DC airplane crash: NTSB calls for pressing restrictions on helicopter route close to Reagan airport after crash that killed 67 | EUROtoday

The newest headlines from our reporters throughout the US despatched straight to your inbox every weekday

Your briefing on the most recent headlines from throughout the US

Your briefing on the most recent headlines from throughout the US

The National Safety Transportation Board has discovered that helicopter visitors out of Ronald Reagan International Airport posed an “intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a mid-air collision” forward of a crash final month that resulted within the deaths of 67 individuals.

“It is stronger than an oversight,” stated NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at a information convention in Arlington, Virginia, the place the DCA airport is positioned, on Tuesday.

Sixty-seven individuals have been killed on January 29, when an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington D.C. American Airlines Flight 5342 was on its descent from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 individuals on board, as three troopers on the helicopter participated in a coaching mission.

It’s believed the service members have been touring above their 200-foot allotted air clearance and carrying night-vision goggles that might have obscured their imaginative and prescient.

open picture in gallery

Black Hawk helicopters often flew alongside Route 4, an airway spanning from Hains Point to Wilson Bridge in Washington D.C., earlier than the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a restriction after the crash, which is in place till March thirty first.

The restriction doesn’t apply to helicopters getting into the airspace for lifesaving medical assist, lively regulation enforcement, air protection and presidential transport, however operations exterior of these exemptions are prohibited.

“As that deadline nears, we remain concerned about the significant potential for a future mid-air collision at DCA, which is why we are recommending a permanent solution today,” Homendy stated. “We believe a critical safety issue must be addressed without delay.”

The NTSB is looking on the Department of Transportation to bar helicopter operations alongside the route when airport runways one, 5 and 33 are getting used for departures and arrivals, along with establishing an alternate path to facilitate navy and regulation enforcement journey when the route section is closed.

The company isn’t issuing a advice for an alternate route, as a substitute requesting the Federal Aviation Administration decide an acceptable airway.

Through preliminary knowledge evaluation, investigators discovered airport officers fielded one visitors collision alert monthly from 2011 to 2024 attributable to helicopters. Over half of these situations confirmed helicopters could have been above the route altitude restriction. Two-thirds of these incidents occurred at night time.

Moreover, a big share of the shut calls concerned helicopters flying alongside Route 4 and planes touchdown on Runway 33, the identical touchdown strip that was for use by the American Airlines flight.

Additionally, from October 2021 via December 2024, there have been 15,214 situations of shut proximity occasions between industrial airplanes and helicopters wherein there was a lateral separation distance of lower than one nautical mile and vertical separation of lower than 400 ft. The airport logged 944,179 flights throughout that point.

open picture in gallery

Existing separation distances between helicopter visitors working on the route and airplanes touchdown on the runway are inadequate, Homendy acknowledged, asserting the company’s preliminary report into the incident.

Responding to a reporter’s query relating to her sentiments concerning the collision, Homendy stated: “It does make me angry, but it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones.” Several of the crash victims have been kids and their dad and mom getting back from a skating competitors.

The knowledge the company used to compile its report was pulled from a voluntary security reporting system that the FAA might have accessed at any level, the chairwoman famous.

“They could have used that information any time to determine that we have a trend here and a problem here and looked at that route. That didn’t occur,” she stated.

The Independent has emailed the FAA for remark.

The DCA tragedy marked the primary in a collection of US aviation disasters at the beginning of the yr. Two days after the incident, a medevac jet crashed in a residential and industrial space of Philadelphia, killing six individuals on board, together with 11-year-old Valentina Guzmán Murillo and her mom, Lizeth Murillo Osuna, 31.

The pair had simply left Shriners Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, the place Valentina spent 5 months receiving life-saving remedy. The plane, en path to Tijuana International Airport in Mexico with a deliberate refueling cease in Missouri, crashed after a minute within the air.

The NTSB issued its preliminary report on the Philadelphia crash final week however didn’t state what might’ve brought about the incident.

In one other main aviation accident on February 17, a Delta airplane crash-landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport with 80 individuals on board, inflicting the plane to flip the wrong way up.

Commenting on the security of air journey, Homendy acknowledged she had simply flown out of DCA airport along with her daughter.

“Aviation is incredibly safe,” Homendy stated. “DCA is where I always fly out of. I say often that your biggest risk is in your personal vehicle when you’re going to and from the airport. Aviation is safe. However, there are safety issues and areas where we need to improve.”