Fly helicopters near Ronald Reagan National Airport always carry some risk. But the conditions at night without the moon of January 29, when an army helicopter of the Black Hawk army and a American Airlines passenger clashed, were unusually provocative.
Many of the factors that have contributed to the disaster are still revealed as researchers by the National Transport Security Council are trying to rebuild the conflict that killed 67 people. The crash of the fare, which caused debris from both aircraft falling on the frozen Potomac river, was the most fatal Nation’s aviation accident since 2009.
The researchers said the helicopter was flying about 100 feet higher than authorized in the designated part of the airspace and were trying to determine why.
However, interviews with helicopter pilots suggest that Black Hawk has also been involved in a set of complex flight conditions, some of which are typical of the busy area around the National Airport outside. And the crew was flying an older model aircraft that did not have certain safety technologies in the cockpit that are common in those of commercial planes in the United States.
“Given the complexity of everyone that happens there, it is a higher risk space to fly,” said Austin Roth, a former Black Hawk trainer for the army who says he often threw helicopter routes near the national airport while in service.
NTSB security researchers have not evaluated any responsibility in the Black Hawk crew, which Defense Minister Pete Hegseth described as “quite experienced”.
The Security Service said on Tuesday that there are still information that had to be collected by the helicopter, a process that is expected to start this week when its debris lifted from Potomac. The researchers said the two aircraft collided at 300 feet – a detail that raised questions about how the helicopter fell off the way, as it was not authorized to fly over 200 feet above the ground.
The New York Times, through interviews with six current and former military aviation and a political helicopter pilot who often throws the routes near the National Airport, has assembled some understanding of the conditions that the crew faced on the night of the crash.
The crew on the UH-60 Black Hawk abandoned its headquarters, Fort Belvoir in Virginia, after Dark last Wednesday to carry out a training mission to allow Co-Pilot, CAPT. Rebecca Lobach, to perform a required annual evaluation flight.
It was part of the small group of law enforcement helicopters and policies authorized to fly to the extremely limited airspace over Washington and Northern Virginia. These pilots must fly along the specified routes that generally follow the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Air traffic controllers inside the Tower at the National Airport manage this airspace for helicopters and airplanes.
These routes determine certain helicopters over helicopters along the water, including route 4, one that forbids to fly higher than 200 feet above the stretch of Potomac where the collision occurred.
This restriction, according to many of the pilots, provides little room for maneuvering in the event of an emergency. At such a low altitude above a river, the upward movement – not down – is the most realistic answer.
Mr Roth said there are helicopters at Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington’s Thurgood Marshall International Airport that allow pilots to fly over the aircraft’s commercial space and not through it, which gives the pilots more options in the event of an emergency.
“I can’t think of anywhere you can fly next to a large airport at 200 feet,” said Mr. Roth, who was in the same unit as the helicopter crew that crashed. A combination of dark skies and around the lights of the city-Fota that would have been exponentially reinforced if crew members wore night vision glasses-may have distanced them as they were looking for nearby air circulation.
“This is how they fly over a Potomac black water surface with soil and the buildings behind them,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic Illinois who threw Black Hawk helicopters during his military career.
Around 8:46 pm Last Wednesday, an air traffic controller warned the helicopter crew that a jet of passengers was near. This plane, the American Airlines Flight 5342, was redirected by corridor 1, which are used in regional jet aircraft in the least used runway 33.
Captain Lobach was probably on the right headquarters, said a senior army official who had thrown the national helicopter routes repeatedly, but called for anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak publicly.
This is important, the official said, because if the trainer’s pilot was busy or detached with something, the position of the captain lobach on the right side of the aircraft could put her in a bad position to see the descending flight of American Airlines on the left her.
Still, other experienced military pilots said it was embarrassed for the crash, as military pilots are trained to be ready for such dangers.
Black Hawk, a dual -engine aircraft introduced in the 1970s that has inspired a variety of models, has long been a component to the US Army, both for general and more customized missions. Only in the army, about 2,000 black hawks work today.
In the Washington area, which hosts the White House, the Pentagon and many air fields from which both the training flights and the transfer of the president and other senior officials often come from, black hawks are ubiquitous.
The 12th Air Force Battalion in Fort Belvoir throws two types of black hawks: the UH-60L, an old model and the VH-60M, a younger one. The aircraft involved in the crash was the oldest model. It is not possible to let pilots fly into an automatic pilot, but is not considered inadequate for the job, according to a senior military official.
Regardless of this, the official said, the crew flying along the Potomac River would not find the Autopilot useful. The low -level flight, he said, requires constant attention to the ground, obstacles and routes.
Black hawks, even older models, are not particularly difficult to operate, today’s and former military aviators said. But the congestion around the National Airport, one of the busiest public airplanes in the country, requires a special skill and willingness to hang back, if needed, to let passenger jets take off or land safely.
“This aircraft was in the wrong place long before it was in the same literal airspace as the CRJ,” said Jon-Claud Nix, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, using the abbreviation for the jet involved in the collision.
Mr Nix, who has revised air traffic control records and other public details of the crash, added: “They just had to keep a little to locate or locate their proper circulation properly.”
He said that in the last moments before the crash, the Black Hawk crew was essentially alone to avoid the conflict. This is due to the fact that the crew, according to the recording of air traffic control, had requested what was known as “visual separation”, which according to aviation rules means that the crew will seek close traffic on its own. , without help from auditors.
And the oldest Black Hawk model that threw the crew last Wednesday probably did not have certain air safety systems that are standard among US passengers.
For example, it would not have the traffic collision avoidance system, with the nickname TCAS, which warns pilots in the fact that their planes are dangerously close to other aircraft and can redirect pilots to rise quickly or descend if a crush seems to be imminent. .
Pilots say that one or all of these factors could contribute to a tragic sequence of events.
“Especially on this route,” said Roth, “is 200 feet that is a low altitude. It is close to other aircraft. Lighting conditions are hard and not only there are many places in the world where all this happens to Anyone all at the same time. “
