Summary
Two planes collided while taxiing at Reagan National Airport, one carrying lawmakers including Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who blamed the incident on Trump-era FAA staffing cuts.
The White House denied cuts occurred, despite confirmed reductions of 400 FAA positions in February.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat described feeling the impact and accused the administration of misleading the public about aviation safety.
The crash follows a series of safety failures at Reagan, including a fatal January collision and an air traffic control tower fight last week that led to arrests and firings.
Some quick napkin math tells me a Boeing 767 gets about 7.8 miles per gallon. This is for longer flights thay can spend more time at cruising speed and altitude, short flights are way worse. Travel over 1500 miles (2500km) is a big efficiency jump. Compares favorably to a cross-country road trip.
It’s still far worse than ground-based mass transit but the time factor is hard to ignore. The world needs more high-speed rail.
7.8 miles per gallon, while carrying around 300 people. That’s not really all that bad.