traffic

Details Emerge on Deadly Aircraft Crash

Without actually admitting anyone did anything wrong, the FAA reports the air traffic controller was doing the job of two. While that’s a regular occurrence, this time there was a crash. “Staffing” in the control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport Thursday morning was “not normal for the time of day and volume,” a preliminary report reveals.

Overworked traffic controller

A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet and air traffic control is taking the initial heat for it.

It’s way too early to start pointing the finger of blame but there’s considerable speculation as to the cause. The FAA, under new and more transparent management, admits the tower was shorthanded.

Hours after the deadly crash, the Federal Aviation Administration released a preliminary report.

Air traffic control staffing shortages at the field serving Arlington, Virginia “led to the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity to also be the one in charge of instructing planes landing and departing the runways.” Normally, those jobs are assigned to “two people, not one.

It’s a typical occurrence. “The airport’s air traffic control facilities have been understaffed for years.” As of September 2023, they had “only 19 fully certified controllers on deck.

They’re supposed to have at least 30. That’s the goal “set by the FAA and controller’s union.

traffic
The air traffic controller was doing the job of two.

Latest updates

There were no survivors so emergency authorities have a “recovery effort” underway. So far, 28 bodies were found. The commercial flight originated in Wichita, Kansas. It was “carrying 64 people, while three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.” Air Traffic Control is now reportedly only part of the problem.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, “both the pilots aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 and the military pilots in the Black Hawk would have been used to navigating the complex airspace.” That’s why they can’t figure out why the chopper pilot was flying too high.

Why were the military pilots almost 200 feet off the restricted altitude?” Greg Feith, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator, relates.

It’s too soon to speculate on a cause.

The ceiling on those routes is 200 feet. And if they had been at 200 feet, they would have passed underneath the [regional jet] because the [regional jet] was at about 400 feet.” It’s not clear if the traffic control tower knew the military was operating at around 300 feet.

World attention is focused on the crash because “several members of the figure skating community were aboard the jet, returning from a developmental camp in Wichita.” Included in the victims were “Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, the 1994 world champs in pairs.

Recovery teams are bringing a U.S. Coast Guard crane to the Potomac River crash site. Until all the investigations are done, “it’s too soon to speculate on a cause,” the head of the nation’s air traffic controllers union insists.

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