President Donald Trump disclosed at a national prayer breakfast that his private plane has a special navigation country from ‘another country’ that is far superior to U.S. air traffic control.
He said he wants a new system to replace the ‘obsolete’ current one, and wants a single company or perhaps two or three to produce it.
The unusual comments about his jet came at a different prayer event following an earlier one where he compared the D.C. air crash between a passenger plane and a an Army helicopter that killed 67 to a golf ball hitting another golf ball at a driving range.
‘When I land in my plane, privately, I use this system from another country, because my captain tells me: “I’m landing in New York, and I’m using a system,”‘ Trump said.
‘I won’t tell you what country, but I used a system from another country because the captain says, this thing is so bad, it’s so obsolete, and we can’t have that.’ He was referencing the modified Boeing 757 emblazoned with the ‘Trump’ logo that he used during the presidential campaign.
Trump’s comments at the National Prayer Breakfast and a subsequent speech, came after he touted an idea to revamp the nation’s air traffic control system.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that Elon Musk’s DOGE team was taking part in the effort to ‘upgrade our aviation system’ in the wake of the D.C. crash, which is not only air disaster of Trump’s young presidency.
Trump said it would cost ‘not that much money’ and would be done by ‘total professionals’ – mentioning either a single company or just a few.
‘I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers – brand new, not pieced together, obsolete, like it is land based, trying to hook up a land based system to a satellite system,’ said Trump, 78.
‘And the first thing that some experts told me when this happened is you can’t hook up land to satellites, and you can’t hook up satellites to land. It doesn’t work,’ he continued.
President Donald Trump revealed he used an air traffic system from another country for his private plane, which he flew throughout the campaign. He is calling for an overhaul of the U.S. air traffic control system
‘You spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying: cut it loose and let’s spend less money and build a great system done by two or three companies, very good company specialists. That’s all it is.’
‘They used 39 companies. That means that 39 different hookups have to happen. And I don’t know how many people of you are good in terms of all of the kind of things necessary for that, and it’s very complex stuff,’ Trump said.
‘You need one company with one set of equipment,’ said Trump.
And there are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems. And they would have bells would have gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height, because it traveled a long distance before it hit.
‘I won’t tell you what country, but I used a system from another country,’ Trump said. He said his captain tells him the U.S. system is ‘obsolete’
Trump’s administration is calling for a computer upgrade to the nation’s air traffic system
It was just like, just wouldn’t stop. You follow the line. But bells and whistles would have gone off. They have on board actually, actually could virtually turn the thing around. It would have just never happened if we had the right equipment.
Trump said he would be speaking to congressional leaders about the idea.
‘So we’re going to have the best system and lot of money, but it’s not that much money, and it’ll happen fast, and it’ll be done by total professionals. And when it’s done, you’re not going to have accidents … they’re virtually not possible to have,’ said Trump.
His comments on a technology upgrade for the Federal Aviation Administration comes after Trump at first blamed diversity hiring among air traffic controllers for the crash. Then he berated the Army Black Hawk helicopter crew, and noted, as investigators later would as well, that the helicopter was flying above its proscribed altitude.
His earlier comments, at the U.S. Capitol, described the crash conditions in terms of golf, his favorite pass time.
‘I guess the helicopter was high, and we will find out exactly what happened. But the odds even if you had nothing, nobody, the odds of that happening are extremely small. You go to a driving range in golf and hit hundreds of balls, thousands of hours,’ he said.
‘I’ve never seen a ball hit another ball. … Balls going up all over the place, you never see them hit. It was amazing that could happen. There were a lot of mistakes made. It should’ve never happened.’
