National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearings on the devastating Washington, DC, helicopter-plane crash that killed 67 people revealed devastating findings last week, with Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for ignoring safety concerns.
The NTSB interrogated FAA and U.S. Army officials on the series of events that led to a Black Hawk helicopter colliding with a passenger jet as it descended into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport during what the Associated Press (AP) described as “three days of sometimes contentious hearings.”
The 64 passengers and crew killed on the American Airlines flight included a group of young figure skaters, coaches, and family members returning from Wichita, Kansas, Breitbart News reported.
The helicopter also had no survivors, losing all three crew members in the tragic accident.
Last week’s hearings not only revealed that the Black Hawk’s altimeter gauge was broken, but that air traffic controllers had warned the FAA years earlier about the growing risk of helicopters flying in close proximity to landing airplanes.
“Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?” Homendy said to FAA officials at one point. “Fix it. Do better.”
As the Associated Press reported:
The helicopter was flying at 278 feet (85 meters) — well above the 200-foot (61-meter) 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 meters) 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.
The outlet went on to note that an FAA working group pushed to add a warning to helicopter charts in 2022, sharing the risks of pilots using Reagan’s secondary runway, but the administration declined to do so.
According to the working group’s 2022 complaint, “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.”
A separate group also discussed moving the helicopter route, but that proposal also failed.
An additional official at a regional radar facility asked the FAA to reduce the number of planes taking off from Reagan over safety concerns — a request the agency did not heed.
Homendy said, “every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that.”
The FAA transferred managers out of Reagan Airport following the crash and did not acknowledge that they were warned, the AP reported.
“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 scolded. “But you guys are pointing out, ‘Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.’”
Both the FAA and Army reportedly attempted to “deflect responsibility” and “shift blame,” with the outlet noting that it is unlikely that one single action will be identified as the cause of the crash when the NTSB releases its final report next year.
“I think it was a week of reckoning for the FAA and the U.S. Army in this accident,” said aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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