The January midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people is starting to look less like a tragic accident and more like a slow-motion disaster everyone saw coming — and ignored.
On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) kicked off hearings into the January 29 crash between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines plane near Ronald Reagan National Airport, and what came out was damning.
The Black Hawk’s altimeters were off by as much as 100 feet, investigators said, meaning the pilots believed they were flying lower than they actually were. Flight data showed the helicopter was 80 to 100 feet higher than its instruments indicated. When the NTSB tested other Black Hawks from the same unit on the same route, they found similar discrepancies. That’s not a fluke — that’s a pattern.
But the altimeter issue is just one piece of a far bigger mess. For years, air traffic controllers had been warning about the hazards of helicopters flying so close to landing aircraft at Reagan. The FAA? They didn’t fix the routes. They didn’t issue warnings. And despite a shocking 85 near-miss incidents in the last three years alone, no one acted.
“It’s so bureaucratic,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said, hammering the federal government’s inability to ensure basic safety.
The Army admitted their Black Hawk altimeters can be off by more than 100 feet but argued their pilots “aim to maintain altitude within 100 feet of a limit.” Comforting, right? Chief engineer Scott Rosengren even admitted that some FAA-approved routes around Reagan have separation distances as little as 75 feet when planes are landing — calling it “a concern.” Understatement of the year.
And while everyone is pointing fingers — the Army blaming air traffic control, the FAA deflecting responsibility — families of the victims, represented by attorney Bob Clifford, are still waiting for anyone to actually own up to their failures.
To make matters worse, the Black Hawk had its ADS-B Out equipment — which broadcasts an aircraft’s position — turned off. Even if it had been on, officials admitted most helicopters in that unit had the system installed incorrectly and weren’t working properly.
Sen. Ted Cruz is now pushing legislation to require all aircraft — including military — to use both ADS-B Out and ADS-B In systems to prevent these kinds of disasters. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the bill “the right approach” while blasting the Biden administration for being “asleep at the wheel” on safety amid dozens of near-misses in D.C.
