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February 03, 2025 03:05 PM UTC

Is Gabe Evans A "DEI Pilot" Too?

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Gabe Evans in his former role as an Army Black Hawk pilot.

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.

Comments

7 thoughts on “Is Gabe Evans A “DEI Pilot” Too?

  1. If they're going to blame DEI on the DC crash, they're going to have to credit DEI for the last sixteen years of no fatal accidents (just kidding, will never happpen in MAGAville).  We lose about 40,000 souls annually to traffic accidents and we're once again bumping up against a billion passenger air miles every year on domestic airlies.  Not to dismiss the tragedy of this accident, but one of the top "safest" travel choices in the world is still a domestic airline seat. 

    Enjoy your DEI ride, Gabe.  

     

  2. WITH the Biden Administration and Congress pushing the FAA, and all of the efforts to recruit qualified individuals, FAA announced

    Monday, September 23, 2024

    WASHINGTON – Today the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it exceeded its goal of hiring 1,800 air traffic controllers in 2024, with a final total of 1,811 for Fiscal Year 2024. As the largest number of hires in nearly a decade, this marks important progress in the FAA’s work to reverse the decades-long air traffic controller staffing level decline.  

    “Our dedicated air traffic controllers keep the flying public safe every day,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. “I’m thrilled to announce that we hit this major hiring milestone and have so many talented professionals entering our training program. It’s a testament to the hard work of everyone involved and part of our ongoing work to rebuild the controller workforce.” 

    The FAA currently has more than 14,000 air traffic controllers. With this year’s addition, there are now around 3,400 controllers in various stages of training, ranging from initial instruction at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City to specialized airspace training for positions at one of the FAA’s hundreds of air traffic facilities.

    However, DC's NBC affiliate reported

    Before the FAA's 2024 hiring totals were announced, its latest workforce plan had said the agency was short 3,000 controllers to fill air traffic control stations and towers across the country as of May, according to Airlines for America.

    And, just for fun, FAA Air Traffic Controllers got the Elon Musk "RESIGN" email, like most of the Federal government's employees.

        1. It predates him, but he was the first President to embrace it and to deem the federal government the enemy.  Hack actor and now we've got a hack reality tv host.  What a country!

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