Pentagon probes Pentagon probe of midair crash: A new in-flight checkride with the 12th Aviation battalion at Fort Belvoir
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Newly installed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the military is investigating Wednesday night’s crash between an Army helicopter and a civilian airliner near Washington, D.C.
There have been 28 bodies recovered so far. A regional jet and three service members from the US were involved in a crash.
The Army unit that was involved was the 12th Aviation battalion at Fort Belvoir, and they had been carrying out an annual proficiency training flight.
Despite President Trump saying the pilots of the Army helicopter bore responsibility for the crash, Hegseth said the crew was “fairly experienced” and carrying out a “required annual night evaluation, they did have night vision goggles.”
A checkride, as opposed to a normal training flight, creates some unique dynamics in the cockpit. In a checkride, the less experienced pilot can be nervous and eager to not make mistakes, while the instructor pilot is watching to see how the other pilot responds to different developments,” Bowman explained. “Sometimes an instructor pilot will test the less experienced aviator to see how they respond, but such a technique would have been unusual and inadvisable in that location given the reduced margin for error.”
Source: Questions about helicopter’s path could prove key in Pentagon probe of midair crash
The Flight of the Black Hawk Helicopter: An Investigation Into a Plane-Bound Aircraft Accident and the Effects on Flight Pathology
Defense officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that a male pilot and female co-pilot were on board the Black Hawk, along with a flight crew member. The instructor pilot had over a thousand hours of flight time. 500 hours is considered an average for a co-pilot. The Pentagon has not yet released the names of those on board, saying it was still in the process of notifying next of kin.
Sources say the Black Hawks was flying at least 100 feet higher than the 200 feet it was supposed to be flying at. All requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the investigation.
“There is a low, prescribed altitude for the helicopter to fly at in that location on the route,” Bowman said, “to ensure sufficient and safe distance between the helicopter and aircraft landing or taking off from Reagan. A helicopter that was above the prescribed altitude should cause the crash. That is one of the key focus of the investigation.
He said the investigation would be able to determine if the aircraft was in the corridor or at the right altitude.
The National Transportation Safety Board says it has not yet recovered the so-called black boxes from the plane — the cockpit voice and flight data recorders. The recorder the Black Hawk helicopter has is what federal safety investigators hope will help explain the cause of the crash.
The air traffic control asked if the American Airlines flight could land on runway 33, which is a shorter runway. The pilots switch runways to get to their destination. Some have wondered if the Black Hawk might have beensurprised by the change in flight path.
The crash of a UH-60 black Hawk helicopter and a passenger plane into a river in Washington, DC, and the leadership of the NTSB
Eighty percent of aviation accidents worldwide can be attributed to human error, and that is a prime candidate in this case, Marco Chan, a former pilot who now heads pilot programs at Buckinghamshire New University, told WIRED.
“Perhaps safety protocols, human factors were at play,” he says. I like to not draw conclusions early on. While the passenger number has bounced back, I don’t think the workforce number has caught up in every aspect of aviation.
A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with three soldiers was close to the runway at Reagan National Airport when it crashed into the tail of a Bombardier CRJ-700 jet. The charred remains of the two aircraft were thrown into the river.
The passenger jet’s crew may have not heard the tower radioing the Black Hawk because the military flights operate on different frequencies. It can be difficult for others to hear the full conversation if more than one party on the same channel is radioing at the same time.
The helicopter may have taken off from a military base near the airport. A helicopter can be seen in a video above a plane flying low to the ground. The two collided in a large explosion, which caused burning fragments.
Police boats have recovered 27 bodies after a passenger jet with 64 people on board was destroyed in a fire. There was an aircraft tragedy in New York state in 2009.
The first major US air crash in 16 years occurred late Wednesday in Washington DC, as a military helicopter and a passenger airplane collided and fell into the river.
President Donald Trump seemed to place the blame for the midair collision that killed 67 people on the previous administration’s approach to hiring aviation professionals. But experts and investigators involved with the crash, which also involved a military helicopter, say the next few weeks will see investigators pore over every element of the crash, and the moments leading up to it, to determine the causes.
At a press conference Thursday, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said she needed time to do her job. The NTSB is an independent US federal watchdog agency that is leading the investigation into the crash. “We have data, we have substantial amounts of information,” she said. “We need to verify information.”
Later on Thursday, the White House released a statement criticizing the Biden administration’s “rejection of merit-based hiring” at the FAA in favor of a hiring program that encouraged diversity. To achieve aviation safety, Trump has ordered the FAA to review all of the hires and safety protocol changes made during the Biden administration, and to take any necessary corrective action, which may include firings.
The working groups will be made up of federal investigators as well as representatives from the military, aircraft manufacturers and organizations representing aviation professionals, according to J. Todd Inman in a press briefing.
An operations group will look into the history of the accident and the crew involved. Another group will focus on the body of the aircraft, examining the wreckage and accident scenes to determine what course the aircraft traveled before the collision, including the altitude. Another will zoom in on the engines involved. Others will examine onboard hydraulic, electrical, and pneumatic systems, as well as flight control instruments. A group will look specifically at the role of air traffic control, using recordings and sensor data to determine how professionals at National Airport reacted to the incident. One will look at the reactions of first responders, another will look at the helicopter. A “human performance” group will be embedded within several of those organizations, focusing on what role crew fatigue, workload, medication, equipment, and training might have played in the collision.