Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s potential 2028 presidential ambitions may have just run into a very real, very damning obstacle—his own record. While his attempt to rebrand with a scruffy beard might earn social media points, no amount of facial hair can obscure the deadly failures under his watch.
The revelation that a vital Pentagon–Reagan National Airport hotline had been inoperable since 2022—the year he took office—raises not just questions about leadership, but about the cost of inaction. That cost? Sixty-seven lives.
The hotline, used for decades as a direct communication link between military aircraft operations at the Pentagon and air traffic control at Washington National Airport, went offline in March 2022. According to FAA officials, they weren’t even aware the line was dead until May 1, 2025, when two passenger jets were forced to abort landings because an Army helicopter was circling near the airport with no coordination.
That moment of danger triggered an internal audit that uncovered an even more horrifying reality: the line had been nonfunctional for three years—including during a midair collision in January that killed 67 people.
The collision involved a military helicopter and a regional airliner. In normal operations, the Pentagon would have used that exact line to report its helicopter’s presence and movements. But there was no working line. No warning. No coordination. Just impact.
Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.
President Trump now oversees the military and the…— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 30, 2025
Rather than owning the failure, Buttigieg did what too many entrenched officials do when disaster strikes—he pointed fingers. He attempted to shift blame to Trump-era officials, alleging structural negligence that predated his tenure. But this attempt fell apart under scrutiny. The Trump administration left office in January 2021. The hotline died in March 2022. And Buttigieg has held the position of Secretary of Transportation ever since.
His department oversees the FAA. And yet, the FAA didn’t even know the hotline wasn’t working until more than three years had passed. That’s not just bureaucratic oversight—it’s systemic failure. Buttigieg’s critics argue that this kind of neglect undercuts any claim he has to executive competence.
Buttigieg’s tenure at the Department of Transportation has been marked by an almost cinematic absence. During supply chain crises, he was on an extended paternity leave—a fact not disclosed to the public for months. During the East Palestine train derailment, he arrived weeks late and issued tepid responses.
When asked what he’s done for transportation infrastructure or passenger safety, his defenders cite talking points. But ask the American public what they remember, and it’s mostly photo ops and cable news appearances.
The deadly crash near Reagan National and the dead hotline have become emblematic of a tenure more concerned with optics than outcomes. And now, this disaster could serve as a political reckoning. The FAA has confirmed the hotline is being prioritized for repair. The Pentagon has suspended flights in the affected corridor. But why did it take 67 deaths to trigger these responses?
