Wednesday night’s fatal crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport involving a commercial airplane and a Black Hawk military helicopter has drawn renewed attention to air traffic controllers and what role they may have played in the accident that is believed to have killed 67 people.

One widely shared claim was that Trump fired 3,000 air traffic controllers shortly after taking office for his second term. One post alone (archived) making this claim had received more than 2.7 million views and 25,

Democrats previously hit out at the president's federal hiring freeze for hindering the "number one safety issue" in aviation.