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CV NEWS FEED // The pilot of the Army Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over the Potomac River earlier this year failed to heed her co-pilot’s urgent instruction to change course, investigators have found.
This critical error, they stated, combined with breakdowns in air traffic control and systemic deficiencies at Reagan National Airport, contributed to the Jan. 29 deaths of all 64 people aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 and the helicopter crew.
According to a New York Times investigation, the Black Hawk crew had asked to operate under “visual separation,” assuming responsibility for avoiding other aircraft. A controller at Reagan National Airport approved the request, a standard procedure in the area.
But the helicopter crew either missed or misjudged the proximity of the inbound passenger plane. The helicopter collided with the commercial jet just before 8:48 p.m., igniting a massive explosion over the river.
Investigators uncovered that the Black Hawk was flying too high, directly into the jet’s landing approach. More critically, in the final moments before impact, the pilot did not act on a directive from her co-pilot, an Army flight instructor, to veer away. Radio communication issues compounded the chaos, with some air traffic instructions going unheard due to overlapping transmissions.
Further scrutiny revealed that tracking technology aboard the Black Hawk, which could have given controllers real-time awareness of the helicopter’s location, had been turned off under Army protocol. Intended to allow practice for secret emergency evacuations, experts said that disabling the system removed an important layer of situational awareness.
Responsibility also fell on the controller monitoring the airspace. Although the controller had approved visual separation, experts noted he failed to issue clear, urgent instructions to prevent the imminent crash. At the time, the National Airport control tower was operating with dangerously low staffing, with a single controller assigned to both helicopter traffic and runway operations — jobs typically divided between two people.
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