While officials have warned members of the general public to avoid speculation about the tragic midair collision between a passenger jet and a Blackhawk helicopter in Washington, D.C., experts think they at least have some idea of what happened.
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00:00As families mourn the lives lost in the January 29, 2025 crash near Ronald Reagan Washington
00:06National Airport, a total of 67 between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a UH-60 Blackhawk
00:13helicopter, investigators are scrambling to determine how it could have happened as well
00:18as how to prevent it from happening again.
00:21Investigations like this take time, and in the information vacuum, media outlets, politicians,
00:26and amateur online sleuths have all jumped in with their two cents.
00:35But what do the actual experts think happened?
00:38It can be summarized in one simple phrase, human error, but a lot of other factors played
00:44into causing that error.
00:46For one, terrible visibility.
00:48The collision happened at night, just before 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:52The American flight, a Bombardier CRJ-700 plane, was making its descent toward Reagan
00:57Airport and had deployed its landing gear.
01:00Pilot Byron Bailey described to Sky News Australia how difficult it is to land a plane at night
01:05in general, even taking into account the help of modern instruments.
01:09A pilot making a night landing would be looking at just the runway, nothing else, presuming
01:14the path had been cleared.
01:16And the pilots would have been just concentrating on the landing straight ahead and wouldn't
01:20have even been aware of the chopper.
01:23Former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Greg Feith said much the same
01:27to NBC News, noting that the helicopter pilots likely couldn't see the plane either, aside
01:32from its position lights.
01:34But those lights being at that elevation over an urban area can actually blend into the
01:39background.
01:40Former National Guard pilot Daryl Feller told the BBC that he has flown the exact same route
01:45in a Blackhawk, and that the lights of the city make it all but impossible to see, even
01:50with night vision goggles.
01:52Poor communication also seems to have been at play.
01:55Air traffic control at the airport tried to warn the helicopter to pass behind the plane.
02:00The aircraft collided 13 seconds later.
02:03For whatever reason, that communication was either unheard or not responded to.
02:08CNN interviewed former Blackhawk pilot Elizabeth McCormick, who said air traffic control should
02:14have made sure to differentiate the landing plane from another one taking off, which would
02:18have been the plane the helicopter's pilots had in view.
02:21The air traffic control should have said, do you have the aircraft at 5 o'clock?
02:27On top of those factors were personnel problems.
02:30Reagan's tower was reportedly understaffed, with Feith telling NBC News that on the night
02:35of the collision, there was only one air traffic controller on duty instead of the usual two.
02:41This is an increasing issue.
02:42ABC 7 Chicago explains that the number of air traffic control staff across the country
02:47has decreased 9 percent from 2011 to 2023, even as the number of flights increased.
02:53The office of U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia explains Reagan Airport has been particularly
02:58hard hit.
02:59In February 2024, the Senate Commerce Committee chose to shift more flights to Reagan despite
03:04its runway being, quote, already the busiest in the country.
03:08The Blackhawk was also apparently operating with a bare minimum crew of just three.
03:13McCormick told CNN there should have been one more to ensure safety.
03:17In my opinion, when you're going into visual flight mode in a crowded airspace like this,
03:22it should be a minimum of four until you have a pilot on each side for visibility.
03:26The biggest lingering question that no one seems to be able to answer as of the making
03:30of this video is why the Blackhawk was flying so high.
03:33Military helicopter flights in the area are capped at an altitude of 200 feet, but this
03:38one was flying at between 350 and 400 feet when it collided with the plane, according
03:42to reports.
03:44Investigators continue to search through the wreckage for clues and have reportedly recovered
03:48the flight recorders from the jet.