It's the Brian Lera Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we'll take a look at the state of aviation in our country

as we mourn the 67 passengers killed in a collision between a passenger plane and a

Black Hawk helicopter near Washington's Reagan National Airport last Wednesday and the crash of a

Medevac helicopter in Pennsylvania. The tragedy last week marks the end of a decades-long safety streak in air travel in the United States

that was truly remarkable and shines new light on the troubles that flying under the radar,

that have been flying under the radar within the Federal Aviation Administration.

As we know, rather than focusing on staff shortages, ill-advised increased increases in air traffic around Reagan National and numerous close calls that went unsolved,

President Trump took to the podium to blame the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan during his news conference last week.

And that statement came despite the fact that all pilots involved in the crash were white

Americans.

One was a woman that was Captain Rebecca M. Loback, 28-year-old from Durham, North Carolina,

who her family tells us, or tells the media, was in the top 20% of cadets nationwide.

So we're going to try to look at what really happened there.

And then in addition, over the weekend, the country saw another fatal plane crash,

as I mentioned this time in Philadelphia, when a medical jet carrying six Mexican natives plummeted into a busy

neighborhood. And with two crashes in one week, many Americans are wondering how safe air travel is

at this particular moment. Joining me now to parse through the facts that we know and explain

how these tragic events could have been prevented is Oriana Pollack, Politico's

aviation reporter, and Jeff Wise, aviation journalist and host of the Finding MH370 podcast.

Oriana and Jeff, thank you for coming on with us today.

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