Sorrow, unity the right response to aviation disaster

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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On Wednesday, in Washington, D.C., a day of political chaos yielded to a night of aviation chaos, as news broke of a midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter.

By dawn on Thursday, clarity came in the worst way, with officials informing families, the nation and the world of the worst possible outcome: All 64 passengers on the airplane and three service members on the helicopter were feared dead. By midmorning, the rescue mission had become a recovery one, with dozens of bodies retrieved from the cold Potomac River.

In the coming days much more will be known about the civilian and military victims. One of the few facts available as this editorial was published is that several travelers on the jet were figure skaters from the U.S. and Russia, many of whom had been at the national figure skating championships held in Wichita, Kan., over the weekend.

Neither American nor Russian figure skating officials could comment yet on the tragedy or individual victims. The sport’s governing body, the International Skating Union, did issue a statement, however, saying in part that “We are heartbroken to learn that figure skaters, along with their families, friends and coaches, are understood to be among those on board.”

Our thoughts, the statement continued, “are with everyone affected by this tragedy. Figure skating is more than a sport — it’s a close-knit family — and we stand together.”

That ethos should guide everyone, everywhere, on how to react to this tragedy and similar disasters: Despite divisions, humanity is ideally viewed as a close-knit family, and we should stand together. In shock, for sure, as well as in resolve to recover the victims and investigate the cause while reassuring the public that it is indeed still safe to fly.

But most profoundly, we should stand together in sorrow for the victims and their families and friends and even nations, offering them our thoughts (and for the observant, the prayers of their respective faiths).

Now, the morning after — with mourning just beginning — is not the time to cast aspersions, let alone assign blame, which is an all-too-common reflex in this riven nation’s capital. Unfortunately, however, that wasn’t the instinct of President Donald Trump, who after a brief moment of silence and note of the nation’s “hour of anguish” took great pains to make unsupported assumptions and cast blame on his presidential predecessors. He also shamefully used the disaster to continue his recent full-frontal attack on diversity, equity and inclusion workplace programs, suggesting that they somehow contributed to the crash, all without evidence.

The nation witnessed a reaction far from the moment when another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, hailed “one of our young government employees,” Lenny Skutnik, who rescued a woman after a similarly grim airline tragedy on the Potomac in January 1982. Just days later, during his State of the Union address, Reagan began an endearing and enduring tradition by inviting Skutnik to sit with the first lady, saying that his courage and the courage of first responders embodied “the spirit of American heroism at its finest.”

That’s the spirit to take today: honoring the first responders who valiantly, but vainly, answered the call, mourning the victims, comforting their loved ones, and uniting in unity around a tragedy that in some way touches us all.