This week, sometimes in three days of controversial hearing, the National Transport Safety Board questioned the federal aviation administration and army officials about a list of things that went wrong and contributed to a black hawk helicopter and a passenger jet colliding on Washington, DC, Kill 67 people,
The biggest revelations: The helicopter’s ultimate gauge was broken, and the controllers had warned the FAA about the dangers years ago that the helicopters presented.
At one point, NTSB President Jennifer Homendi scolded the FAA for not addressing security concerns.
“Are you joking with me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain it? Our bureaucracy process?” He said. “Fix it. Do better.”
January accident victim Involved A group of elite young figure skatersHis parents and coaches and four union steamfitors from the Washington region.
Here is a look at the major takeaairs from the hearing about the collision, which worries the passengers before a string. Other accidents And Close call This year was added to their concerns about the flight:
The helicopter’s ultimate was wrong
Was helicopter Flight at 278 feet (85 meters)-Above the roof of 200-foot (61-meters) on that route, it collided with airlineer. But investigators said that the pilots would not have realized that the barometer who was relying on the ultimate of the flight data recorder was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) less than the registered height.
NTSB later found similar discrepancies in the ultimators of three other helicopters from the same unit.
A specialist with Sikorsky, who makes Black Hawks, stated that there was an old -crashed model that lacked air data computers that make more accurate height for reading in new versions.
Army Chief Warrant Officer Kileen Lewis told the board that 80-to 100-foot (24- to 30-meter) discrepancy between individual ultimators on a helicopter would not be dangerous, as it would be relying more on radar ultimators than barometric ultimeters at a lower height. Plus Army pilots try to live within 100 feet (30 meters) of target height on flights, so they could still do the same with their ultimators.
But Rick Dresser of Medwack Operator Metro Aviation told NTSB that Abhinay would not fly with his helicopters. When a helicopter route as a black hawk was flying that night, the boundary of a height is, the dresser said, their pilots feel that a difficult roof.
FAA and army protected action, shift fault
Both tried to avoid responsibility for the accident, but the testimony highlighted a lot of things that could be different. The final report of NTSB will be held next year, but a reason to be identified for the accident will not be likely.
“I think it was a week for the FAA and the US Army in the accident,” said Aviation Safety Advisor and former accident investigator Jeff Gujetti.
Army officials said that maximum concern is that the FAA has approved the routes around the Ronald Reagan International Airport, with a small separate as 75 feet (23 m) between helicopters and aircraft, when the aircraft are landing on a certain runway in Reagan.
“The fact is that we have less than 500 feet of isolation, a concern for me,” Scott Rosengren said, the office chief engineer who manages the military’s utility helicopters.
Army Chief Warrant Officer David van Wentain said he was surprised that the air traffic controller allowed the helicopter to move forward, while the airlineer was orbiting to land on Reagan’s secondary runway, which is used when the main runway is used when traffic and about 5% flights are for flights.
Van Watten said he was never allowed to fly under a landing aircraft as Black Hawk had done, but only a handful of that route had blown the aircraft landing on that runway hundreds of times. Other pilots of the unit told the crash investigators that it was regular to be directed to fly under landing aircraft, and believed that they were safe if they were trapped on the approved route.
Frank McIntosh, head of FAA’s Air Traffic Control Organization, said he feels that the controller in Reagan was “really dependent on the use of visual separation to pursue traffic through a busy airspace”. NTSB said that the controllers repeatedly said that they would just “work it.” They sometimes used “squeeze plays” for aircraft with minimal separation.
On the night of the accident, a controller asked the helicopter pilots twice if they had jets in vision, and the pilots said they did and visual sequenced for approval so that they could use their eyes to maintain distance. In the hearing, the testimony raised serious questions about how well the crew can see the aircraft while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were also looking at the right place.
The controller admitted in an interview that the pilots of the aircraft were never warned when the helicopter was on the way to a confrontation, but the controllers did not think that the aircraft would have made a difference on that point. The plane was landing on the ground and tried to pull in the last second after receiving the warning in the cockpit, but it was too late.
FAA was warned about the hazards of helicopter traffic in DC
An FAA Working Group tried to receive a warning added to the helicopter chart in 2022, urging the pilots that whenever the secondary runway was used, but the agency refused. The Working Group said that “helicopter operations are taking place in a closeness that has triggered security programs. These incidents are trending in the wrong direction and increasing year after year.”
Separate, a separate group of airport discussed transferring the helicopter route, but those discussions were not known anywhere. And in a regional radar facility in the area, a manager urged the FAA in writing to write in the reagon and reduce the number of landing aircraft due to safety concerns.
NTSB has also said that FAA has failed to recognize a disturbed history 85 near Mrs. Around Reagan in three years before the collision,
NTSB President Jennifer Homendi said, “Every sign was there that there was a security risk and the tower was telling you.” But after the accident, the FAA moved the managers out of the airport instead of accepting that they were warned.
Homendi said, “What you have done, instead of taking ownership over the fact, has shifted people that everyone in the FAA was saying.” “But you guys are pointing, ‘Well, our bureaucracy process. Someone should have brought it to another seminar.”
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Associated press writer Lia Ascarinum contributed.
Josh Funk, Associated Press
