Flying helicopters near Ronald Reagan National Airport are always at risk. However, the conditions on a moonless night on January 29th, when the Army Black Hawk helicopter and the American Airlines passenger gun collided, were extraordinarily challenging.
Many of the factors that contributed to the disaster are still revealed as National Road Safety Commission investigators are trying to reconstruct the crash that killed 67 people. The airborne collision, which caused wreckage from both aircraft to fall into the ice Potomac River below, was the country's most fatal aviation accident since 2009.
Investigators say the helicopter is flying about 100 feet higher than allowed in designated parts of the airspace and are trying to determine why.
However, interviews with helicopter pilots suggest that the Black Hawk also deals with a series of complex flight conditions. Parts are typical of bustling areas around the National Airport outside of Washington, and parts of it were endemic to a series of events that took place last Wednesday. . And the crew were flying older models of aircraft that lacked certain safety technologies in the cockpit, which is common to those of commercial US planes.
“Given all the complexities that's happening there, it's a higher risk location to fly,” said Austin Ross, a former Army Black Hawk instructor, frequently taking helicopter routes near the national airport while on his job. He says he flew to.
NTSB safety investigators have not evaluated the liability of the Black Hawk crew. The Black Hawk crew said Defense Secretary Pete Hegses had “a considerable experience.”
The Safety Bureau said Tuesday there was still information that needs to be collected from the helicopters. The two aircraft collided at 300 feet, according to investigators. This is the details that raised a question about how the helicopter got off the course, given that it is not permitted to fly more than 200 feet above ground.
The New York Times has concluded that through interviews with six current and former military aviators and pilots of civilian helicopters who frequently fly routes near the national airport, the New York Times has a degree of about the situation the crew faced on the night of crashing. We have put together understanding of this.
The UH-60 Blackhawk crews leave their Virginia home town of Belvoir after dark last Wednesday to train that will allow co-pilot Colonel Rebecca Robach to make the required annual assessment flights The mission was implemented.
It was part of a small group of military and civil law enforcement helicopters allowed to fly in highly restricted airspaces in Washington and northern Virginia. These pilots will generally need to fly along designated routes that follow the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Air traffic controllers in the towers of the National Airport manage the airspace of helicopters and planes.
These routes specify specific altitude limits for helicopters along the water, including Route 4, which prohibits flights of more than 200 feet above the stretch of the Potomac where the collision occurred.
According to some pilots, the restrictions have little room to pilot in case of an emergency. At such low altitudes over a river, moving up is a more realistic response.
Ross said there is a helicopter route at Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
“I can't imagine anywhere where I can fly next to a major airport at 200 feet,” said Ross, who was in the same unit as the crew of the helicopter that crashed.
A combination of dark sky and surrounding city lighting – lights that were exponentially amplified when crews were wearing night vision goggles – possible distractions when searching for nearby air traffic There is.
“They fly over the black waters of Potomac with the messiness of the ground and the buildings behind them,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who flew a Black Hawk helicopter during his military career. I did.
Last Wednesday, around 8:46pm, air traffic controllers warned the helicopter crew that there was a passenger jet nearby. That plane, American Airlines Flight 5342, had been redirected from commonly used Runway 1 to unused Runway 33.
Captain Robach is most likely in his seat on the right, said a senior Army official who repeatedly flew the helicopter routes at the national airport but called for anonymity as he was not allowed to speak publicly.
If the instructor pilot was busy or distracted by something, Captain Lobach's seat on the right side of the aircraft put her in a poor position to watch the American Airlines flight descending left. It may be, so I said this is important.
Still, other experienced military pilots said they were baffled by crash, considering that military pilots are trained to deal with such dangers.
The Black Hawk, a twin-engine aircraft that influenced various models in the 1970s, has long been a fixture for the US military, both for general purpose and for more customized missions. The Army alone has about 2,000 Black Hawks operating today.
In the Washington area, home to some aviation circles where both the White House, the Pentagon and the training flights and transport of the president and other high-ranking officials often begin, the Blackhawks are ubiquitous.
The 12th Air Battalion at Fort Belvoir will fly two types of Blackhawks, UH-60L, older models, VH-60m and new ones. The aircraft involved in the crash were older models. Senior Army officials say pilots are not capable of flying on autopilots, but are not considered inadequate for the job.
Anyway, officials said the crew flying along the Potomac River would not have thought the autopilot would be helpful. He said low-level flights require constant attention to terrain, obstacles and routes.
The Blackhawks, even older models, are not particularly difficult to operate, said current and former military aviators. However, the crowds around the National Airport, one of the busiest public spaces in the country, require a certain level of proficiency and the willingness for passengers to take off or land safely when necessary. .
“The aircraft was in the wrong place before it was in the same literal airspace as the CRJ,” said former Marine helicopter pilot John Cloud Nicks, using the abbreviation for jets involved in the collision. said.
“They need to hold back a bit to properly identify or find the right traffic,” Knicks, who reviewed air traffic control records and other public details of the crash.
He said at the final moments of the crash, the Black Hawk crew was essentially itself to avoid a crash. That's because the crew were demanding what is known as “visual separation,” according to audio recordings of air traffic control. Under aviation regulations, it means that the crew searches for nearby traffic on its own without the assistance of the controller.
And it's most likely that the old Black Hawk model that the crew flew last Wednesday didn't have a standard, specific air-safe system among US passenger jets.
For example, there was no traffic collision avoidance system called TCAS. This warns the pilot of the fact that the plane is dangerously close to other aircraft, and if a crash appears to be imminent, you can redirect the pilot to quickly climb or descend.
The pilot says that one or all of these factors may have contributed to a series of tragic sequences.
“Especially on that route,” Ross said. “The lower altitude is 200 feet. It's close to other aircraft. The lighting conditions are tough, and there aren't many places in the world where everything happens to everyone at once.”
