Families visit crash site days after deadliest US air disaster in a generation
On Sunday, just outside of Washington, DC, families of those killed in the deadliest US air tragedy in almost 25 years
visited the crash site.
Near Reagan National Airport, where an American Airlines aircraft and an army Black Hawk chopper collided on
Wednesday, killing all 67 people on board, dozens of people strolled along the banks of the Potomac River.
As federal investigators attempt to piece together what happened before the catastrophe and rescue personnel make
ready to remove more wreckage from the cold sea, they arrived in buses escorted by police, remembering loved ones.
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday said he wanted to leave federal aviation investigators space to
conduct their inquiry.
But he posed a range of questions about the crash while appearing on morning TV news programmes.
“What was happening inside the towers? Were they understaffed/ The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of
the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision goggles?” Mr Duffy asked on CNN.
The 64-person American Airlines flight was getting ready to touch down in Wichita, Kansas.
Three soldiers were aboard the army Black Hawk helicopter, which was on a training flight.
Following their collision, both planes fell into the Potomac River.
Figure skaters returning from the 2025 US were among the passengers on the aircraft. Wichita, Kansas, figure
skating championships, and hunters coming back from a guided hunt
The helicopter claimed the lives of Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew
Loyd Eaves, 39, and Captain Rebecca M. Lobach.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about
the altitudes of the plane and the helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the plane’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch.
But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive manoeuvre to
avoid the crash.
Data from the plane’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet, plus or minus 25 feet, when the crash happened,
NTSB officials told reporters.
Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet, the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters
in the area.
The discrepancy has yet to be explained.
Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopter’s black box, which is taking
more time to retrieve because it became waterlogged after the Black Hawk plunged into the Potomac.
They also said they plan to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.
“That’s what our job is, to figure that out,” NTSB member Todd Inman said
Those duties are often divided between two people but the airport typically combines them at 9.30pm, once traffic
slows down.
On Wednesday, the tower supervisor combined them earlier, which the report called “not normal”.
“Staffing shortages for air traffic control has been a major problem for years and years,” Mr Duffy said, promising
that President Donald Trump’s administration would address shortages with “bright, smart, brilliant people in
towers controlling airspace”.
With the country already grieving, an air ambulance crashed in Philadelphia on Friday, killing all six people on
board, including a child returning home to Mexico from treatment, and at least one person on the ground.
Also Friday, the FAA heavily restricted helicopter traffic around Reagan National, hours after Mr Trump claimed on
social media that the helicopter had been flying higher than allowed.
It was much higher than the 200-foot restriction. That shouldn’t be too difficult to comprehend, is it? On Truth
Social, Mr. Trump posted a message.
Since November 12, 2001, when a jet crashed into a residential neighbourhood in the Queens borough of New York
City shortly after taking off from Kennedy Airport, Wednesday’s tragedy was the deadliest in US history.
Five persons were killed on the ground and all 260 people on board perished in the disaster.
Although jet travel is generally safe, even the most seasoned pilots may find it difficult to navigate the congested
airspace surrounding Reagan National.
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