Opinion: The Washington, DC, Crash and the Role of Government

It's entirely too early for anyone to be speculating on the cause of the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.

But this is known: An internal report reviewed by the New York Times said the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport's vicinity was also instructing planes that were landing and departing on its runways – jobs, the Times said, typically assigned to two people.

Why one person was doing the work of two isn't known. Perhaps it was short staffing caused by funding issues. Perhaps someone got sick and a backup hadn't arrived yet. Perhaps . . . .

In our country, air traffic control is a public safety function of government as are police, and fire and rescue/EMS. Because all of these ultimately involve peoples lives, they need to be adequately funded to insure critical jobs are fully staffed at all times.

This involves making choices. Is it more important to insure that the air traffic control of a very busy major airport is fully staffed at all times, or is it more important to have three different panels – two within one agency – produce reviews of studies about alcohol and health?

The answer became very clear Wednesday night in the skies near Washington Reagan National Airport.