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A team recovers the remains of American Airlines flight 5342, which was involved in a collision with a Black Hawk helicopter from the US Army. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)
President Donald Trump On Thursday he signed two executive orders that appointed a new deputy administrator of the Federal Administration of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and ordering an immediate evaluation of aviation security.
The orders arrived after a American Airlines plane Bring 64 people and a black hawk helicopter that transported three soldiers crashed in the air at approximately 9 pm on Wednesday.
The plane collapsed in the frigid Potomac River near Reagan National Airport, leaving 67 alleged dead.
In Thursday’s oval office, Trump signed an order that appoints Chris Rocheeau interim administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
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Search and rescue efforts at a remains site on the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport early Thursday, January 30, 2025, in Arlington, VA. (Carolyn Lanza/Photo Ap)
Rocheeau recently served as CEO of the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and played multiple leadership roles in the FAA during its mandate of more than 20 years, including the director of the Office of Emergency Operations and Research.
Emergency responders evaluate the remains of airplanes on the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington on January 30, 2025 in Arlington, VA. (Andrew Harnik/Getty images)
The NBAA wrote in a statement that “the announcement” welcomed.
“Chris is an outstanding leader who will be good for FAA, good for aviation and good for the country, especially at this difficult time,” said the president and CEO of the NBAA, Ed Bolen. “It has demonstrated excellence at all levels of the government industry, the army and aviation.”
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Trump called Rocheleau a “very capable guy” while signing the order.
A second executive order ordered an immediate evaluation of aviation security and an elevation of “competition” on Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
A team recovers remains of American Airlines flight 5342 on the Potomac River in Washington, DC, January 30, 2025. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)
While signing the order, he said that Dei’s policies of former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were “simply crazy.”
The memorandum says that the administration of Obama introduced a biographical questionnaire in the FAA to move away the approach to hire objective aptitude, and the administration then encouraged the recruitment of people with “severe intellectual disabilities.”
“During my first term, my administration raised the standards to achieve the highest security and excellence standards,” Trump wrote in the memorandum. “The Biden Administration atrociously rejected the contracting based on merit, required that all departments and executive agencies implement dangerous tactics of” equity and inclusion “, and specifically recruit people with” severe intellectual “disabilities” in FAA. “
A plane flies near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after a collision of the 5342 American Eagle flight and a black hawk in Arlington, Virginia, on January 30, 2025. (Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters)
Although Trump ordered an immediate return to recruitment based on merit, hiring and promotion on his second day in office, he said that the recent plane crash “underlines the need to raise security and competition as the priority of FAA “
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Trump said Thursday that the collision was a “confluence of bad decisions that were made, and you have people who lost their lives, violently lost their lives.”
Louis Casiano de Fox News Digital contributed to this story.