President Donald Trump is getting a backlash on Twitter for taking credit for the safest year in commercial airplane travel in 2017. As reported by Forbes , the year 2017 did not go without any deaths related to plane crashes. An aviation crash of a Boeing 747 cargo plane claimed the lives of four crew members and 35 people on the ground in a Kyrgyzstan village. There were also fatalities in Costa Rica when 12 people died on New Year’s Eve aboard a Cessna 208.
However, as reported by the Aviation Safety Network, 2017 represented the safest year yet for commercial airline travel. The safety network that tracks airline statistics noted, “an extremely low total of 10 fatal airliner accidents, resulting in 44 fatalities.” Although the stats report that 10 plane accidents included fatalities that killed 44 people in the aircraft and 35 people on the ground in 2017, it was still the safest year on record. The few accidents were not a surprise to the Aviation Safety Network because President Harro Ranter noted that the number of plane accidents has steadily declined since 1997.
By December 31, 2017, there was a record reached for consistent days without a passenger plane accident of 398 days. President Trump took to Twitter to brag about this accomplishment and give himself credit for the lack of plane accidents.
Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018
As seen in the above tweet from Tuesday, January 2, Trump wrote that he has been “very strict” on commercial aviation and that resulted in the good news that no deaths had occurred in passenger plane crashes as a result.
The Aviation Safety Network noted that their stats do not include those related to military flights and other non-commercial planes, such as helicopters and the like. The safety record was notable, considering the volume of air traffic had increased. However, President Trump is gaining plenty of backlash for attempting to take credit for no passenger plane crash deaths.
As seen in the below comments that are flowing into Trump’s Twitter account, many people are taking umbrage with the notion that Trump is responsible for the lack of non-commercial plane deaths.
“Don’t take credit for this!”
“And you really think this is your doing?”
“Maybe you should take blame for everything bad that happens too! Like the worst mass killings in US history…. Like the turmoil around the world because of your alienation of other nations. Like the division within the UN because of you….”
“OMG Give me a break. Are you seriously trying to take credit for that?”
“Can’t you just thank pilots, air traffic control, etc for their hard work and leave it at that?”
“Are you really taking credit for planes not crashing?”
“Loads of deaths from guns though…”
“Trump only takes credit for positive things. Everything else is either Fake News or has to do with Her Emails.”
“Thank you again for piloting my flight from Logan airport to LAX.”
