The U.S. Army found many systemic breakdowns that led to last year’s midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C., and recommended numerous steps the military should take to prevent future tragedies.
The military has not publicly released its report on the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil in over two decades, but eventually shared it late last week with many of the families of the 67 people who died.
For months, the families have been pressuring the Army in daily social media posts to release the report, which was completed in May. The Associated Press obtained a copy on Thursday. The Army did not immediately comment.
Former Army Black Hawk pilot Tim Lilley, whose son Sam Lilley was the first officer on the American Airlines jet, said he still wants more details from the military. Some information in the report was redacted and the military assigned responsibility for its shortcomings broadly across the Army.
“The Army owes the families and the American public a full accounting of how these risks were allowed to persist, who was responsible for the decisions that allowed them to persist and what will be done to make sure this never happens again,” said Lilley, who is a commercial jet captain today.
Report identifies broad systemic failures
While the report largely reinforces the National Transportation Safety Board's conclusions, the civilian investigation was broader and NTSB members focused on years of warning signs missed by the Federal Aviation Administration. The Army report highlighted how the air traffic controller in the tower at Reagan National Airport could have prevented the crash, but also acknowledged the military's own failings.
The report recommended that the Army look beyond Washington, D.C., to study the practices in every major city where its helicopters operate to ensure similar risks aren't present. An Army official said the review of helicopter flights in other cities, including Los Angeles and the Seattle-Tacoma region, is ongoing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the situation.
The lieutenant general who authored the report said “breakdowns across all layers of conflict management caused this accident” but “the most salient contributing factor was the two broken radio transmissions” that contributed to the helicopter crew not identifying Flight 5342 as it was circling to land on Reagan National Airport's alternate runway. The military pilots were wearing night-vision goggles that limited their field of vision and made it difficult to spot the plane amid the lights of the city.
NTSB says the Army is making progress on safety
The NTSB said in a letter to the Army last week that the agency is pleased with the progress being made on seven of the eight recommendations to the Army. That contrasts with the FAA which the NTSB has faulted for failing to implement roughly one-third of the recommendations to that safety regulator.
The Army report said the controller should have provided the helicopter crew with more details about exactly where the plane was to help the pilots spot it, and the controller should have warned the plane about the helicopter headed toward it. The FAA has prohibited controllers from relying on pilots to maintain visual separation in busy airspace since this crash.
The poorly designed helicopter route in use at the time of the crash provided only a scant 75 feet of vertical separation between a helicopter and a plane landing on Reagan's secondary runway, and that was only true if the helicopter stuck to the riverbank. That doesn't allow enough separation to account for the accepted level of error in a Black Hawk's altimeter, and the NTSB found the helicopter was flying nearly 100 feet (30 meters) higher than its instruments read.
Victims' families push for aviation safety reform bill
The main group of families of passengers on the plane, who were flying from Wichita, Kansas, said the report reinforces their call for Congress to pass aviation safety reforms and require aircraft to be equipped with systems that will help pilots know where traffic in the air is.
“It’s a simple concept anyone can understand: aircraft should be able to see each other in the sky. The technology is proven. All that’s required is the political will to do the right thing,” the Families of Flight 5342 group said in a statement Thursday.
“We have waited long enough. We waited for the NTSB. We waited for the Army. Both investigations are complete, and both make clear that collision avoidance technology must be part of the solution. There is nothing left for Congress to wait for,” they said.
Both the House and Senate passed different aviation safety bills, but lawmakers are still working on a compromise piece of legislation to bring up for a vote in both houses of Congress.