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The Naughty Words the FAA Removed from the Sky

New FOIA records from the FAA shed light on the frantic effort in 2015 to rename navigation waypoints related to Donald Trump and reveal the list of naughty waypoint names that were changed over the years.

The names can be colorful, often referencing pop culture, such as GNDLF(Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings), JJEDI(the Jedi knights from Star Wars), or SNFLD(Jerry Seinfeld). The emails show that in October 2016, the conservative activist non-profit Judicial Watch re-filed a FOIA request to the FAA which it had originally sent in July 2015, shortly after the story of the renaming broke. In Los Angeles, some waypoints were renamed not to remove negative associations but to honor basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, who were among nine people killed when a helicopter crashed in Calabasas, CA, in January 2020.

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