Most reports now identifying the helicopter as a military Blackhawk, commonly used for VIP transport around DC, though no word yet on exactly what that particular helicopter was doing at the time.
I’m reading now that the military helicopter had three crew, no civilian passengers on board. The AA regional jet had 60 passengers, 4 crew. Damn bad news, all the way around.
Ground Stop in effect at Reagan National until 0500 local tomorrow.
Or who was on it??
60 passengers on the regional jet.
It was a Decepticon
Trump’s fault.
Seriously, how does shit like this happen?
Ever hear of DEI?
There’s some 'splainin to do here…
The air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was understaffed at the time of the mid-air collision between a commercial jet and a US Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
CNN cited an aviation insider who said one air traffic controller at Reagan Tower was working two different tower positions at the time.
The Reagan National control tower is 85 percent staffed, the source said, with 24 of 28 positions filled.
Separately, the New York Times cited a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report that also said Reagan Tower staffing was “not normal” during the time of the mid-air accident.
If you listen to the ATC audio you can clearly hear the controller ask the pilot of the Blackhawk if he has eyes on the CRJ. The problem(s)… the inquiry comes way too late as they were already closing on each other rapidly. The jet was doing what’s known as a circling approach, basically coming in for RWY 1 and then swinging out to the right to line up for RWY 33. This is a maneuver that takes the focus of the crew away from things like traffic avoidance (which is the job of ATC in Class B, C, and D airspace). It is likely that the Blackhawk did not see the CRJ against the back drop of the city lights as the CRJ would have been banking. Instead, the Blackhawk likely saw the jet that was departing RWY 19 or 22.
The CRJ has a TCAS system but at low altitudes and so close to the airport all it does is bark warnings which are most often ignored because it is normal to be close to other traffic when you are at 400 feet on final approach. I’m not sure if the Blackhawk has TCAS, but it should have radar or adsb-in, so god only knows what those pilots where focused on at the time of the accident.
As with most aviation disasters, completely avoidable. It will be interesting to see the NTSB reports on this one.
[Jet Aborted Landing at Reagan Airport Day Before Deadly Crash]
A Republic Airways passenger jet was forced to abort its first attempt to land at Reagan National Airport after a helicopter appeared in its flight path on Tuesday, 24 hours before the plane crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, The Washington Post reported Thursday. NewsMAX [Full Story]. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .The Army saw 15 flight and two ground Class A incidents in fiscal year 2024, according to safety data obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act and a January 2025 Army aviation safety report.
Class A incidents are any aviation accident that results in the destruction of the aircraft, deaths of service members or more than $2.5 million in damage to the airframe.
Rumor has it, it was a training mission for the helicopter, with a new female pilot, and the pilots were wearing night vision goggles. If so, their peripheral vision would have been severely limited. The background lighting in the area would have made it tougher.
Strange thing, when you look at both aircraft flight paths below, they were flying directly at each other at roughly the same altitude. How do you miss this as pilots??
And lastly, with the plane on approach to the airport, the ATC controller should have been all over this situation, and directed BOTH aircraft. But with the reports from the FAA of short staffing, and one ATC controller doing TWO jobs… we get this accident…
In this case “training” may not necessarily mean much. Anything that is not an actual mission is considered training as far as I know. So that pilot could be on a checkride but could also have 1000 hours of flight time, 50 with NVG. In any case the person making the radio calls was male. I don’t know what the systems are on the Blackhawk so it is hard to say how they missed the CRJ other than the fact that perhaps they were flying visually and picked up the departing airplane and saw it was some distance away so they were not concerned.
The 2 man crew in the CRJ get the most leeway. They are task saturated with a circle to approach landing in a busy and highly restricted airspace. They were requested to change the runway they were landing on, which increases the workload. They rely on ATC for separation so they aren’t looking for traffic they are looking at check lists, looking at the airport, looking at the instruments.
I would lean towards putting most of the blame on ATC but in reality ATC did warn the chopper pilot. The chopper pilot then took responsibility for visual separation. The only thing that I think ATC did wrong was no immediately vector the chopper once he(if) saw collision warning on radar, “PAT turn left heading 90, immediately!”.
ATC seems to have the biggest issue here. Not only did they NOT instruct the chopper to immediately change course, but reports now is that the chopper was flying above it’s ceiling of 200 ft, up near 400 feet. The ATC should have also warned it of this violation.
Then, as posted above and looking at the flight path, it almost looks like the chopper flew intentionally at the plane. There’s no way TWO pilots in that chopper cockpit could not see the plane in the last minute of flight, before collision.
Not 100% sure but Ian Miles Cheong may still live in his mother’s basement in Malaysia, not sure he is a valid source for anything related to this story. Zero aviation expertise.
Yes, be interesting to see if they had clearance to be at that altitude since it was above published ceiling for that route.
So, a little more information. Two out of three of the Blackhawk’s crew’s names have been announced, but the third name… “Her” parents do not want her name released…
I wonder why???
Prolly the one holding the flight stick.
WOW, two different videos showing the crash. To my eyes, the helicopter flew directly at the plane. No evasive maneuvers at all to avoid contact.