A former Black Hawk pilot believes that three important mistakes have caused one of the American army helicopters that they asked to collide with a passenger jet and kill 67 people.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Elizabeth McCormick, who flew Black Hawks for seven years until an injury forced her to retire, believed that the crash about DC could be prevented.
Firstly, only the at least three crew on board were despite the training flight that crossed through a busy airspace at night.
“If you fly with a visual flight plan and you fly like this in a busy airspace, you should really have two crew members to erase each party, because the pilots only have straight ahead,” she said CNN.
'You only have a visibility of the front 180 degrees, your crew leaders erase the back. If you only have one crew chef, how much can you erase?
“I think that was a big problem, as well as the height.”
CCTV images of the collision, however, showed the helicopter fly directly on the plane, which was in front of it when it was approaching.
Surveillance images taken from the inside from the airport were recorded when the two collided in a hearing air
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Elizabeth McCormick, who flew Black Hawks for seven years until an injury forced her to retire, believed that the crash about DC could be prevented
The helicopter should only fly at 200ft, making the planes start and land at DCA, but so high, was 400 ft.
McCormick said the area was a messy airspace with many lights that reflected on the river ', so it is easy to be a bit disoriented up to the height. “
Thirdly, she said that air traffic control should have been more specific when it asked whether the helicopter pilots had the plane in their sights, because two planes were visible at the time.
McCormick said they should have said exactly where it was, so that the crew could look for it. The helicopter is agile enough to avoid an aircraft on time when pilots see it.
The helicopter hit an airplane from the American Airlines when it came to the Reagan National Airport on Wednesday.
Passengers on board Vlucht 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, include members of the American figure skating team who returned from the American figure skating championships.
Sixty passengers, four crew members and three American army personnel died in the worst disaster in the US in 23 years, who blamed McCormick for three errors.
McCormick blamed the worst American air disaster in 23 years on three errors
A black piece of the helicopter wreck after being raised by recovery efforts
The CCTV images from two corners showed that the Bombardier CRJ700 airline was slowly approaching the runway, The lights shine clearly against the night sky.
Suddenly the helicopter entered the frame and drove much faster from the left, directly on the way to the passenger plane.
Neither of the aircraft seemed to change course or have a time to try to try before a huge, violent explosion illuminated heaven.
What remained from the helicopter seemed to go straight and crash straight into the water, while the plane splintered into pieces.
The largest part of the plane turned over the end over the end, did almost a complete rotation before the water hits and disappears.
Smaller pieces of the wreck slowly rained down, such as the rubble of a fireworks display.
