The news cycle is awash with terrifying stories about air travel safety. At the start of the month, the door plug of a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew off mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole on the side of the Alaska Airlines plane. Over the weekend, another Boeing passenger jet’s nose wheel fell off just before the Delta flight took off.
While these incidents have reopened important conversations about outdated technology, workforce shortages, and the financial tradeoffs that airlines have made, right-wing pundits are claiming to have found the real source of the aviation industry’s troubles: DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
According to these commentators, airlines hired certain workers solely to meet diversity goals and sacrificed their commitments to safety and quality in the process, despite the global conversation about airline safety that’s been underway for years following high-profile accidents.
Among them was Elon Musk, who took to his platform X after the Alaska Airlines incident to ask, “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening.”
He added, “People will die due to DEI.”
After news of the wheel flying off of the plane, the term “DEI” began to trend Tuesday. Donald Trump Jr. posted, “I’m sure this has nothing to do with mandated Diversity Equity and Inclusion practices in the airline industry!!!” Other users questioned whether Delta has “DEI quotas for their mechanics” and stated that “DEI practices are going to cause disasters” and that “DEI actually means DIE.”
Aviation experts have never cited DEI — programs that organizations have widely adopted to increase representation among underrepresented groups — as a cause of air safety problems. Various investigations point to a variety of other factors. One New York Times analysis stated that aircraft manufacturer Boeing, for example, “opted against adopting additional…
Read the full article here
