Pilots have expressed their frustration over the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) decision to prioritize woke ideology over focusing on ensuring that the system is functioning properly.
The pilots are specifically frustrated that the FAA’s latest budget framework had allocated millions of dollars toward “inclusive” language, “racial equity,” “environmental justice” and “climate change” while neglecting to address much-needed system updates — which could have potentially prevented the most recent system failure.
If you’re surprised that the FAA’s systems went down this morning grounding all domestic flights, you shouldn’t be.
Below are DOT and FAA’s approps focus in the 2023 budget:
“Racial equity,” “inclusion,” “income inequality,” “environmental justice, and “climate change.” pic.twitter.com/83N70Qs0aj
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 11, 2023
On Tuesday evening, the FAA’s Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) alerts system crashed, forcing the grounding of more than 4,600 flights within, into and out of the United States. The system outage was significant, as it provides pilots with crucial, real-time safety information about potential hazards.
The system outage was reportedly caused by a “damaged database file,” according to KTTV. In response to the issues, the FAA rebooted the system early Wednesday morning — but the system did not come back online as quickly as anticipated.
In their new budget framework, the FAA requested roughly $29.4 million for its Aeronautical Information Management Program, which includes the NOTAM system.
However, according to a government source, the NOTAM system is 30 years old — and the source estimates that an update to the system is roughly six years away.
“Because of budgetary concerns and flexibility of budget, this tech refresh has been pushed off,” the source told CNN. “I assume now they’re going to actually find money to do it. The FAA’s infrastructure is a lot more than just brick and mortar.”
Meanwhile, the FAA has plenty of money to spend on pushing a woke ideology. The agency’s 2023 budget includes a plan to invest “an additional $20 million above the 2021 enacted level for the office of the secretary to lead [the Department of Transportation’s] efforts to promote equity and inclusion.”
The budget also includes funding for “inclusion,” “racial equity,” “climate change” and “environmental justice.”
Speaking with Fox News Digital, JP Tristani — an aviation expert, veteran, and pilot — called the woke budget items “ridiculous,” arguing that “neither the DOT nor FAA should be involved with being a social ‘petri dish’ investing in such nonsense.”
“My interest was/remains, the safety of my aircraft, my training and that of my copilot, the route I’m flying and the only ‘climate change’ I am interested in is the weather along the route,” he added.
Sal Lagonia, an aviation lawyer, also condemned the FAA’s spending decisions.
“The spending on non-essential issues within the agency does nothing to help these technological blunders,” Lagonia told Fox News Digital.
The NOTAM system has had at least one update in the last several years — a name change. In December 2021, under failed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the system’s name was changed from “Notice to Airmen” to “Notice to Air Mission” as part of an effort to be “inclusive of all aviators and missions.”
Lagonia revealed that the name change had cost “a great deal of money,” which could have been used for critical updates to the system.
“Recently, the agency spent a great deal of money and effort to take the word ‘man’ out of the title and instead call it ‘Notices to Air Missions,’” he said. “Documents had to be changed, to the new name, etc. Spend that effort and money on bolstering the systems that makes and keeps flying safe.”
This is yet another transportation-related crisis that is being blamed on Buttigieg, the incompetent transportation secretary. Buttigieg’s tenure at the agency has been filled with crisis after crisis, and many times critics had to call him out for being absent while Americans were suffering. Fox News host Tucker Carlson roasted Buttigieg for the latest controversy, and his past failures, in a recent episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
