Chilling Webcam Footage Captures Passenger Jet Collide With Black Hawk Above D.C.
The footage was recorded by a webcam positioned at the Kennedy Center, and later obtained by local news.
The fiery crash, which took place just after 9:00 p.m. local time, is visible in the clear night sky, and over in seconds.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crash involved a regional jet and a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter, and American Airlines later confirmed that the jet was one of their American Eagle regional flights from Wichita, Kansas.
A search-and-rescue operation is currently underway for survivors.
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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Boston Globe
Unexpected fuel cutoff preceded Air India plane crash, preliminary report says
Audio from the cockpit suggests both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting. 'In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff,' write the report's authors. 'The other pilot responded that he did not do so.' Advertisement The switches have safeguards designed to stop them from being inadvertently moved. 'Each switch has a mechanical lock where you have lift the switch up and then move it, so it's highly unlikely for switches like this to be inadvertently moved absent some mechanical failure,' said Jeff Guzzetti, the former director of the Federal Aviation Administration's Accident Investigation Division. It is also unusual that both switches inadvertently moved to the cutoff position 'one right after another, one second apart,' Guzzetti added. Guzzetti did not rule out the possibility the switches may have been intentionally moved, citing the need to also investigate the pilots. The preliminary report was released around 1 a.m. local time Saturday. The investigation is still in its early stages and is not likely to be completed for more than a year. Advertisement The Boeing 787 took off from Ahmedabad airport in western India before crashing down into a dormitory at a medical college, causing a massive fireball. All but one of the 242 people on the plane were killed, as were 19 people on the ground. One passenger made a miraculous escape from the doomed jet. The airliner was bound for London's Gatwick Airport. The plane appeared to roll down the runway and take off normally, according to experts who have reviewed videos from the scene. But after just a few seconds in the air, the jet stopped climbing. The pilots transmitted a mayday call 23 seconds after the first switch flipped into the cutoff position, according to the report. The plane's landing gear remained down and video and audio suggests an emergency device known as a ram air turbine, or RAT, had deployed on the plane, experts have said, potentially evidence of a rare double engine failure. The device drops from the bottom of an aircraft, spinning as it moves through the air to provide emergency power. But in the weeks since the crash, it has remained unclear what might have ultimately caused the plane to crash. Aviation news site, The Air Current, reported this week that investigators were focusing on the movement of fuel switches on the flight deck, citing people familiar with the probe. The switches are typically used to control the flow of fuel when starting and stopping the engine, but they can also be used if an engine needs to be restarted in flight. The findings issued Friday are required under international standards governing crash investigations. But they are a summary of facts available to investigators and do not include conclusions about why the crash happened. It is likely to take investigators a year or more to complete their work. The US National Transportation Safety Board is leading a team of Americans aiding the probe, but responsibility for releasing information remains with Indian officials. Advertisement The report's authors note that they make no recommendations to Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, or General Electric, the maker of the engine. Authorities typically provide regular briefings to the public immediately after serious crashes, but in the case of the Air India crash, little official information had been shared. That left a void filled in some cases by misinformation, and it stoked concern among international safety experts that the lack of transparency would make it difficult for other airlines to know whether any broader safety risks needed to be urgently addressed. The investigation got off to a slow start. The plane's black boxes, which record conversations between the pilots and log data from the jet's systems, were recovered from the wreckage in the days after the crash, but investigators did not begin to analyze data from them until June 24 at a lab in Delhi. The information in the boxes will be vital to investigators as they piece together what went wrong.
CNN
4 days ago
- CNN
CNN goes inside the academy preparing air traffic controllers to manage the high-stress and high-stakes skies
On a sprawling campus in the middle of the nation, thousands of students learn how to take command of the nation's skies. The Federal Aviation Administration Academy, near the Oklahoma City airport, has been a fixture since late 1946, six years before the first commercial passenger jet flight. In it, rooms filled with monitors show simulated airplanes taxiing on runways and taking off – all under the watchful eyes of students learning to keep the flying public safe. In another room, tiny airplanes sitting on tabletop boards painted with runways are testaments to how quickly one false move can make everything go wrong. Today, they are just models. Soon they will be real planes filled with passengers. It's here, at the 1,100-acre campus of the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, that the agency trains students to fill the over 3,000 air traffic controller jobs needed to end a decades-long shortage. This year, the FAA has expanded its onsite training by nearly 30%, with July seeing the highest number of students in training – 550 by the end of the month. The pressure and expectations are high. The center's graduates together work nearly every flight in the country - over 85,000 a day - carrying 2.5 million passengers to 20,000 different airports, according to Oklahoma City estimates. The academy 'is the introduction into air traffic,' said Chris Wilbanks, FAA vice president for mission support. 'This really is giving the students the base of what air traffic really is, introducing them slowly into kind of a walk-run phase, get into the simulation, then off to the field they go.' Following January's midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter near Washington in which 67 people were killed, the Department of Transportation announced plans to 'supercharge' the air traffic control workforce. Salaries for trainees at the academy increased by 30%, and the agency shaved four months off the old hiring timeline. The Academy is now the 'busiest' it has ever been, Wilbanks said, with roughly 800 to 1,000 more trainees in the pipeline than a year ago. The FAA pays training at the academy and students receive an hourly salary while they are enrolled. If students choose to go through a different program, like an FAA-supported college program, that may require them to pay tuition. Before a potential controller can even step foot in the academy, there's a rigorous application and qualification process. Under a five-step plan, they must pass an aptitude test; clear medical and background checks, then receive an offer to start training. A hiring push earlier this year referred 8,320 candidates for the required exam, though typically 90% of candidates don't make it in, and 35% of the others wash out. New controllers must also be younger than 31, and many on this campus are 19 or 20, which gives the facility the feel of a small college. After admission to the academy, students start their training with tabletop exercises. The small model planes and painted runways look like game boards, but they are designed to teach phraseology – the language of air traffic control - and maps to new trainees. 'Academy Ground, Barron 4LY request taxi to main ramp,' a student says during a recent exercise. 'Taxi to main ramp, via Delta,' the trainee controller responds as the model plane is moved along the board. 'If you don't know where the aircraft is when he calls you, you're already behind the game,' Wilbanks said. 'Getting that understanding of what the airport layout is when they call you at a visual point, or they call you coming into a certain runway, you've got that reference to be able to look out there right then and there.' Once a student moves out of tabletop training, they go on to tower simulations in wide rooms filled with video screens covering the walls - replicating the view at a real airport. 'We absolutely don't cut corners,' Wilbanks said. 'This is the basics of air traffic.' Outside the virtual tower windows is 'Academy Airport,' a fictious airfield with two parallel runways and a third cutting across them at an angle. There are real-looking airplanes on runways with proper lighting and even cracks visible in the virtual pavement. With a headset on and the push of a talk button, a trainee can take on the role of an air traffic controller. 'FedEx 2285 heavy, academy Tower, hold short runway 28, right.' It's a routine command - asking the simulated pilots to prepare for takeoff but not start rolling until given more instructions. '(If) we've got somebody on the runway in position. We want to make sure we never forget them,' said Eric Wedel, the FAA's course coordinator for tower training. He has been an instructor at the Academy since 2017 and was a controller for 28 years before that. Every new controller at the academy is different, he said; some pick it up quickly, while others require a lot of training. There's paper and pens – should a controller want to write down a call sign or something to jog their memory in the heat of the moment and runway-use memory aids. Just like you'd find in a real tower. Instructors also stress that trainees learning to work in towers should look out the virtual windows to observe aircraft rather than just relying on radar. That's where they find important pieces of information that may have been overlooked or forgotten. 'Radar is an extension of the eyeballs,' Wedel said. While the simulator can create rain, snow and wind conditions, there are some things that can't be duplicated outside of a real tower. 'It's a lot like the real thing, but in some ways it's not,' Wedel said. 'It's hard to duplicate a certain accent from a pilot or certain situation. There's unique aspects to air traffic control that it's hard to capture in a simulation. It's very close.' Downstairs in a darkened room, a line of students sit looking at radar scopes and computer monitors. It's here they train to operate in radar control centers, often far away from the planes they are directing. 'N800BA, declaring an emergency. They lost hydraulic pressure, requesting firetruck to standby,' a trainee calmly says responding to a virtual emergency as his instructor watches over his shoulder. 'Follow through on that one,' another instructor says pointing out an errant plane to another student. At the same time, the students have to keep track of turbulence and other factors that might disrupt planes trying to navigate the airspace. While these days a voice recognition computer often listens to the trainees' commands and reacts to them in real time, the FAA also hires people to operate as pilots on the other end of the radio to better emulate real-life situations. 'It is a tremendous amount of pressure,' Wilbanks said. 'Multiply that by 10 and put that in the real world. Giving people the opportunity to experience that feeling here before they step out and experience in real life is absolutely critical, but it is absolutely a rewarding job.' Graduates of the academy are placed in towers and radar centers across the country, where training continues for one to three years before they become certified professional controllers. Graduates of the Academy earn an average of $160,000 per year after three years in the field, according to the FAA. Controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56 but can retire at age 50 with 20 years of service. The DOT has been pushing for controllers in their 50s to stay on to help alleviate the staffing shortage. It may take years of hard work to recruit and train students to close the staffing gap, but for the would-be controllers at the FAA academy there is nothing like the job. 'There's an old saying, 'Air traffic control is 90% slow and boring and 9% exciting and 1% Oh my gosh,'' Wedel said. 'Every day is different.' CNN's Devon M. Sayers contributed to this report.
Miami Herald
6 days ago
- Miami Herald
Two 14-year-olds trapped on cliff near God's Thumb saved, Oregon firefighters say
A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter plucked two teens off a cliff near the God's Thumb rock outcrop on the Oregon coast, firefighters reported. The teens became stuck trying to climb a cliff from the beach to God's Thumb on Saturday, July 5, North Lincoln Fire & Rescue said in a news release on Facebook. A Coast Guard MH-60 helicopter crew stationed in Astoria hoisted the teens to safety along with a firefighter who became stuck trying to reach them, the Coast Guard said in a news release. A video shows the crew hoisting the climbers. The two 14-year-olds were flown to a nearby beach and reunited with their families, firefighters told KPTV. Cody Heidt, deputy chief fire marshal for the agency, told KOIN the rescue operation cost an estimated $20,000. 'What tends to happen is they make it to nearly the top, about 30 to 40 feet from the summit,' Heidt told KPTV. 'It goes almost vertical there. So when they get to that point, they don't feel safe coming down because of the loose rocks, and they can't go up anymore.' Two other climbers also had to be rescued by helicopter from the cliff earlier this year, firefighters said. Lincoln County is about a 130-mile drive southwest from Portland.
