Vital tracking technology in an army Black Hawk -Helicopter was eliminated for 'not a compelling reason' when it collided last week with a passenger plane about Washington DC.
The Black Hawk carried out a routine training mission in an attempt to renew the annual certification of 28-year-old captain Rebecca M. Lobach when he crashed on the flight 5342 of American Airlines, while it made his last descent on Reagan National Airport just before 9 pm on January 29.
When the helicopter went down, the automatic dependent surveillance broadcast of the Black Hawk was eliminated – a system that shares the position, height and speed of a plane, Senator Ted Cruz told the New York Times on Thursday.
The technology also contains a display that shows pilots the location of other aircraft, both in the air and on a runway, and enables air traffic controllers not to rely on Radar only – which can have a delay of a few seconds, according to USA Today .
Military helicopters can eliminate the ADS-B during 'continuity of the government' missions, so that no one can follow where government officials are flown.
But Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said that that was not the case at the time of the deadly crash.
“In this case this was a training mission, so there was no mandatory national security reasons for ADS-B to be eliminated,” he told the times after a briefing with a closed door about the investigation into the crash with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.
He noted that the helicopter was equipped with a transponder to broadcast the location, but said that the ADS-B is a lot of superior technology.
Salvage -Means received the mutilated remains of the army helicopter from the depths of the Potomac River on Thursday
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that the Black Hawk -Helicopter had eliminated a crucial tracking system when it came in a passenger plane about Washington DC last week
The Army of the United States would not confirm the claims of Cruz about the tracking system to De Tijd.
“We are going to let the research come true and not for the NTSB findings,” Colonel Roger Cabiness, a spokesperson for the army, told The Outlet.
The report then took crews the mutilated remains of the army helicopter from the depths of the Potomac River.
Days earlier, the authorities confirmed that the Black Hawk helicopter in fact flew 100 feet above the limit for helicopters in the commercial airspace.
It flew at 300 feet, but the maximum height allowed for helicopters in the area is 200 feet.
Black Box data that was restored from the Wrrak in the Potomac River, had indicated that this situation probably took place, but the National Transport Safety Board was waiting for the data about air traffic control to confirm the large height.
Radar data is rounded to the nearest 100 feet, which means that the helicopter flew somewhere between 251 feet and 349 feet, the NTSB said.
In the meantime, the passenger plane was 325 feet at the time of the crash and it was tidy to land.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was that it made its final descent on Reagan National Airport when it collided in the Black Hawk on January 29 in the Black Hawk
In the group of a second before the crash, the pilots of the plane have difficulty pulling the plane up in an attempt to avoid the oncoming helicopter.
“At one point very close to the impact, there was a small change in pitch, an increase in pitch,” said NTSB's Todd Inman in a press conference on Saturday evening.
There were no survivors on both flights and all 67 bodies have now been taken out of the water.
There were 60 passengers and four crews on board the flight of the American Airlines from Wichita, Kansas, while three soldiers were on the helicopter.
“This is a complex investigation,” said Brice Banning, NTSB researcher who is in charge. “There are many pieces here. Our team works hard to collect this data. '
Banning also discussed the last moments of the two black boxes of the Jet, which recorded sound in the cockpit and flight data.
“The crew had a verbal reaction,” said Banning, showing the data recorder, “the plane that began to increase its pitch.
“Sounds of Impact were audible about a second later, followed by the end of the recording.”
Wreckage of the Doemed American Airlines plane was recovered on Monday
The Federal Aviation Administration has now been established to reduce the number of arrivals at Reagan National Airport in DC, so that airlines are told at the end of Wednesday that the reduction of a maximum of 28 to 26 arrivals per hour would reduce future risks.
The e -mail, seen by Reuters, said that researchers from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have expressed concern for our tower staff who have an increased level of stress and at the same time have a representation of the first row of the recovery of the accident. '
It added that lowering the speed of 28 to 26 'will reduce the risk and make a little room for extra coordination possible.'
Reagan National Airport is notoriously busy and the crossover in the air space between Jets and Helicopters is routine – but has had pilot problems for decades.
There were no survivors on both flights, and all 67 bodies have now been picked up from the water
An investigation into the deadly crash is still underway
Some air experts even have the deadly crash 'a disaster that waited to make it happen', while they sounded the alarm about the dangerous airspace at DC airport. Data from the FAA discovered that there were more than 30 reports of 'near-Identaire Collisions' about the airport in 1987, with at least 10 with military planes, according to NPR.
Seven of these reports concerned military helicopters under cold similar circumstances such as last week's crash, including one that took place only 24 hours before the fatal collision.
In that case, a passenger jet was ordered to circled around Reagan National and grab his landing after he was warned about a nearby military helicopter.
In the meantime, Senator Cruz has called on the FAA to assess all helicopter routes that pass a commercial airspace to determine whether other changes should be made.
But President Donald Trump blamed diversity, fairness and inclusion efforts for the fatal collision.
The supreme commander said last week that those who had to see with the Black Hawk -helicopter 'had to see where they were going'.
He added That he had some 'pretty good ideas' about how the disaster took place and promised to ensure that it would never happen again.
Trump then said that he had first put 'safety', while former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave priority to politics.
