From Blackhawks to time-sensitive, life-saving missions, central Pennsylvania lessons from last week's crashes
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Col. Timothy Zerbe, the Pennsylvania Army National Guard's state aviation officer, understands why he's getting a lot more questions than usual about the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters based at Fort Indiantown Gap.
After all, almost no one — other than the close family and friends of the 67 people who died last week after a Black Hawk collided with a commercial flight operated for American Airlines — feels the tragedy as deeply as the people at the Gap, which Zerbe said is America's second-largest Black Hawk base.
'We're all reeling,' Zerbe said. 'They say it's a 'small Army,' and we have friends and family scattered throughout.'
What to know about military helicopter involved in crash near DC
But alongside their shock and grief, people involved in the Black Hawk program have to make room for unemotional lessons, including ways to even more safely share airspace with commercial flights.
'The worst thing we want to do is make a controller frustrated where they're turning us away, and that's their right to turn us away within their controlled airspace' at places like Harrisburg International Airport, said Zerbe, who also demonstrated the altimeters that should — for example — keep the helicopters below the maximum altitudes at which they're allowed to fly near busy airports.
Zerbe has flown Black Hawks near New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, parts of whose airspace have a 200-foot above-ground-level altitude limit similar to the one that exists in parts of the airspace near Reagan National Airport in Washington.
Some early information has indicated the helicopter that collided with the CRJ-700 jet — operated for American Airlines by its subsidiary, PSA — might have been flying too high when the collision occurred. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are looking at everything, from what happened in the cockpits of both aircraft to air traffic control tower staffing levels and the communication between controllers and the pilots.
At Capital City Airport in Fairview Township, York County, Jim Isaacs — the director of operations for Eagle Air Aviation — recalled hearing the news about the medical transport jet that crashed in Philadelphia last Friday, killing six people on board and one on the ground.
'Any time there's an an accident, obviously it hits close to home,' Isaacs said.
Unlike the Learjet that crashed in Philadelphia, Eagle's Cessna Citation jets — including one in the hangar Isaacs showed that is so new it's not even yet in service — don't transport patients. But they do transport donated organs.
Time is of the essence to get an organ from a deceased donor to a recipient while the organ is still healthy. Still, Isaacs said pilots — backed by company leaders — will sooner cancel a flight than rush to operate in unsafe conditions.
'We operate with the mindset here that we're comfortable flying our family members in it,' Isaacs said, adding the company studies the outcomes of all investigation — and will do so with the Philadelphia one — to continue to refine its safety practices.
Similarly, back at Fort Indiantown Gap, Zerbe invoked his own family.
Last week's accident 'hits them, too,' Zerbe said. 'Like, 'are you – 'Dad, are you really going to go flying tonight?' And it's, 'Yes, I am going to go flying tonight.''
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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