Military helicopter traffic over Washington was a longtime worry among aviators operating around the airport where an Army helicopter and commercial airliner collided this year, killing 67 people, federal investigators heard during testimony on Thursday.
It is the second of three days of witness testimony and public inquiry by the National Transportation Safety Board into the January midair crash over the Potomac River.
Incorrect altitude readings on the Army helicopter that collided with a passenger plane over Washington, D.C., in January contributed to the aircraft getting too close, but air traffic controllers warned about the hazards helicopter traffic presented years before the crash.
Those warnings came even before the 85 near misses near the airport in the three years before the crash. But despite the concerns that were raised about the route the Black Hawk helicopter followed that night, the Federal Aviation Administration didn’t make changes to it or warn pilots about it.
Three days of investigative hearings on the deadly midair collision over Washington in January begin Wednesday and aim to reveal new insights into what caused the crash between a passenger plane and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
The National Transportation Safety Board will question witnesses and investigators about how the actions of the Federal Aviation Administration and its air traffic controllers and the Army may have contributed to the nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001. It’s likely too early for the board to identify the cause of the crash.
