US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says pilot error – not planes – have been to blame for the recent spate of aviation accidents
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said he believes that pilot error has contributed to a majority of the recent plane accidents.
Duffy who was sworn as part of the Trump administration on January 28, 2025 quickly became public face of the government’s response to the deadly plane crash at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C – his second day on the job.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is currently underway. NBC News reports that Duffy has advocated for harsh penalties against US pilots who ignore instructions from air traffic control.
He suggested in an interview that pilots ought to have their licenses revoked if they fail to comply with orders after the latest US incident on Tuesday when a private jet almost collided with a Southwest Airlines aircraft in Chicago. Fortunately no one was injured.
The “close call” at the Chicago Midway Airport was caught in harrowing footage, which shows the Southwest plane preparing to touch down at the Illinois transport hub just before 9am local time. The passenger aircraft is seen descending towards the runway as the private jet comes in across its flight path. The Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 then pulled up, abandoning the landing effort for airborne safety. It narrowly misses the private aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 350.
The pilot’s stunned reaction was also captured in accompanying audio. He asks the air traffic controllers: “How’d that happen?” According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the plane was on its way from Omaha, Nebraska to Knoxville, Tennessee.
The Federal Aviation Administration blamed pilot error. In a statement it said: “The crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 initiated a go-around when a business jet entered the runway without authorization at Chicago Midway Airport. The FAA is investigating the incident.”
“A consequence-free space where you make errors, serious errors, and you don’t pay any kind of price for it, something’s wrong with that,” Duffy remarked in the interview. “And maybe this is the way we get pilots to start paying attention again and following the direction of air traffic controllers.”
In the wake of multiple fatal air crashes and close shaves in recent weeks, including the mid-air clash between a chopper and a passenger jet over Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D. C that claimed 67 lives, Duffy was addressing concerns about the perceived growing danger in the skies.
However, an NBC News review indicates that the rate of US incidents and fatalities on flights has not increased in comparison to past years.
The number of fatal collisions involving aircrafts, including helicopters, small planes and hot air balloons, has seen a decline in the United States over recent years , according to an analysis. Last year saw the lowest number of incidents in the past 25 years, with only 179 recorded.
Despite this overall decrease, there have been a series of aviation accidents in close succession recently, some of them fatal. On January 29, a catastrophic mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial airplane near Washington resulted in the death of all 67 passengers on both aircraft.
Earlier this month, a small plane crashed in Alaska, tragically killing all 10 people onboard, officials confirmed.
And across the border in Canada, a plane flipped upside down in a fiery crash landing at a Toronto airport, injuring 21 people.