Rejoice, everyone! President Trump has finally figured out what's wrong with airplanes! In the wake of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines Boeing crash over the weekend, Trump decided he'd take to Twitter on Tuesday and offer up his own opinion about why, exactly, planes are such a menace: They're just, you know, way too complicated these days.
According to Trump, the big issue with air travel is that the planes basically steer themselves—computers handle the majority of the flight, and pilots are being replaced by, uh, "computer scientists from MIT.""I don't know about you, but I don't want Albert Einstein to be my pilot," he wrote. It's unclear where Trump is getting his information, or how many MIT professors are, in fact, currently employed by Delta, but apparently, the president would feel more comfortable soaring through the skies knowing that "great flying professionals" were behind the wheel instead of some robot.Of course, machines don't show up drunk or vape in the cockpit or forget to pressurize the cabin and make your ears bleed, but so what? All these computer navigation systems aren't shit compared to the lightning-fast reflexes of some hotshot pilot.Does Trump have a secret dream of being a pilot, still furious he couldn't quite get all those buttons in the cockpit straight? Did he just rewatch Top Gun and get pissed that the nerds have won? The world may never know. But at least he's figured out a plan: more Maverick, less Tim Apple. The Wright Brothers got it straight the first time. Make airplanes simple again. Problem solved!Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.