 1% of the workforce had targeted disabilities.<\/p>\n In 2023, those figures <\/a>stood at 55% and 2%. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/c330\/live\/bdb3a280-dfd1-11ef-a108-5b0fc408bc51.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nCan people with ‘severe intellectual or psychiatric disabilities’ be hired as controllers?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Did a directive call the aviation agency ‘too white’?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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