As they flew south along the Potomac River on the gusty night of Jan. 29, the crew aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter attempted to execute a common aviation practice. It would play a role in ending their lives.
Shortly after the Black Hawk passed over Washington’s most famous array of cherry trees, an air traffic controller at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport alerted the crew to a regional passenger jet in its vicinity. The crew acknowledged seeing traffic nearby.
One of the pilots then asked for permission to employ a practice called “visual separation.” That allows a pilot to take control of navigating around other aircraft, rather than relying on the controller for guidance. “Visual separation approved,” the controller replied.
The request to fly under those rules is granted routinely in airspace overseen by controllers. Most of the time, visual separation is executed without note. But when mishandled, it can also create a deadly risk — one that aviation experts have warned about for years.
On Jan. 29, the Black Hawk crew did not execute visual separation effectively.
(To say the least.)
The pilots either did not detect the specific passenger jet the controller had flagged, or could not pivot to a safer position. Instead, one second before 8:48 p.m., the helicopter slammed into American Airlines Flight 5342, which was carrying 64 people to Washington from Wichita, Kan., killing everyone aboard both aircraft in a fiery explosion that lit the night sky over the river. . . .
(You must read all the way down to the 34th paragraph before the New York Times even mentions the name of the helicopter pilot.)
The crew’s mission was to conduct an annual evaluation of Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, who joined the Army in 2019, to ensure that her helicopter piloting skills were up to par.
(And then, all the way at the very end . . .)
Instead of seeing and avoiding Flight 5342, Captain Lobach continued flying straight at it. . . .
The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves then turned his attention to Captain Lobach.
He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left, toward the east river bank.
Turning left would have opened up more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342, which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300 feet. She did not turn left.
There is a lot left unsaid in the New York Times article which, it should be obvious, is primarily intended to obscure the fact that (a) the crash was caused by pilot error and (b) the pilot was female.
Do not accuse me of saying something I’m not saying, i.e., that this particular crash happened because the pilot was female, or that there is no such thing as a qualified female pilot. Every day, hundreds of successful flights are made by female pilots, including military pilots. Furthermore, if you were to research aircraft crashes in which pilot error was chiefly to blame, no doubt the overwhelming majority of those pilots are male. Perhaps it would be possible to show from such statistics (which I haven’t even bothered to Google, much less to analyze) that female pilots are more prone to catastrophic errors than are male pilots, but the fact remains that most female pilots are never involved in crashes, so that the deadly error committed by Rebecca Lobach cannot be said to reflect badly on female pilots in general. However . . .
All of these caveats, necessary to prevent anyone from misconstruing my argument, do not detract from the issue of public policy involved here, namely the implementation of official quotas under the aegis of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI). We are more than a half-century into this kind of experimental social engineering, and the same thing is true today as it was when the Supreme Court handed down the Bakke decision in 1978 — every attempt to implement what used to be called “affirmative action,” but has since been rebranded as “diversity” or DEI, led to discriminatory quotas, which are unconstitutional.
Some people want to ignore this reality, pretending that you can have a “diversity” policy that somehow doesn’t lead to quotas, but good luck finding a real-life example of such a policy, because I’ve been looking a long time and have never seen one. Quotas lead to favoritism and, regardless of who the intended benificiaries of this favoritism may be, the result is a lowering of standards — or, more to the point, the creation of double-standards, with the quota beneficiaries held to a lower standard.
Does the name Kara Hultgreen ring a bell? Here we are, more than 30 years after Hultgreen was the beneficiary of double standards that resulted in her death, and some people are still in denial about the danger created by these policies. The feminist slogan “the personal is political” serves to explain the problem faced by critics of the DEI agenda, namely that if you criticize the policy, you’re accused to “hating” the intended beneficiaries (as if dying in a crash were some kind of benefit).
Without repeating the entire paragraph of caveats I’ve previously stipulated, permit me to deny hating women, and I especially want to make clear that I do not wish to disparage Rebecca Lobach. It appears that Lobach came from a conservative family. She was homeschooled, and her grandfather is a banker who has contributed thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. She had “more than 450 hours of flight time” since being commissioned in 2019 and had “twice served as platoon leader and as a company executive officer in the 12th Aviation Battalion.” We might further stipulate that the circumstances of that January 29 training mission involved a high degree of difficulty, even for an experienced pilot — flying at night in an urbanized area near a major commercial airport in a situation where a difference in altitude between 150 feet and 200 feet could be the difference between life and death.
All that being said, however, we must ask whether Lobach was the beneficiary of a quota system, intended to guarantee that the Army had a certain number (or percentage) of female Black Hawk pilots.
The appropriate quota? Zero.
Let’s be clear about this: The Army could recruit and train a sufficient number of male pilots to operate every single Black Hawk helicopter in their arsenal without ever needing a single female pilot, and every one of those male pilots would demonstrate a level of proficiency equal or superior to Lobach’s proficiency. There is not a single male Black Hawk pilot in the Army who is less proficient than Lobach was. In fact, I’m about 100% sure that military personnel will back me up when I say that the Army’s problem is not that it has too few helicopter pilots, but rather that the available number of pilot assignments is much smaller than the number of troops who would like to become pilots. There is a competition for those spots, and the number of helicopter assignments available to would-be pilots who are male is reduced because a certain number of those assignments are set aside as a de facto quota for females.
Understand that we are not talking about a hypothetical scenario in which the question is whether (some) women possess the requisite aptitude for helicopter piloting, The question involves some very practical considerations. First, whether the number of women who possess the minimal level of aptitude is equal to the number of similarly qualified men, and second, without regard to aptitude, whether equal numbers of women and men are interested in becoming military helicopter pilots.
Comparatively few young women are even interested in joining the military — women are about 51% of the U.S. population, but only 17.5% of U.S. military personal, indicating that men are nearly five times more likely than women to pursue military careers. And here’s an interesting bit of trivia: After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the percentage of women enlisted in the military actually decreased, while the percentage of women officers continued to increase. In other words, when the prospect of being deployed into an overseas war zone went up, fewer women were willing to volunteer for service, except as officers. The whole project of “women in combat” is about creating career opportunities for female officers, and being a Black Hawk helicopter pilot is a combat-duty assignment. Most pilots are non-coms (153A warrant officers) who come from the enlisted ranks; the reason a commissioned Army officer becomes a pilot is so they can act as commander of an aviation unit, as in the case of Rebecca Lobach, who led a platoon of the 12th Aviation Battalion. As a matter of policy, the relevant point is that among Army officers, the number of men who would choose such an assignment is so much larger than the number of women that the Army could easily fill all its Black Hawk pilot officer berths with men, and there still wouldn’t be enough available slots for every qualified candidate. The only reason that there are any female Black Hawk pilots is because of quotas.
We cannot say with certainty, however, that the Army’s DEI quota policy caused the January 29 crash that killed Rebecca Lobach and two other members of the Black Hawk crew (Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eave and crew chief Staff Sgt. Ryan O’Hara) as well as 64 people on board American Airlines Flight 5342. It is possible that a similarly qualified male pilot might have made the same mistake that Lobach made. But if there were no female pilots, there would be no crashes caused by female pilots, and we wouldn’t be left to wonder if double standards had something to do with this deadly disaster. Also, we wouldn’t be talking about the interesting (and perhaps relevant) fact that Lobach hadn’t been flying a helicopter much recently because she had spent the previous two years serving as “a military social aide at the White House during the administration of former President Joe Biden.”
Captain Becky at the White House
By the way, if anyone is really interested in this topic, permit me to suggest how you would prove that there the Army has a quota for female helicopter pilots. Trace the number of active-duty female pilots over time. Because we know that females were once excluded from combat duty as a matter of policy, you can locate the point in time at which we went from zero female Black Hawk pilots to one. Beginning with the first such pilot, you could then trace the number as it increased year-by-year, and I’d be willing to wager that in all those years, there has never been a point at which the percentage of female Black Hawk pilots has decreased. In other words, when asked the question, “How many female Black Hawk pilots do we need?” the Army has always answered, “More.” The number of available pilot assignments is always greater than the number of qualified male candidates; therefore the exiting number of assignments held by women becomes the minimum number, and male candidates are thus excluded from a certain number of potential opportunities, because those assignments are set aside as female-only positions.
This was the “tell” about racial quotas at Harvard. They were sued by Asian-American students who alleged that they were the victims of discrimination. As part of the discovery process, Harvard was compelled to supply data about their admissions policy, which showed that every year, 14% of Harvard freshmen were black. The percentage never varied — it was never 12% or 17%, but always 14% — because this number had, in fact, been established as a “goal” or “target,” i.e., a quota. Furthermore, it could be demonstrated that, in terms of their GPAs and test scores, a very large number of Asian applicants were rejected by Harvard who would have been admitted, had they been black. Harvard’s (illegal) quota for black students could only be met by having a double standard.
Something similar has undoubtedly happened with the Army, and the deadly crash involving Rebecca Lobach could be the incident that exposes the extent to which quotas and double standards have eroded the combat effectiveness of our military, to say nothing of how harmful DEI policy has been to male service members by reducing their career opportunities.
Yes, there were other factors that allowed her to screw up and kill herself and almost 70 other people, but she was the one flying the Black Hawk. And she repeatedly ignored warnings. pic.twitter.com/6oE4i35bM7
Oh, and I almost forgot something: The crash happened on a Wednesday night. Two days later, on a Friday, the Army identified the two male soldiers on the Black Hawk crew but, at the request of Lobach’s family, the Army withheld her identity until that Sunday. Why? So that her family could scrub her entire social media presence. It is futile to speculate what might have been on her Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts, but when her family released a statement about her death, it included some interesting phrases:
We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. She was a bright star in all our lives. . . .
Rebecca was many things. She was a daughter, sister, partner, and friend.
After last week’s crushing losses, it was glorious indeed to rise up and smite not only the Reds but the Red Sox on the road. Spaceman Lee lost the opener against the Reds, but the bullpen came through in Games 2 and 3, getting a win for Charlie Hough in Game 2 (which sent Vic Harris to the DL for a week) and saving Joe Coleman’s tenth win in game 3, which cost us Jimmy Northrup for a week. We also lost Jim Kaat and Blue Moon Odom to the DL in that series. Pat Dobson lost the first game at Fenway because our hitters couldn’t touch Jerry Reuss, but in Game 2 Spaceman Lee returned to form for his 11th win, backed up by two monster shots from Dave Kingman over the Green Monster. Game 3 was tougher: Joe Coleman gave us a quality start, but Bob Johnson almost blew the save, allowing a two-run homer to Willie Davis in the bottom of the ninth. He got the last out and the save, though, and that left us 4-2 for the week and just 1.5 games behind the A’s. Next up are the Phillies, who are 36-63 against the league and 1-2 against us. We’ll see if RFK is friendly to us this week.
In other news, because I wasn’t paying attention, I wound up with five extra copies of Eric Weathers’ Battle Brick Road #2, the second book in his SF retelling of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale. These are all Cover A, and one has a mini-poster with other extras. That one is $25; the rest are $20, including media mail shipping. E-mail me if you’re interested. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
When Teddy Baseball is happy, everybody’s happy! Have a Moxie!
Perhaps you’ve forgotten John Paul Neumann, a/k/a “Chloe Sagal,” whom I wrote about in 2018 (“Death by Social Justice: Transgender Scammer ‘Chloe Sagal’ Commits Suicide”), after he/“she” died by self-immolation, having set himself/“herself” on fire “in a downtown Portland park across from the Multnomah County Courthouse after reading a manifesto about homelessness and mental health.” Frankly, I’d forgotten about him/“her” myself, until the other day I got a message from a relative thanking me for the “very fair and balanced article” I’d written. The relative explained that John/“Chloe” was alienated from his/“her” family in Illinois, but not by the family’s choice. They “found out, by happenstance, that he changed his name” and “tried to find him,” but John/“Chloe” had eliminated his/“her” social media profiles and “flew under the radar,” so it was impossible for the family to reach him/“her.”
Neumann had tried to become an independent game developer, but this venture failed and, in 2013, “Chloe” started an online fundraiser:
Claiming that a near-fatal auto accident had left toxic metal embedded in his/“her” body, resulting in chronic pain, Neumman/“Sagal” said he/“she” needed $30,000 for a “life saving surgery.” But there was no accident and no toxic metal; Neumman/“Sagal” used the money for sex-change surgery.
A videogame industry journalist named Allistair Pinsof discovered the deception, but Neumman/“Sagal” threatened to commit suicide if he reported the story. Pinsof consulted with his editors, who were hesitant to go with the story, and Pinsof ultimately decided to go public with the truth on his own social-media account. Pinsof was fired and blacklisted by the videogame journalism industry, accused of wrongfully “outing” a transgender person, for reporting the truth about someone perpetrating online fraud. This was one of the scandals that preceded the #GamerGate controversy, involving so-called “social justice warriors” (SJWs) colluding with journalists to distort coverage of the videogame industry.
Wow, time flies. #GamerGate was more than 10 years ago, and it’s been nearly seven years since Neumann’s fiery suicide, and I was surprised to get the thank-you message from Neumann’s relative — mainly because I’d forgotten all about him/“her.” As I explained in replying to Neumann’s relative, my habit is to work in “file-it-and-forget-it” mode. Stories come and go, and when I finish with a story, I move on without thinking about it again. There have been occasions when some hitherto obscure person comes to my attention (usually because they wrote something stupid/offensive on social media) and when I do two or three posts about the controversy, the person will play the victim card by claiming that I’m “obsessed” with them, that they are being “harassed,” etc. In fact, I don’t even care about them; it’s just a story I’m covering and, when it’s over, I’ll completely forget about them. The true definition of “journalistic objectivity” is I don’t give a f**k about these people.
Back when I started out as a reporter, expected to file thousands of words every week — stories about people I’d never met until I was assigned to cover them — the nature of the gig wasn’t something I thought much about. All I was doing was trying to hit my deadlines so I wouldn’t get fired, and after spending years in that mode of operation, I developed an attitude that you don’t find much anymore in the media world, where everything seems to be about some kind of “social justice” crusade.
Why have so many journalists become ill-disguised political activists? Because they have made the mistake of caring, that’s why.
To be truly objective, you have to be able to get enough distance from your personal feelings in order to concentrate on the Three Rules of Journalism: Accuracy, accuracy and accuracy.
In recent months, we’ve witnessed a parade of big-time journalists trying to explain how they somehow overlooked a rather important fact, namely that Joe Biden was far gone in a state of senile dementia. Oh, these journalists tell us now, they were deceived — victims of a conspiratorial cover-up in the White House — even while many millions of ordinary Americans were pointing to the obvious evidence of Biden’s senility and shouting the truth on Twitter, Facebook, etc. These same big-time journalists who, since the election, have freely admitted the truth about Biden’s decayed mental condition, had previously denounced the truth-tellers as agents of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. We were told that videos of Biden’s bumbling and stumbling were “cheap fakes,” and yet now — when the election is over, and there is no longer any advantage to the Democratic Party lost by admitting that Biden’s was unfit to serve as president — these journalists expect us to take them seriously when they claim they had no idea about it, back when the truth mattered most.
They have sold their souls to the Democratic Party, and whatever the Devil paid them, it was more than their filthy souls were worth.
Have I digressed into another pointless tangent? Perhaps so, but my point is that too many journalists got into this business for the wrong reason. They think of themselves as secular missionaries with a pious duty to “make a difference.” Well, hey, sweetheart, how about you just try to get the facts right, collect your paycheck and go have a beer?
Sane people don’t tune into the news in search of a “social justice” sermon or a thinly-disguised campaign ad for the Democratic Party, and yet the media talking heads have gotten kind of herd mentality where everybody’s a wannabe Gandhi. They think of themselves as philanthropists, humanitarian crusaders whose purpose in life is to enlighten those of us lesser mortals who lack The Vision of the Anointed.
Well, enough ranting. What got me started on this long digression was the unexpected message from a relative of John Paul Neumann, a/k/a “Chloe Sagal.” Such a message was unexpected in part because, to say the least, I didn’t go out of my way to care about Neumann/“Sagal.” As a hard-hearted cynic, I began that 2018 post with a blunt observation:
If you can’t afford mental health treatment and can’t pay your rent, but you can afford tattoos and transgender surgery, you’re not a victim of anything except your own bad judgment.
There’s some hard truth for you. Setting yourself on fire after subjecting the witnesses to your “manifesto about homelessness and mental health” is an extreme example of an unfortunate trend in our culture, namely the encouragement of the Victimhood Mentality, where people constantly seek sympathy by proclaiming themselves to be oppressed. When you stop to think that John Neumann engaged in fraud to obtain $30,000 for the surgery that made him “Chloe Sagal,” and then realize that he/“she” didn’t have to be homeless — he/“she” had family back in Illinois, who would have opened their doors to him/“her” — you see how the Victimhood Mentality becomes a hall of mirrors. Obsessed with their self-image as victims of oppression, these people can’t even see the most obvious way out of the trap they’ve constructed around themselves.
John Paul Neumann’s relative wrote in their message to me:
You captured the exact nature of John’s deception mixed with manipulation and mental illness. He was brilliant and squandered it.
Yeah. Sad and tragic, but it’s not my job to preach sermons. Best I can do is try to get the facts right, and occasionally remind the readership that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:
Most of today (0730-1330) was eaten by a virtual meeting of the National Security Site Advisory Board Chairs.
Have I mentioned how much I hate virtual meetings? Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.
