February 03, 2025 03:05 PM UTC

Is Gabe Evans A "DEI Pilot" Too?

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• by: Colorado Pols

After last week’s tragic midair collision near Washington National Airport between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter, freshman GOP Rep. Gabe Evans has been making the rounds on cable and local news as an “expert” on operations of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter involved in the accident, having himself flown the same aircraft during his service with the Colorado Army National Guard. Denver7’s Shannon Ogden interviewed Evans last Friday:

As an investigation into the deadly midair collision near Washington, D.C. continues, Denver7 sat down with U.S. Representative Gabe Evans, a former Army and National Guard Black Hawk helicopter pilot, for his insight into the potential cause.

Evans, who represents Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, said it is possible the Black Hawk crew was looking at the wrong passenger jet when it confirmed to air traffic control that it did see the American Airlines passenger jet.

“Your field of vision under night vision goggles is about 1/15th of what it is right now. And you also lose a little bit of depth perception. So, it’s entirely possible even though the Black Hawk was talking to air traffic control, what you said, they might have misidentified the accompanying traffic,” said Evans…

All reasonable answers from a representative who no one would dispute is qualified to discuss the technical details of operating a military helicopter in relationship to last week’s tragic collision. But as a Republican member of Congress who won his office by clinging tightly to Donald Trump and the MAGA brand, there’s another important part of the story of last week’s disaster that Gabe Evans is not only qualified to talk about, but needs urgently to explain to his constituents. It’s the question 9NEWS tried to get an answer from Evans about for last Friday night’s news:

CLARK: One member of the Colorado congressional delegation has unique insights on President Trump’s claims. Republican Congressman Gabe Evans flew Black Hawk helicopters in the military, so we asked Evans today what he thought of Trump prejudging the cause of the crash and saying that it could have something to do with the race and gender of the people involved.

We asked Evans if he believes that the US military promotes unqualified Black Hawk pilots based on race or gender. And we also asked Evans, who proudly celebrates his own Hispanic heritage, if he believes that he was ever promoted in the military for some reason other than his qualifications. [Pols emphasis] Evans’ spokesperson did not respond to our questions today.

We talked to Evans in person as he was arriving at an event this afternoon. He declined to discuss the issue. He said he’ll get back to us.

After Trump launched into a tirade against diversity programs without any evidence of a relationship between those programs and the crash on the morning after the accident and the majority of victims still lying at the bottom of the Potomac River, it’s more than Evans’ responsibility as a Republican member of Congress to justify Trump’s baseless allegations. It’s absolutely fair to ask Rep. Evans whether he considers himself to be a “DEI hire” to the same extent that the pilot of the helicopter that crashed last week has been derided. The family of the deceased female pilot of the helicopter requested her name not be disclosed due to the expected outpouring of misogynist hatred following Trump’s remarks. If (God forbid) Evans had been at the controls, would he want his memory tarnished the same way?

If Gabe Evans is going to put himself out there as a talking head on these terrible events, he needs to answer all the questions–including the ones that make him personally uncomfortable. The hard truth is that Trump’s disparagement of “diversity hires” could apply to Evans as much as anyone involved in last week’s disaster.

If Evans doesn’t like that, he needs to say why.