Military chopper traffic over Washington was a worry leading up to fatal midair crash, NTSB hears

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

Military helicopter traffic over Washington was a longtime worry among aviators operating around the airport where an Army helicopter and commercial airliner collided this year, killing 67 people, federal investigators heard during testimony on Thursday.
It is the second of three days of witness testimony and public inquiry by the National Transportation Safety Board into the January midair crash over the Potomac River.
The board focused on air traffic control and heard Thursday that it was common for pilots to ask to use visual separation — basically relying on their eyesight — just as the Army Black Hawk's pilot agreed to do the night of the crash. FAA officials also said controllers relied heavily on pilots using visual separation as a way to manage the complex airspace with so many helicopters flying around Washington, D.C.
But Rick Dressler, an official with medevac operator Metro Aviation, told the board it is difficult to identify other aircraft in the night sky around Ronald Reagan National Airport, especially if an onboard locator system was switched off, as Army choppers routinely did.
Dressler said that he and other civilian helicopter pilots in the area have long been concerned about the Army and Air Force helicopters flying around Reagan airport.
'I don't like saying this. I'll say it again on the record,' Dressler, a former Army aviator and retired Air Force officer, said. 'I'm speaking for my group there. We we are all very uncomfortable when those two units are operating.'
Clark Allen, an FAA training manager in the Washington area who worked in the tower at Reagan National Airport, said it was common for visual separation to be used daily between helicopter pilots and commercial traffic.
The Department of Defense referred questions about Thursday's testimony to the Army, which did not immediately respond.
The Air Force also did not immediately respond to questions about Dressler's remarks.
The American Airlines jet arrived from Wichita, Kan., carrying, among others, a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
The collision was the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001 and was the first in a string of crashes and near misses this year that have alarmed officials and the traveling public, despite statistics that still show flying remains the safest form of transportation.
It's too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. The board's final report won't be released until sometime next year.
Communications from on board the helicopter moments before the collision were released as part of the board's investigation.
The Black Hawk's crew had been communicating with the airport's control tower, although the helicopter pilots did not fully hear the controller's instructions.
The Black Hawk pilots told the tower twice in the minutes before the crash that they had the American Airlines passenger plane in sight and would maintain proper separation. But when the controller instructed the pilots to 'pass behind' the jet, the crew didn't hear that instruction because the Black Hawk's microphone key was pressed at that moment.
Just before the collision an instructor pilot aboard the helicopter asked the pilot at the controls to come left. But it wasn't clear if the pilot had time to maneuver the helicopter before the crash.
'Kinda come left for me, ma'am,' the instructor said.
The pilot responded: 'Sure.'
At several points throughout the hearing NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has reminded FAA and Army witnesses that they are covered by whistleblower protections and shouldn't be disciplined for anything they say.
But she remained concerned about whether witnesses are speaking freely because just before lunch Thursday she ordered the seating arrangements to be changed after noticing a supervisor elbow an FAA employee midsentence during testimony, prompting that person to stop speaking.
'We want people to be fully transparent and feel safe in providing us answers. So we're going to switch the panelists. I'm not going to put up with that,' Homendy said.
On the first day of hearings Wednesday, investigators highlighted the warnings about helicopter traffic that the Federal Aviation Administration received years before the tragedy over the Potomac River.
Homendy urged the FAA to 'Fix it. Do better' at the end of a fiery exchange when she highlighted the warnings the agency ignored years earlier. She also suggested the Army adopt a formal policy making it clear that helicopter pilots should never fly under landing planes because pilots told investigators they were doing that routinely.
'Every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that,' Homendy said.
But there were 21 bureaucratic steps the tower had to follow to get a change made and after the accident the FAA transferred managers out of the tower instead of acknowledging that they had been warned.
'What you did is you transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA in the tower was saying there was a problem,' Homendy said. 'But you guys are pointing out, 'Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.' Are you kidding me? 67 people are dead. How do you explain that?'
Homendy said an FAA working group raised concerns about all the helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan National Airport and the risk of a collision in 2022, but the FAA refused to add a warning to helicopter charts urging pilots to use caution when this runway was in use.
'This is the very event that this would have been the cautionary note for,' she said.
Video and animation presented during the proceeding's first day showed the helicopter flying above the 200-feet altitude limit before colliding with the plane.
Investigators said Wednesday the flight data recorder showed the helicopter was actually 80 feet to 100 feet higher than the barometric altimeter the pilots relied upon showed they were flying. So the NTSB conducted tests on three other helicopters from the same unit in a flight over the same area and found similar discrepancies in their altimeters.
Dan Cooper with Sikorsky helicopters said that when the Black Hawk helicopter involved in the crash was designed in the 1970s, it used a style of altimeter that was common at the time. Newer helicopters have newer air data computers that help provide more accurate altitude readings.
Army officials said a discrepancy of 70 to 100 feet between the Black Hawk's altimeters is within the acceptable range because pilots are expected to maintain their altitude plus or minus 100 feet.
The greater concern is that the FAA approved routes around Reagan airport that included such small separation distances between helicopters and planes.
'The fact that we have less than 500-foot separation is a concern for me,' said Scott Rosengren, who is chief engineer in the office that manages the Army's utility helicopters.
During the two minutes before the crash, one air traffic controller was directing airport traffic and helicopters in the area, a task that involved speaking to or receiving communications from several different aircraft, according to the NTSB's History of Flight Performance Study.
Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that she wouldn't find an 80 to 100 foot discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter alarming because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Below 500 feet, Lewis said she would be checking both instruments and cross-referencing them.
Funk writes for the Associated Press. AP writers David Klepper, Mike Catalini, Leah Askarinam, Ben Finley and Rio Yamat contributed to this report.