Countdown to disaster: How a series of fatal mistakes in tragic final seconds caused a Black Hawk chopper to collide with jet killing 67 in Washington DC

Daily Mail​

28-04-2025

A new report has unveiled the failings that led to a collision between a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet over Washington DC that ended with all 67 passengers dead at the bottom of the Potomac River.
The tragic incident unfolded on the night of January 29 when Army Black Hawk pilot Capt. Rebecca Lobach was undergoing an annual flight evaluation overseen by her co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Lloyd Eaves.
Her training sortie was conducted in one of the world's most tightly packed airspaces above the US capital, a stone's throw away from Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Unsurprisingly, air traffic control (ATC) informed Lobach and the Black Hawk crew that a passenger jet was nearby.
That jet was American Airlines flight 5342, a CRJ700 Bombardier flying from Wichita, Kansas, that was carrying 60 passengers and four crew.
Both Lobach and Eaves acknowledged the message before requesting permission to fly by 'visual separation' - a practice that allows aircraft to avoid collisions based on their own observations instead of following instructions from the ATC tower.
This suggests Lobach had spotted the plane herself, and her request was granted - but the Black Hawk helicopter continued to stray dangerously close to the flight path of the American Airlines jet which was descending from a higher altitude.
Just 15 seconds before colliding with the commercial aeroplane, ATC instructed Lobach to make a left turn after issuing a command to 'pass behind' the oncoming aircraft.
The Black Hawk did not change course.
Then, just a few seconds before impact, co-pilot Eaves turned to Lobach in the cockpit and reiterated the instruction from air traffic control.
His order fell on deaf ears, and at 8:47.59 pm ET, the night sky above Washington DC was briefly illuminated by the fireball that erupted as the two aircraft collided.
Though it remains unclear why Lobach defied orders, Aviation experts predict she might have been 'blindsided' that the American Airlines flight was 'circling' Runway 33 that night
Investigators may never know exactly why Lobach did not move to avoid the passenger jet.
There is no indication that Lobach suffered a medical emergency at the time of the crash and it is clear that the procedures for flying under 'visual separation' were not properly observed.
But an investigation by the New York Times revealed that communication failings likely contributed to the horrific crash.
'Multiple layers of safety precautions failed that night,' Katie Thomson, the Federal Aviation Administration's deputy administrator under the Biden administration, told the NYT.
Some of the radio instructions issued by ATC were reportedly 'stepped on' - meaning that they cut out when the helicopter crew pressed a microphone to speak and meant that the pilots may not have received important information.
'If the key is depressed, the pilot can speak but not hear incoming communications,' the report said.
The American Airlines flight was 'circling' its runway before coming into land that night. It was also instructed to land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National, while previous flights had landed on another runway.
Investigators now believe the Black Hawk crew did not hear the word 'circling' because they might have been pressing the microphone key to talk at the same time the crucial term came through.
They may also not have expected the American Airlines flight to adjust its course to land on a different runway.
National Transportation Safety Board chairperson Jennifer Homendy also confirmed to the NYT that another key instruction issued by ATC that told the Black Hawk to 'pass behind' the oncoming aircraft was stepped on.
'At 8:47:42 - or 17 seconds before impact - a radio transmission from the tower was audible on both CVRs (cockpit voice recorders) directing the Black Hawk to pass behind the CRJ,' Homendy told reporters.
'CVR data from the Black Hawk indicated that the portion of the transmission that stated 'pass behind the' may not have been received by the Black Hawk crew.'
Meanwhile, technology on the Black Hawk that would have allowed controllers to better track the helicopter was turned off.
Although the additional safeguard went unused as part of army protocol, experts who spoke to the NYT said this could have helped ATC prevent the crash.
Notable US commercial aircraft crashes
February 12, 2009: a Colgan Air Bombardier aircraft flying from New York to the small town of Buffalo crashes, killing the 49 passengers onboard.
January 15, 2009: a US Airways Airbus A320 carrying more than 150 people collides with a flock of birds before making a spectacular landing on the Hudson River in New York, thanks to the pilot's exemplary actions.
August 27, 2006: a regional transport plane uses a wrong, unlit runway, rather than the designated one and crashes shortly after taking off from Lexington airport, Kentucky, killing around 50 people onboard.
December 19, 2005: a Grumman G-73T Mallard hydroplane operated by Ocean Airways, connecting Miami and an island in the Bahamas, crashes into the sea shortly after takeoff, killing both crew members and 18 passengers.
October 19, 2004: a BAE Jetstream 32 operated by AmericanConnection crashes near Kirksville, Missouri due to poor visibility. Both pilots and 11 out of the 13 passengers are killed.
January 8, 2003: a US Airways Beechcraft 1900, flying between Charlotte, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina, crashes into a hangar shortly after takeoff. Both pilots and the 19 passengers onboard are killed.
November 12, 2001: two months after the September 11 attacks, an American Airlines Airbus A-300, flying from New York to Saint-Domingue, crashes shortly after taking off from JFK airport. The 251 passengers and nine crew members are killed. On the ground, several houses are destroyed or damaged, and five residents killed.
January 13, 1982: an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 hits a bridge over the Potomac before crashing into the river just after takeoff during a snowstorm. The crash kills 78 people including four motorists who were on the bridge.
Lobach, Eaves and another crewmember aboard the Black Hawk were killed along with all 64 passengers and crew aboard the American Airlines flight when the aircraft collided plunged into the murky waters of the Potomac.
The passenger plane, which recorded its altitude at 313 feet two seconds before the collision, was piloted by 34-year-old Jonathan Campos, whose relatives said had dreamed of flying since he was three.
The jet's passengers ranged from a group of hunters to students and parents from northern Virginia schools to members of the Skating Club of Boston.
They were returning from a development camp for elite junior skaters that followed the 2025 US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
The collision constituted the first fatal crash involving a US commercial airline since 2009, when 50 people died in Buffalo, New York, following a crash of a Bombardier DHC-C propeller aircraft.
A recording of air traffic control communications revealed the shocked reactions of controllers as they witnessed the crash unfold in real time.
'Oh, oh my god! Tower, did you see that?' one worker is heard exclaiming.
'Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three,' one of the air traffic controllers can be heard saying in the audio from around the time of the crash.
'I don't know if you caught earlier what happened, but there was a collision on the approach into 33. We're going to be shutting down operations for the indefinite future,' another controller remarked.
'Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river,' a third air traffic controller can be heard saying.
'It was probably out in the middle of the river,' the controller said.
'I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven't seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit.'
DC mobilised a huge rescue effort in the hours following the crash.
Some 300 first responders were on scene within minutes, deploying in a fleet of inflatable rescue boats launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport.
Other first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the collision site.
At least a half-dozen boats were scanning the water using searchlights overnight as images showed vessels grouped around a partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane's fuselage.