A National Transportation Safety Board hearing over the deadly Washington, D.C. plane crash has uncovered startling revelations in the past two days, but one supervisor at the Federal Aviation Administration was reprimanded during a discussion and required to move his seat to distance himself from an employee.
NTSB chair Jennifer Homedy said the FAA supervisor “elbowed an employee midsentence during the AA 5342 hearing today, and the employee stopped speaking,” Reuters transportation reporter David Shepardson posted Thursday on X.
The implication was that he was possibly being silenced, and the NTSB said that they would change the seating arrangement when they returned from a break.
“I’m not going to put up with that,” said Homedy.
Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday after the incident, Tom Costello described Homedy saying, “No, no, no, not in my hearing. This is a hearing to find the facts.”
He said that “the NTSB chair has been going after the FAA, saying that the FAA failed to adhere to 15,000 close call warnings at Reagan National Airport between planes and choppers, failed to act, failed to move the helicopter route so that there would not be a disaster. Failed to listen to controllers who warned of a possible disaster. And she says the FAA has been dragging its feet and not cooperating in this investigation.”
See the clip from the hearing and Tom Costello below or at the link here.
– YouTube youtu.be
– YouTube youtu.be