Helicopter crew in collision with plane may not have heard key instruction from tower, NTSB says - The Associated Press

Helicopter crew in collision with plane may not have heard key instruction from tower, NTSB says – The Associated Press

Source: Associated Press

The crew of the helicopter that collided midair with an American Airlines jet near Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport might not have heard instructions from the air traffic controller to pass behind the plane, investigators said Friday.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy speaks during a news conference at NTSB headquarters Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A chart showing Reagan National Airport and the surrounding area is displayed during a news conference at the National Transportation Safety Board Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Salvage crews work on recovering wreckage near the site in the Potomac River of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy speaks as NTSB investigator Sean Payne listens during a news conference Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Salvage crews pull up a part of a Black Hawk helicopter near the site in the Potomac River of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy speaks during a news conference at the NTSB Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The crew of the Army helicopter that collided in midair with an American Airlines jet near Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport may have had inaccurate altitude readings in the moments before the crash, and also may not have heard key instructions from air traffic controllers to move behind the plane, investigators said Friday.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters that the recording from the Black Hawk helicopter cockpit suggested an incomplete radio transmission may have left the crew without understanding how it should shift position just before the Jan. 29 crash, in which all 67 aboard the two aircraft were killed,

“That transmission was interrupted -– it was stepped on,” she said, leaving them unable to hear the words “pass behind the” because the helicopter’s microphone key was pressed at the same moment.

The helicopter pilots may have also missed part of another communication, when the tower said the jet was turning toward a different runway, she said.

Homendy said the helicopter was on a “check” flight that night where the pilot was undergoing an annual test and a test on using night vision goggles. Investigators believe the crew was wearing night vision goggles throughout the flight.

It will take more than a year to get the final NTSB report on the collision, and Homendy warned reporters that many issues were still being probed.

“We’re only a couple weeks out,” from the crash, she said. “We have a lot of work to do.”

The collision was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground.

William Waldock, professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said stepped-on transmissions — where a pressed microphone key blocks incoming communication — is a well-known problem in aviation.

“It’s an old story and it’s one of the problems oftentimes with radio communications,” he said.

Retired airline pilot John Cox, CEO of the aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems, said the helicopter’s pilots had accepted responsibility to avoid the plane two minutes earlier when they asked for and received permission to maintain “visual separation” with the jet — allowing it to fly closer than otherwise may have been allowed if the pilots didn’t see the plane.

“At that moment, the helicopter becomes responsible for separation, period. He accepts the responsibility of staying clear of the other aircraft,” Cox said. If the helicopter pilots suspected they had missed any crucial information from the tower, they could have asked for it to be repeated.

Serious questions have yet to be answered about the helicopter’s altimeters

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Helicopter crew in collision with plane may not have heard key instruction from tower, NTSB says – The Associated Press

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