Pilot pronounced dead at the scene of small plane crash in Ottawa
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CTV News
6 hours ago
- CTV News
Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, on monitor left, swears-in the witnesses from left: Dan Cooper, Sikorsky Aircraft, Lance Gant, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Army CW4 Kylene Lewis, Steve Braddom, U.S. Army, and Scott Rosengren, U.S. Army, during the NTSB fact-finding hearing on the DCA midair collision accident, at the National Transportation and Safety Board boardroom, Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in Washington. Over three days of sometimes contentious hearings this week, the National Transportation Safety Board interrogated 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 over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people. The biggest revelations: The helicopter's altimeter gauge was broken, and controllers warned the FAA years earlier about the dangers that helicopters presented. At one point NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolded the FAA for not addressing safety concerns. 'Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?' she said. 'Fix it. Do better.' Victims of the January crash included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches and four union steamfitters from the Washington area. Here is a look at the major takeaways from the hearings about the collision, which alarmed travelers before a string of other crashes and close calls this year added to their worries about flying: The helicopter's altimeter was wrong The helicopter was flying at 278 feet (85 metres) — well above the 200-foot (61-metre) ceiling on that route — when it collided with the airliner. But investigators said the pilots might not have realized that because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 metres) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder. The NTSB subsequently found similar discrepancies in the altimeters of three other helicopters from the same unit. An expert with Sikorsky, which makes the Black Hawks, said the one that crashed was an older model that lacked the air data computers that make for more accurate altitude readings in newer versions. Army Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that an 80- to 100-foot (24- to 30-metre) discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter would not be alarming, because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Plus Army pilots strive to stay within 100 feet (30 metres) of target altitude on flights, so they could still do that even with their altimeters that far off. But Rick Dressler of medevac operator Metro Aviation told the NTSB that imprecision would not fly with his helicopters. When a helicopter route like the one the Black Hawk was flying that night includes an altitude limit, Dressler said, his pilots consider that a hard ceiling. FAA and Army defend actions, shift blame Both tried to deflect responsibility for the crash, but the testimony highlighted plenty of things that might have been done differently. The NTSB's final report will be done next year, but there likely will not be one single cause identified for the crash. 'I think it was a week of reckoning for the FAA and the U.S. Army in this accident,' aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said. Army officials said the greater concern is that the FAA approved routes around Ronald Reagan International Airport with separation distances as small as 75 feet (23 metres) between helicopters and planes when planes are landing on a certain runway at Reagan. 'The fact that we have less than 500-foot separation is a concern for me,' said Scott Rosengren, chief engineer in the office that manages the Army's utility helicopters. Army Chief Warrant Officer David Van Vechten said he was surprised the air traffic controller let the helicopter proceed while the airliner was circling to land at Reagan's secondary runway, which is used when traffic for the main runway stacks up and accounts for about 5% of flights. Van Vechten said he was never allowed to fly under a landing plane as the Black Hawk did, but only a handful of the hundreds of times he flew that route involved planes landing on that runway. Other pilots in the unit told crash investigators it was routine to be directed to fly under landing planes, and they believed that was safe if they stuck to the approved route. Frank McIntosh, the head of the FAA's air traffic control organization, said he thinks controllers at Reagan 'were really dependent upon the use of visual separation' to keep traffic moving through the busy airspace. The NTSB said controllers repeatedly said they would just 'make it work.' They sometimes used 'squeeze plays' to land planes with minimal separation. On the night of the crash, a controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. Testimony at the hearing raised serious questions about how well the crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot. The controller acknowledged in an interview that the plane's pilots were never warned when the helicopter was on a collision path, but controllers did not think telling the plane would have made a difference at that point. The plane was descending to land and tried to pull up at the last second after getting a warning in the cockpit, but it was too late. FAA was warned about the dangers of helicopter traffic in D.C. An FAA working group tried to get a warning added to helicopter charts back in 2022 urging pilots to use caution whenever the secondary runway was in use, but the agency refused. The working group said 'helicopter operations are occurring in a proximity that has triggered safety events. These events have been trending in the wrong direction and increasing year over year.' Separately, a different group at the airport discussed moving the helicopter route, but those discussions did not go anywhere. And a manager at a regional radar facility in the area urged the FAA in writing to reduce the number of planes taking off and landing at Reagan because of safety concerns. The NTSB has also said the FAA failed to recognize a troubling history of 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the collision, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said 'every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that.' But after the accident, the FAA transferred managers out of the airport instead of acknowledging that they had been warned. 'What you did is you transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA in the tower was saying there was a problem,' Homendy said. 'But you guys are pointing out, 'Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.'' Associated Press writer Leah Askarinam contributed. Josh Funk, The Associated Press
CBC
20 hours ago
- CBC
Clean up discarded fishing line, conservation group says, after 3 cygnets died after becoming tangled
Watching a trumpeter swan cygnet die was not on Louisa Lamberink-van Wijk's list of things to see during her birthday this year. Lamberink-van Wijk, who is the vice president of the Halton Hills Turtle Guardians, was having her birthday dinner around 8 p.m. on Tuesday when she saw a post in a local Facebook group about trumpeter swan cygnets all tangled up in a fishing line. She then received a call from Peter Duncanson, the president of the same organization, about the cygnets. She rushed over to help, but it was already too late. "Two were obviously dead," she said. "The one that was alive was swimming around, dragging the other two along with him as [best] as he could because… that's heavy for a young swan to do that." With some help from Duncanson and other volunteers, Lamberink-van Wijk was able to gently untangle the third cygnet. She took it home hoping to save its life and get it to a rehabilitation facility, but the young swan also died a few hours later. Discarded fishing line, lead sinkers an issue Trumpeter swans seemingly vanished from the Ontario landscape in the 1800s, until dedicated efforts were made to bring them back and monitor their numbers in the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, trumpeter swans are listed as "not at risk" in the Species at Risk Act's animal registry, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario. Nevertheless, Laurel Ironside, a licensed bird bander at the Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario, expressed concern about the fact that they see trumpeter swans getting caught on discarded fishing lines on a weekly basis. "We don't want to lay blame [on anyone]," she said. "There's good anglers and there's bad anglers." Ironside said most of their swan rescues are caused by discarded fishing lines and lead sinkers. Ironside said lead sinkers affect not just many of the trumpeter swans that they rescue, but also other waterfowls. On Prince Edward Island, a study from the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown found that lead sinkers and ammunition caused nine per cent of deaths among Maritime bald eagles. "It's a frustrating thing because we've educated the public for years already," Lamberink-van Wijk said. "It's not something, 'Oh, that will never happen to me.' It definitely does happen." 'I'm very disappointed' While the cygnets were found in Halton region, Lamberink-van Wijk's frustration is something shared by Paul Kroisenbrunner, the current treasurer and former president of Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge Bassmasters. "I'm very disappointed that some anglers would not be responsible enough to take their waste and dispose of it properly," he said. "We pride ourselves within Ontario and our overall parent organization [in the U.S.] as being conservation-minded." Kroisenbrunner said it's not often that he hears about swans and other animals being tangled up in fishing lines within their community. "Wildlife in general, all species of animals have a right to a clean and healthy environment," he said. "That's why we promote conservation, cleaning up after yourself, taking all your garbage with you and not leaving it on riverbanks or in parks or anywhere else where anglers are doing something that we love to do." But there are things a responsible angler can do, says Lamberink-van Wijk — the easiest one is to ask for help. She says people may feel embarrassed when they hook or get an animal tangled with their fishing line and they may just "cut the line and get out of there because you may not want people to know that this happened." "If you hook an animal, call the wildlife centre, call somebody that can help, set aside the fact that you're embarrassed, and just fess up," she said. "Help the situation because in the end, you're going to help an animal." To prevent similar situations from happening in the future, Lamberink-van Wijk says education is the number one tool. The most obvious lesson from this unfortunate event, she says, is for anglers to make sure that they collect all their fishing gear before leaving. "After weekends, we pick up handfuls of [fishing line] along the shoreline, and animals do get tangled up," she said. "Don't leave it behind because animals get stuck and killed." To report trumpeter swans in distress or that need rescuing, send the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario a message on their Facebook group
CTV News
a day ago
- CTV News
Peachland, B.C., wildfire being held, all evacuation orders lifted
From July 31: Four hundred families were ordered to evacuate Wednesday night, but more than half have been given the green light to return.
