U.S. navy helicopter crashes just like the one which took down a business American Airways flight over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening are very uncommon, however there was an uptick in these incidents lately, in accordance with navy statistics and an aviation skilled.
A complete of 64 individuals, together with passengers and flight crew members, had been aboard AA Flight 5342 from Wichita to Reagan Nationwide Airport (DCA). Three troopers had been conducting a coaching operation on the Military Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk that got here from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.Â
“It is regarding, definitely, the variety of incidents that there have been,” Timothy Loranger, an aviation lawyer at Wisner Baum and a Marine Corps veteran, advised Fox Information Digital. “However when you examine it to the hundreds and hundreds of hours of flights that happen with none incident … that is all excellent.”
The collision has sparked questions on how such a devastating accident might occur in one of the tightly managed airspaces within the nation and the world. The final important deadly business crash occurred in 2009, when a Continental Airways flight crashed right into a home in Buffalo, New York, killing 49 individuals.Â
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Crew retrieve wreckage of American Airways Flight 5342 within the Potomac River close to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2025. The airplane was concerned in a deadly collision with a U.S. Military Black Hawk helicopter the earlier evening. (Leigh Inexperienced for Fox Information Digital)
“Is there one thing that we are able to level to? Coaching? Is the price range of the navy ample to be sure that pilots and the crew have sufficient coaching and expertise with a purpose to fly these plane?” Loranger mentioned. “These are the sorts of questions that should be requested. If it is an issue with the plane itself, a mechanical concern, what’s that? Is it a design concern? Is it a producing concern? Is it a upkeep concern?”
Army helicopter crashes, whereas unusual, have been occurring extra incessantly over the past 12 months, in accordance with Military information.
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FBI brokers stand close to particles, after American Airways Flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter whereas approaching Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport and crashed into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 30, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Fiscal 12 months 2024 had probably the most extreme aviation incidents that resulted in fatalities since fiscal 12 months 2014 and the worst price of deaths and extreme accidents from incidents per 100,000 hours since fiscal 12 months 2007, in accordance with Military statistics.
Fox Information counted no less than 10 deaths from U.S. navy helicopter crashes alone in 2024, together with 5 Marines in the identical plane, and a number of others injured. Since 2012, there have been 21 Black Hawk crash deaths.
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Loranger referred to as the uptick in navy helicopter deaths final 12 months “regarding.”
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Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth advised “Fox & Pals” on Friday that officers “will unravel what occurred right here.”
“It is fully unacceptable in our nation’s capital or wherever. The navy trains, and it trains robustly. And we’re not going to cease coaching, regardless that there is a pause on this unit, on this train, which is a vital one. And we should always have that pause till we unravel this,” Hegseth mentioned. “…Now we have to coach safely. One thing like this could by no means occur. And it is fully unacceptable.”
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The trainer pilot in cost who was flying the Black Hawk on Wednesday for a coaching operation apparently had 1,000 flying hours, which is taken into account very skilled, and the co-pilot who was additionally being evaluated had 500 flying hours, which is taken into account a median quantity of expertise, in accordance with a U.S. official who spoke to Fox Information.
“This can be a comparatively simple route,” an Military chief warrant officer 5 with a long time of expertise flying Military helicopters advised reporters on the Pentagon on Thursday. The pilot was flying down the middle of the river, which is usually darkish, seemingly carrying evening imaginative and prescient goggles. Memorial Bridge would have been their final checkpoint.Â
The Jan. 29 Washington, D.C., plane-helicopter collision map.
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Army and different authorities helicopters fly the identical route virtually each day, the senior Military pilot and warrant officer advised reporters.
“This could not have been an issue,” the official mentioned.
Loranger described DCA as “a really sophisticated airspace, very busy airspace.”
Photographs of victims following the collision between an American Airways jet and a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter. (Getty Pictures)
“There’s plenty of airplanes and plane flying out and in,” he mentioned, including that planes have methods in place designed to assist in giving data to pilots about pilots or different objects flying close by to keep away from collisions just like the one on Wednesday. It may need been tough for the business airplane and the Black Hawk to see one another at evening over the river, Loranger mentioned.
Staffing on the air management tower at DCA was “not regular for the time of day and quantity of visitors,” in accordance with an inside preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report reviewed by The New York Instances.
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The controller who was dealing with helicopters Wednesday evening was additionally instructing planes that had been touchdown and departing from the airport runways, the Instances reported. These assignments are sometimes assigned to 2 controllers.
A airplane flies close to Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport, within the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 30, 2025. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
“I do not know precisely how the staffing occurred in that individual air visitors management tower,” Hegseth advised “Fox & Pals.” “It feels like there was a scarcity [of controllers], and the investigation will inform us extra about that. However the setting round which we select pilots or air visitors controllers, because the president identified accurately yesterday, higher be the best attainable commonplace — the perfect of the perfect who’re managing … a flight a minute and managing radio visitors.”
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Fox Information Digital has reached out to the FAA.
The air management tower at Reagan Airport has been understaffed for years with 19 absolutely licensed controllers as of September 2023. The FFA and controllers’ union, nonetheless, referred to as for 30 controllers in its staffing targets.
Fox Information’ Jennifer Griffin, Liz Friden and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
