Dashcam Footage Captures Moment of Midair Collision Near DC Airport
Footage filmed from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington shows the moment American Airlines Flight 5342 and a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter collided midair over the Potomac River.
The source of the video, who wished to remain anonymous, told Storyful they and some family were on the base when they witnessed the crash, and were left 'traumatized.'
They hoped the video 'helps with the investigation,' the source said.
Recovery efforts were continuing after the crash, with no survivors expected. Credit: Storyful via Storyful
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CBS News
19 hours ago
- CBS News
Key takeaways from 3-day hearing on deadly D.C. midair collision
Over the course of three days of investigative hearings, the National Transportation and Safety Board sought to gather more information about the factors that lead to the deadly midair collision over Washington, D.C., in January between an Army helicopter and a passenger plane. The NTSB heard testimony from air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army, and the families of several of the victims attended. At one point on the first day of the hearings, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said of the circumstances leading up to the crash, "Every sign was there that there was a safety risk." Addressing the families, she said the hearings would be "a critical part of our ongoing investigation." On Jan. 29, a Black Hawk helicopter struck an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, as it was coming in for a landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft. The NTSB will continue its fact finding and will compile a final report with determinations about the probable cause, likely within the next year. Here are the top takeaways from the hearings: The barometric altimeter the Black Hawk crew members were relying on may have given them incorrect information, according to NTSB investigators, because the crew was calling out altitudes that were lower than the actual height at which the helicopter was flying. The helicopter and commercial airliner collided approximately 300 feet above the Potomac River, and the maximum altitude for helicopters at that part of the route near D.C.'s Reagan Airport is 200 feet. The NTSB, as part of its investigation, tested three helicopters that are in the same battalion as the one that crashed and found that the barometric altimeter for all three was off by 80 to 130 feet. Army representatives on Wednesday told investigators that discrepancy is within the accepted variability because pilots are trained to maintain their altitude at plus or minus 100 feet. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told CBS News' senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave the NTSB calculated the margin of error on Route Four in that area of the Potomac to be 75 feet. The Army said it is conducting additional reviews to determine how to proceed, frustrating investigators who asked why it would not make changes to the equipment, based on the findings of the NTSB tests. In 2022, an FAA working group considered moving helicopter traffic away from the airport, but ultimately did not. Transcripts from the airplane's cockpit voice recorder show the pilots received an automated verbal warning about traffic in the vicinity approximately 20 seconds before the collision. Less than two seconds before impact, the pilots shouted in alarm. Flight data indicates the plane's pilots attempted to climb to avoid the helicopter just before impact. The transcripts also reveal the pilots of the American Airlines flight questioned the move to Runway 33. The plane was originally supposed to land on Runway 1 but was redirected by air traffic controllers to Runway 33. As it was trying to land on that runway, the helicopter and plane collided. The pilots of the Black Hawk missed a key word when communicating with the air traffic control tower, according to a transcript released during the hearings of the conversation between the helicopter crew and the control tower. Fifteen seconds before the collision, DCA Tower asked the helicopter if it had the regional jet in sight. Four seconds later, the DCA Tower instructed the helicopter to pass behind the plane. The Black Hawk's cockpit voice recorder indicated that the phrase "pass behind" was rendered inaudible because a helicopter crew member pressed the microphone key. Although it was already known — based on control tower audio from that night — that the controller did not warn the American Airlines plane that the Black Hawk might cross its path, the FAA only openly acknowledged this for the first time during this week's hearings. In a key moment from the second day, Homendy asked FAA Air Traffic Oversight Service executive director Nick Fuller if any traffic advisories or alerts were issued to the plane. He responded, "No safety alerts." Homendy then asked, "Should the local controller have let the [plane] crew know that there was a helicopter there?" "Yes," Fuller responded. Rick Dressler, of Metro Aviation – which operates medical helicopters — was asked if there are units flying in the National Airport airspace that make him uncomfortable. "I don't like saying that first heli of [U.S. Air Force] from Andrews (Air Base) and I don't like saying that 12th Aviation Battalion gives us all pause in the community…," Dressler said, but "we are all very uncomfortable when those two units are operating." During the hearing, the Army admitted helicopters regularly flew below flights that land at Reagan National Airport.
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
How 3 Lives Intersected in the Final Moments of the D.C. Crash
At one point during an annual flight evaluation for Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach on Jan. 29, her Army helicopter instructor paused their conversation to emphasize an aviation fundamental. 'The whole point' of emergency procedure checklists, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves said as they flew their Black Hawk near Washington, D.C., 'is 'cause we end up killing ourselves because we do something without confirming and verifying.' His words, later revealed in a recovered cockpit voice recorder, were meant to be instructive. They turned out to be hauntingly predictive. Less than an hour later, the helicopter crashed headlong into an American Airlines flight carrying 64 people on its way to Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing the two pilots, a fellow soldier who was riding in the back seat of the Black Hawk and everyone aboard the passenger jet. As the two aircraft exploded into flames, an air traffic controller who had tried to guide the helicopter safely through the airspace soon saw he had failed. All the others' lives had ended and his had changed forever. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Hill
2 days ago
- The Hill
Five new details from hearing on DC crash that killed 67
New details are emerging about the deadly crash between an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter in January near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) which killed 67 people. Three days of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearings, along with thousands of pages of documents, suggest that the Black Hawk helicopter may have been relying on misleading instrument readings when it was operating too high over the Potomac River in the lead-up to the midair collision. The crash, alongside nonfatal but significant disruptions at other U.S. airports, have brought national attention to longstanding strains on the air traffic control workforce. On the second day of hearings, investigators probed a sentiment they had heard repeatedly from air traffic controllers about managing DCA's complicated airspace with short staffing: 'We just make it work.' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials defended the controllers as 'public servants,' but also acknowledged the challenges faced by the airport and air safety regulators. 'We're pushing the line,' admitted Clark Allen, the operations manager at DCA at the time of the crash. Here are five takeaways from the first two days of hearings. Black Hawk helicopter had conflicting altitude readings A video reconstruction that opened the hearing Wednesday showed the Army helicopter flying above the altitude limit on the route before colliding with the American Airlines flight. Inside the cockpit, however, that may not have been so clear. Investigators said the helicopter's barometric altimeter, which relied on air pressure, recorded lower values than a different altimeter that used radio waves. Test flights with three other Black Hawk helicopters over the area showed similar discrepancies, ranging from 80 to 130 feet, which affirmed officials' concerns from this winter that the pilots were operating using 'bad data.' Kylene Lewis, an Army officer testifying at the hearing, said that she wouldn't necessarily find the discrepancy between the two altimeters worrying, especially at a lower altitude, where she would have relied more on the radar instrument. Still, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said that the board is considering issuing new safety recommendations related to altimeters. Rick Dressler, the aviation site manager for a medevac company, said that civilian helicopter pilots had long been worried about military exercises in the area. 'I don't like saying that 12th Aviation Battalion gives us all pause in the community, and I'm speaking for my group there,' he said. 'We are all very uncomfortable when those two units are operating.' Safety board head rips FAA for not acting on warnings A working group of air traffic controllers proposed changing helicopter routes around DCA in 2022, including the helicopter flight path central to the crash investigation. But one controller told investigators that a district manager told the group the impact of the proposal, which would have added new collision risk areas, or 'hot spots,' was 'too political.' Homendy, the NTSB head, slammed FAA officials during the first day of hearings, characterizing the agency's response as overly bureaucratic. 'You transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA in the tower was saying there was a problem,' she said. 'Are you kidding me? 67 people are dead. How do you explain that?' 'Fix it. Do better,' she added. Army pilots had difficulty hearing air traffic control In transcripts of cockpit recordings released by the NTSB, the pilots of the Black Hawk helicopter at points had difficulty hearing dispatches from DCA's traffic control. Rebecca Lobach, the helicopter's pilot, complained that the radio 'sounds really crappy' and asked at another point if the tower's sound was muffled. In another exchange, her instructor said, 'I definitely didn't catch what he said. I'm glad you did.' Investigators said in February that the helicopter might not have heard a crucial instruction from the tower directing it to pass behind the American Airlines flight, which was descending to land. The NTSB transcript released Wednesday shows the transmission from the tower was not received in the Black Hawk's cockpit. Air traffic supervisor: Concerns about training staff went unaddressed Much of the second day of hearings focused on the staffing and training of air traffic controllers at DCA. James Jarvis, an air traffic control quality specialist, said that DCA's air traffic facility had historically been 'on the lower number of staffing.' Jarvis oversaw the airport through 2023 as a quality control expert for the FAA's Eastern Service Center. He said he raised concerns several times about the lack of staffing in several administrative positions for training controllers — positions that were never filled, he said. 'I brought that to many, many attention every opportunity I had, and at one point I was told to quit bringing it up,' Jarvis said, adding that the shortages 'absolutely' impacted training. 'There [were] not enough folks to manage the training that needed to take place,' he added. The airspace around DCA is unusually complex, with military helicopter routes criss-crossing heavy commercial jet traffic. Traffic controller says he was 'overwhelmed' in leadup to crash A single air traffic controller was handling both planes and helicopters at the time of the collision, unusual under normal conditions, and interview transcripts released by the NTSB paint a picture of a busy night. 'He was giving clearances and there were a couple of times, and you can listen to it yourself, where he changed his mind, to do one thing, but then no, do this kind of thing,' one pilot in the vicinity of the airport told investigators. 'They're not instilling a lot of confidence in you because he's seeming like he's overworked, got too much going on at the moment.' The controller told investigators that he was 'starting to become a little overwhelmed with the helicopters,' about 10 or 15 minutes before the fatal crash. An assistant in the tower said the controller told the helicopter to pass behind the airplane. 'I went to write down what the helicopters were doing, because there were other helicopters on the frequency,' the assistant said. 'And then I heard someone say, 'Oh s—.' And I looked up and I saw the explosion.'
