COMMENTARY: A Time to Remember, Not to Blame

By Bruce Potter
PUBLISHER INSIDE NOVA

This article was republished with permission from FXBG Advance’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.

We all have moments in our lives when we remember where we were and what we were doing when something significant happened.

Newspeople tend to have more of those moments because big news events become all-consuming. I can tell you where I was when President Ronald Reagan was shot, when the Challenger exploded, when we learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed and, of course, when 9/11 happened (among many others).

But rarely do those big national news events hit home the way that last Wednesday night’s tragedy over the Potomac River did. Having flown into Reagan National Airport many times, like many of you, I am familiar with the landing pattern, how the plane crosses low over the river and how the runway seems to appear at the last second.

As the first reports of Wednesday’s crash started appearing on social media, something caught my attention. The American Eagle flight that went down had originated in Wichita, Kansas. I don’t know anyone in Wichita, but for some reason I felt as though it had some significance.

Early the next morning, getting onto the stationary bike at the gym, I turned on the news to watch updates of the crash. Almost immediately, a statement appeared from U.S. Figure Skating saying that some of the victims were ice skaters, their parents and coaches.

And that’s when it hit me.

I had seen “Wichita, Kansas” the previous day as I reviewed the Sports pages of this newspaper before they went to print. We were publishing a story on figure skater Sarah Everhardt from Haymarket, who finished third in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and the photo we used of Everhardt had the location of the event printed on the boards of the ice rink in the background.

Thankfully, our sports editor, David Fawcett, was able to quickly confirm that Everhardt was not on the plane that crashed. Neither was another top Northern Virginia skater, U.S. men’s champion Ilia Malinin.

But, sadly, the figure-skating community in our region was devastated by the loss of at least six young skaters, who were returning from a development camp that followed the championships, along with some of their parents and one coach. An entire family from Ashburn – both parents and two young daughters – was among the victims.

At the same time, we lost three of our nation’s finest, the U.S. Army service members on the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the American jet.

Even amidst the heartbreak of losing 67 lives, it was disheartening to see how quickly people rushed to assign blame, before all the relatives had been notified and even as recovery efforts were just beginning. Suddenly everyone was an armchair pilot:

• Reagan National Airport is too crowded and has too many flights.

• The helicopter was flying too high.

• The airplane changed course at the last minute.

• Air traffic control was understaffed.

• Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have resulted in less-qualified soldiers, pilots and air traffic controllers and less focus on safety.

It is a sad reflection on our times that so many feel the need to jump to conclusions before everyone has even had a chance to process the news.

There will be plenty of time for the experts from the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies to review the facts, analyze the data and provide a complete report on what the multiple factors that likely contributed to the crash – and they will tell us what they learn.

In the meantime, we should simply pause and remember the 67 bright, shining lives that were snatched out of the air that evening over the Potomac River. And we should thank the first responders who braved sub-freezing temperatures to search for survivors and bring home the wreckage and the remains. Their lives are forever changed as well.

Both the victims and the first responders were and are our friends, our neighbors and our colleagues. Now is the time to remember and recognize them. The blame game can wait.

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