The crew of the army helicopter that collided in the air with an American Airlines -Jet may have had inaccurate altitude measurements in the moments before the crash, researchers said on Friday.
The crew on board the helicopter may have not heard important instructions from air traffic controllers to move behind the plane.
National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jennifer Homendy said reporters that the recording of the Black Hawk Helicopter Cockpit suggested that an incomplete radio shipping may have left the soldiers without understanding how it should shift the position just before the crash of 29 January, in which all 67 on board the two planes were killed.
“That transmission was interrupted – they stepped on,” she said, so they were unable to hear the words “behind the” because the microphone key of the helicopter was pressed at the same time.
“At 8:47:42 – or 17 seconds before the impact – a radio transmission of the tower was audible on both CVRs that the Black Hawk directed to pass on the CRJ,” Homan told reporters.
“CVR data from the Black Hawk indicated that the part of the transmission stood” behind the “possibly not received by the Black Hawk crew.”
Homanendy said that the helicopter was on a 'check' flight that evening, where the pilot underwent an annual test and a test about using Night Vision Goggles.
Researchers believe that the crew wore during the flight night vision goggles and that there was nothing that suggested that the crew had removed them.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jennifer Homendy gave a press conference on the NTSB on Friday in Washington on Friday
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
She said that testing was going on to determine what both crews could see at the time of the collision.
Shortly before the collision, a controller received a warning that the plane and black Hawk converged and asked the helicopter if it had the plane in sight.
The military pilot said yes and asked for 'visual divorce' with the jet – so that it can fly closer than usual, is allowed if the pilots did not see the plane. Controllers approved the request.
About 20 seconds later, the plane collided.
Since the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board has recovered all flight data recorders and removed the wreck of both aircraft from the Potomac.
Last week it was revealed how vital filling technology was eliminated in the helicopter for 'no compelling reason' when it bumped.
The Black Hawk carried out a routine training mission in an attempt to renew the annual certification of the 28-year-old captain Rebecca M. Lobach.
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, Sen said. Ted Cruz on the New York Times.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jennifer Homendy speaks as NTSB researcher Sean Payne listens during the news conference
A tap loads a piece of wreck from a salvage vessel on a flatbed truck, near the wreckage in the Potomac river of a collision in the air
Salvage-Omningen pull part of a black hawk helicopter near the site in the Potomac river of a collision in the air between an American Airlines Jet and a black hawkhelicopter
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.
Military helicopters can eliminate the ADS-B during 'continuity of the government' missions, so that no one can follow where government officials are flown.
It will take more than a year to get the last NTSB report on the collision, and Homendy warned reporters that many problems were still being investigated.
“We are only a few weeks,” she said of the crash. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Last week the Federal Aviation Administration revealed how it was set to reduce the number of arrivals on Washington Reagan National Airport in DC after the fatal accident.
The FAA said that there would be a reduction of up to 28 to 26 arrivals per hour would reduce future risks – but would also increase the average delays from 40 minutes to 50 minutes.
An e -mail explained how researchers from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have expressed concern for our tower staff employed, who have an increased level of stress and at the same time have a representation of the accident recovery. '
The e -mail added that lowering the rate of 28 to 26 'will reduce the risk and enables a little room for extra coordination.'
A graph with Reagan National Airport and the area was shown on Friday
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
Chris Rocheleau was appointed as acting head of the FAA by Donald Trump the morning after the disaster – and on January 30 the president signed a memorandum in the Oval Office and ordered an immediate assessment of aviation safety.
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.
But since the catastrophe, aviation experts have raised an alarm about the dangerous airspace over Reagan International Airport, as they described last week's US airline as a disaster that is waiting. '
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.
The collision was that he came across the most deadly aircraft crash in the US since 2001, when a jet came across a neighborhood in New York City just after taking off, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground.
The collision probably took place at an altitude of approximately 325 feet, researchers said, which would put the Black Hawk above its 200 feet limit for that location.
Cockpit interviews a few minutes before the crash indicated conflicting height data, HomanDy said, with the helicopter pilot shouting that they were at 300 feet, but the instructor pilot who said it was 400 feet.
“We look at the possibility that there can be bad data,” she said.
Officials confirmed that the three soldiers who all died had rehearsed a plan in which the evacuation of the White House was involved
Captain Rebecca M. Lobach, 28, from Durham, North Carolina was one of the three soldiers aboard the H-60 ​​Black Hawk helicopter who collided with an American Airlines jet when it landed
Chief Warrant Officer 2, Andrew Eaves was one of the three soldiers who participated in the fatal training exercise
Ryan O'hara from Georgia was aboard the doomed helicopter when it dived into the river
American Airlines Pilots First Officer Samuel Lilley, 29, Left, and Captain Jonathan Campos, 34, Right, were also killed in the crash
That generation Black Hawks usually has two types of altimeters – one that depends on barometric pressure and the other on radio frequency signals bounced off the ground.
Helicopter pilots usually rely on barometric measurements while flying, but the black box of the helicopter catches its radio height.
The radio height at the time of the impact placed the Black Hawk on 278 feet, Homanendy said.
“But I want to warn, that does not mean that that is what the Black Hawk crew on the barometric altimeters in the cockpit,” she said. “We see conflicting information in the data.”
The army said that the Black Hawk crew was very experienced and used to the busy sky around the capital of the country.
Researchers also said that the Jet escape recorder showed a change in his perspective about a second before the impact, although they did not say or indicated that the pilots were trying to perform a evasive maneuver to prevent the crash.
Apart from Captain Lobach van Durham, North Carolina; The other two crew members on the chopper were staff sgt. Ryan Austin O'hara, 28, Van Lilburn, Georgia; and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, Van Great Mills, Maryland. O'hara was the crew steering and roof edges and Lobach were pilots.
Lobach's friends and colleague soldiers called her deeply, 'brilliant and fearless'.
The American Airlines Jet, who flew from Wichita, Kansas, and prepared for landing at the time of the crash, was governed by 34-year-old Jonathan Campos, whose family members said they had dreamed of flying since he was 3.
The passenger plane registered its height at 313 feet two seconds before collision.
A few minutes before the twin -engine Jet would land, air traffic controllers asked if it could use a shorter runway. The pilots agreed with that and flying places that the aircraft has adjusted its approach.
The passengers of the Jet varied from a group of hunters to students and parents of schools in North Virginia to members of the Boston Skating Club.
They came back from a development camp for Elite Junior Skaters who followed the 2025 US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
Almost immediately after the crash, President Donald Trump publicly viewed the helicopter because he flew too high.
He also blamed the federal diversity and inclusion efforts, in particular with regard to air traffic controllers.
When it is printed by reporters, the president could not support those claims. A few days later, Trump blamed what he called an 'outdated' air traffic control system.
