Aviation chiefs were ‘recruiting people with targeted disabilities’ until last year, it has emerged as President Donald Trump vows to overhaul diversity hiring after 67 people were killed when a  American Airlines plane collided mid-air with an Army Black Hawk helicopter.

Trump came under fire Thursday after suggesting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives may have played a role in the deadly crash.

He accused his predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama of keeping qualified employees out of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in pursuit of DEI – a remark that outraged Democrats across the nation.

Trump has not provided evidence that diversity hiring contributed to the crash, but did say air traffic controllers need to be ‘geniuses’ to handle the stress and complex movements of aircraft during their tense and crucial work shifts.

But documents about FAA hiring practices reveal that last year the agency was recruiting people with targeted disabilities, including ‘hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.’

The report did not specify which roles in the agency, which has nearly 45,000 employees, were included in the targeted recruitment efforts.

The FAA has ‘very strict requirements’ and ‘high standards’ for air traffic controllers, a former agency administrator told NewsNation, alleging that although the agency ‘hires a lot of people, not all of them can be controllers’.

Trump has issued an official memo directing the government to investigate ‘deterioration in hiring standards’ at the FAA under the Biden Administration and ordered the ‘replacement’ of anyone unqualified for their role. 

Diversity initiatives ramped up at the FAA under the Obama Administration, were largely swept away during Trump’s first term and then reinstated under Biden.

These DEI efforts saw the agency hire ‘more minorities’ and ‘people with disabilities’ in ‘key positions, including air traffic control’, The Washington Times reports.

The Obama Administration introduced a ‘biographical assessment’ test at the FAA in 2013, which was designed to increase the hiring of ‘preferred minority’ groups at air traffic control (ATC) centers.

The assessment, designed to help qualified candidates without aviation experience secure jobs in ATC, asked seemingly irrelevant questions such as applicants’ involvement in school sports or the age at which they held their first job.

Candidates with more experience and greater qualifications were disqualified by the assessment, the report states. 

Many of the rejected applicants were allegedly Air Traffic Collegiate Training graduates, held a pilot’s license, or had other ‘critical experience’ relevant to ATC.

The FAA was hit then with a class-action lawsuit involving more than 3,000 rejected applicants who alleged discrimination.

The agency dropped the biographical assessment in 2018 – during Trump’s first term – after Congress banned its use.

ATC applicants were instead required to take the Air Traffic Skills Assessment, which aimed to assess the majority of skills and attributes necessary to be a successful air traffic controller.

But after Trump left office, Biden implemented broader DEI practices in an effort to create more employment opportunities for underrepresented groups.

Data from the US Census Bureau and IPUMS reveals that 78 per cent of air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are men and 22 per cent are women, according to Axios. The majority of workers – 71 per cent – also identify as non-Hispanic white.

Trump and his team on Thursday referenced a Fox News report from last year on FAA hiring practices. 

The report quotes the Biden-era FAA’s website’s promotion of diversity hiring and states: ‘Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.’

‘They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.’ 

Trump, quoting from the passage as he addressed reporters in the White House Press Briefing room, said: ‘The FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualified for the position of a controller of air planes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot. A little dot on the map. A runway.’

The FAA in 2022 pledged to ‘diversify its workforce by rethinking its hiring practices’ and administration officials were assigned long-term goals aimed at amplifying ‘diversity, accessibility and LGBTQ issues’, according to the Washington Times.

The agency was also required to ‘host a national symposium with internal and external stakeholders to socialize efforts on the use of gender-neutral language at FAA’.

In 2023, the FAA declared a ‘Year of Inclusion’ which saw it host a three-day symposium training employees on the impacts of DEI and accessibility. It also aimed to help staff combat ‘unconscious bias.’

That same year, the agency battled a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, which seemingly led to a rise in ‘dangerous mistakes’.

The FAA recorded 503 air traffic control lapses that were categorized as ‘significant’ in 2023, The New York Times reported.

Virtually all of America’s ATC sites were understaffed and many controllers were forced to work six-day weeks and 10-hour shifts.

The FAA appointed a group of outside experts in November 2023 to urgently address safety risks, including ATC staffing levels and outdated technology. 

Trump has signed an order citing ‘problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration.’

‘We need the smartest people. We need both psychologically smart and just brilliant period,’ Trump said while signing the order and blaming DEI for the crash that left 67 dead in the Potomac River on Wednesday.

The message was hammered home as Vice President JD Vance and new defense secretary Pete Hegseth took turns at the podium to repeat – without evidence – the theory that diversity measures keep capable Americans out of responsible jobs.

During his public remarks, Trump brushed off concerns about losing staff amid a government-wide buyout-type offer to 2 million federal employees that could allow them to stay at home and get paid through the end of September.

He said if employees took the deal and left the FAA’s workforce, they would be replaced with ‘very competent people. We have a lot of competent people.’

Shortly after his remarks, the New York Times reported that staffing was ‘not normal’ in the air control tower Wednesday night, and that one person was handling both planes and helicopters.

Trump declined an opportunity to criticize the military for apparently conducting training on a Black Hawk helicopter at night near the landing area at the busy Ronald Reagan airport.

‘Fine if they’re in the right location, if they’re not at the same levels,’ Trump told a reporter.

Trump’s new executive order – signed Thursday afternoon – invoked his Presidential Memorandum of January 21, 2025, titled Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation, which Trump inked on his second day in office. 

Despite his emphasis, Trump did not provide specific evidence that hiring played a role in the crash, even as information about the pilots and crew was filtering out.

Asked point blank Thursday f he was aware of any performance issues or disciplinary actions with anyone working at DCA’s air control tower or the aircraft during the crash, Trump responded: ‘No.’

But at another point, asked if race and gender played a role in the tragic accident, Trump said: ‘It may have, I don’t know. Incompetence might have played a role.’

Meanwhile, Randy Babbitt – who served as the 16th administrator of the FAA – on Thursday claimed that diversity has ‘nothing to do’ with ATC hiring.

‘There are very strict requirements for air traffic control. It’s a two-year process. It’s intensive. It’s a lot of training,’ he told NewsNation.

Babbitt said it is ‘important’ to remember that the FAA has very, very high standards to be an air traffic controller’. 

‘Airlines hire a lot of people, but not all of them are going to be pilots. The FAA hires a lot of people, not all of them can be controllers,’ he added.