The crash between an American Airlines flight and a military Black Hawk helicopter, which killed 67 people, occurred hours after Duffy was sworn in as the Trump administration’s secretary of transportation. In the aftermath of the crash, a report revealed that almost all of the United States’s 313 air traffic control facilities were below the recommended staffing level. However, Duffy contended that this statistic should not make anyone scared to take commercial flights.

HOW SEAN DUFFY’S FIRST DAY AT DOT WENT FROM TRIUMPH TO TRAGEDY

“So no, the airspace is safe, air travel is the safest form of travel in the country, so you can travel and feel good about it on American airplanes,” Duffy said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. “But the staffing is too short, and we lost a lot of air traffic controllers when schools were shut down during COVID. Also, under the Biden administration, they didn’t let these new graduates of the academy from Air Traffic Control actually train inside of towers.”

Duffy then detailed how the Trump administration has “a plan in place” to surge the employment of air traffic controllers, with the aim of recruiting “the smartest men and women in the country.” The transportation secretary also stressed the need to address “cracks in the system” of airline safety and called for Congress to provide the necessary funds to “upgrade” the system.

Laura Ingraham asked about President Donald Trump hypothetically taking a commercial flight to demonstrate to the public that they are safe. Duffy contended that such a decision would be up to the commander in chief but pointed to how he and other members of the Trump administration frequently fly on commercial flights.

“This is the safest mode of transportation, and again, I think we should understand that as a public, but then also demand that we can’t stand to have these crashes,” Duffy said. “These are unacceptable, and they expect leadership from the Department of Transportation to say, ‘We don’t care about DEI, we don’t care about social justice, we don’t care about the environment, we care about safety.’ That’s the mission, and Donald Trump has said ‘make sure safety is paramount and drive that through this department,’ which is what we’ve been doing.”

Following Trump’s criticism of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives possibly playing a role in the Potomac plane crash, Duffy assessed that the previous administration was focused on “social justice” and “things that don‘t matter in regards to safety.” He also indicated that entrance exam scores were lowered to get people into air traffic control during the Biden administration.

On Sunday, a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, to New York was evacuated before takeoff when flames started coming out of one of the plane’s engines. The Houston Fire Department assisted in deboarding all 104 passengers off the plane, with no injuries reported, according to a statement on X.