An Army VH-60M Black Hawk helicopter on a training exercise collided with a PSA Airlines plane operating an American Airlines flight near D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29. Sixty-seven people were killed, including three Army soldiers, 60 airline passengers, and four airline crew members.
As emergency responders futilely searched the frigid Potomac River for survivors, questions began to proliferate about how such a crash was possible, especially when Black Hawk helicopters routinely operate flights in the highly controlled air corridor around the airport without incident. Many suspected human error — and when the Army initially refused to name the female Black Hawk pilot, some critics hypothesized that DEI hiring practices might be indirectly at fault.
On the basis of government documents, interviews with relevant experts, and audio recordings of the air traffic controllers leading up to the collision, the New York Times delineated the “missteps” that led to the fatal January crash in a damning report on Sunday.
‘PAT two-five, do you have the CRJ in sight?’
It turns out that Captain Rebecca Lobach — the doomed helicopter’s pilot whose name was withheld at the outset — failed to heed her instructor’s orders moments before flying into the inbound jet, and there is no indication she was suffering any health issues that may have been to blame.
The liberal publication appeared keen to displace the reason for the crash across multiple factors and mistakes, noting, for instance, that:
the relevant tower controller was working double duty;
the controller was unable to watch the helicopter’s
movements in real time via the Automatic Dependent
Surveillance-Broadcast Out because the confidentiality of the Army aircraft’s mission precluded the use of the system;
the controller made the uncustomary decision of asking the ill-fated jet to land at Runway 33, one of the airport’s ancillary runways;
the vertical distance between the landing slope for a jet making its way to Runway 33 and the maximum permissible altitude for a helicopter along the route taken by the doomed Army aircraft would be a measly 75 feet;
the helicopter was flying well over the mandated maximum altitude;
the Army crew may have failed to catch a critical piece of information provided by the tower;
the helicopter crew requested, then bungled a “visual separation” exercise, where the “pilot is meant to see neighboring air traffic, often without assistance from the controller, and avoid it by either hovering in place until the traffic passes or by flying around it in prescribed ways”; and
the tower’s alleged failure to notify both aircraft they were on a collision course.
Lobach, the highest-ranking soldier on the helicopter but far from the most experienced pilot aboard, was behind the controls as the helicopter neared the airport.
Cockpit voice recordings revealed that sometime after assuming control, Lobach announced an altitude of 300 feet. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Lloyd Eaves, her instructor, responded within a space of 39 seconds that they actually had an altitude of 400 feet — not only double the maximum height permissible near Runway 33 but 100 feet over the altitude mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration for that part of the route.
The Times indicated that as the helicopter approached the Key Bridge, from which the Army aircraft would head south along the river, Eaves indicated the helicopter was at 300 feet and descending to 200 feet.
Eaves apparently saw the need to repeat his instruction, telling Lobach that the chopper was at 300 feet and needed to descend.
‘It could have well changed the outcome of that evening.’
While Lobach reportedly said she would comply, over two and half minutes later, she still had the helicopter at an altitude of over 200 feet — “a dangerously high level” according to the Times.
Moments later, the tower notified the Army crew that the inbound jet was “circling” to Runway 33 — a piece of information investigators believe was missed because someone aboard the helicopter was allegedly holding down the microphone key to speak, thereby blocking incoming communications.
Roughly two minutes before the collision, Eaves noted, “PAT two-five has traffic in sight.” He then requested and was granted visual separation.
Nearly 20 seconds before impact — as doomed Flight 5342 made its turn toward Runway 33, flying at roughly 500 feet and now within a mile of the helicopter — the tower asked the Army crew, “PAT two-five, do you have the CRJ in sight?”
There was no response from the Black Hawk.
The controller then told the helicopter crew to “pass behind” the airplane, but Lobach kept flying directly at the inbound jet.
Two seconds after the controller’s “pass behind” directive, Eaves said, “PAT two-five has the aircraft in sight. Request visual separation.”
Inside the helicopter, Eaves told Lobach 15 seconds before the collision that air traffic control wanted her to turn left, toward the river — which would open more space between the Black Hawk and the jet, now at an altitude of approximately 300 feet.
Lobach reportedly did not heed the instruction, thereby guaranteeing the deaths of 66 people and herself.
At the time of the collision, one air traffic controller can reportedly be heard in a recording taken at the time saying, “Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three.”
“I just saw a fireball, and then it was just gone,” said a controller. “I haven’t seen anything since they hit the river, but it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit. I would say maybe a half-mile off the approach end of 33.”
Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the Army’s director of aviation, told the Times, “I think what we’ll find in the end is there were multiple things that, had any one of them changed, it could have well changed the outcome of that evening.”
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Black hawk helicopter, Black hawk, Crash, Ronald reagan, Airport, Runway 33, Dei, Army, Tragedy, Rebecca lobach, Lobach, Eaves, Politics
