FAA, Army grilled at NTSB hearing over DC crash that killed 67 in US jet-Black Hawk collision
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NDTV
21 hours ago
- NDTV
Video: Small Plane Crashes Into Ocean Near North Carolina, Pilot Survives
A small, single-engine aircraft made an emergency water landing in the ocean near Oak Island Pier late Saturday evening, prompting immediate rescue attempts that saved the only person on board - the pilot. The plane plunged into the ocean at approximately 7:30 pm off the coast near 705 Ocean Drive, according to local North Carolina officials. The Oak Island Beach Safety Unit rushed rescue vessels already in the area after a previous water rescue request, WECT reported. Watch the video here: Small plane has crashed into the ocean" "" near Oak island NC . — ????Robert The Builder ???????? (@NobodymrRobert) August 3, 2025 "Oh my God, a plane just crashed into the ocean, it's going down," a witness fishing off the pier said as the aircraft appeared to gradually sink into the water, per WRAL News. Emergency medical workers treated the pilot for non-life-threatening injuries after rescuers arrived at the downed aircraft, pulled him to safety, and brought him ashore. The pilot was the only person on board, according to officials. Besides the US Coast Guard and Brunswick County EMS, local authorities confirmed that the Beach Safety Unit, Southport Fire Department, Oak Island Police and Fire Departments, Caswell Beach Police, and other agencies assisted with the rescue effort, Oak Island reported. The aircraft was later retrieved and towed from the water. The town praised mutual-aid partners for their prompt response and postponed additional updates as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) leads the ongoing inquiry into the cause of the incident. It remains to be determined whether a pilot emergency, technical failure, or other circumstances caused the water landing. Following the FAA's announcement of its preliminary results, more information is expected. Earlier, in January, a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional passenger jet collided midair, close to Reagan Washington National Airport, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes since 2001.
Economic Times
2 days ago
- Economic Times
Bombardier-Black Hawk crash in Washington DC cause: Faulty altimeter blinded pilots, lax airspace rules; Army-FAA clash during hearing
A deadly midair collision occurred in Washington this January. Sixty-seven people died in the accident. A broken altimeter and ignored safety warnings were the main causes. The National Transportation Safety Board held a hearing this week. The FAA and the Army are shifting blame. The controller was overwhelmed with work. Safety warnings were repeatedly ignored for years. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The broken altimeter that misled pilots Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads FAA, Army shift blame in heated testimony Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The controller was overwhelmed with work Safety warnings were repeatedly ignored Final report due in 2026 A broken altimeter, ignored safety warnings, and poor coordination between federal agencies were key factors in the deadly midair collision over Washington in January that killed 67 people, according to findings revealed during a three-day fact-finding hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ) this January 29, a Bombardier CRJ700 jet collided with a Black Hawk helicopter while descending into Reagan Airport near the White House, marking the deadliest US aviation disaster since included young figure skaters, their families, coaches, and several union workers. Now, months later, the NTSB's hearing has offered the most detailed picture yet of what went Army helicopter was flying 278 feet above ground, well above the 200-foot ceiling allowed for its route, when it collided with the descending investigators say the pilots may not have known they were too high. The helicopter's barometric altimeter showed a reading 80 to 100 feet lower than its actual discrepancy, recorded by the flight data recorder, was not an isolated incident. Similar issues were later found in other helicopters from the same Army unit. A Sikorsky representative told AP that the crashed Black Hawk was an older model without advanced air data computers found in newer Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the NTSB, as reported by AP, that an 80- to 100-foot discrepancy between a helicopter's altimeters isn't alarming, as pilots rely more on radar altimeters at lower Army pilots aim to maintain their target altitude within 100 feet, making such discrepancies the hearings, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and the Army sought to deflect responsibility. Yet testimony pointed to multiple opportunities where safer choices could have prevented the major concern was the extremely narrow separation distance, just 75 feet or around 23 meters, approved by the FAA between helicopters and landing aircraft at Reagan's secondary particular runway is only used in about 5 per cent of flights but played a critical role on the night of the pilots testified that flying beneath landing planes was often routine, as long as they followed their approved routes. However, the air traffic controller never warned the passenger jet about the helicopter's proximity, assuming it wouldn't have changed the the night of the crash, a controller asked the helicopter pilots twice if they saw the jet, and they confirmed they did, requesting visual raised concerns about the crew's ability to see the plane through night vision goggles and whether they were looking in the right to NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, the controller, whose identity remains unknown, managed 21 aircraft in the 10 minutes before the collision. He was handling both helicopter and jet traffic simultaneously. According to a Washington Post report, in his interview, he stated that he felt overwhelmed and considered asking for help, but the traffic soon became manageable.A pilot arriving just before the crash noted that the controller seemed 'exceptionally busy' and was 'not instilling a lot of confidence.'As per the AP report, the controller admitted that the plane's pilots were not warned of a collision course, believing it wouldn't have made a difference. The plane, descending to land, attempted to pull up after receiving a warning, but it was too before the crash, FAA teams had raised alarms about the growing risk of helicopter operations around Reagan. In 2022, one working group urged the agency to add caution advisories to flight charts. The FAA a radar facility manager wrote to the FAA recommending a reduction in air traffic due to safety risks. Those concerns also went her closing remarks, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy accused the FAA of failing to act on repeated warnings. She criticized the agency for transferring out airport managers after the crash instead of addressing the root problems.'Every sign was there that there was a safety risk,' Homendy said during the NTSB is expected to release its final report next year. While it is unlikely to identify a single cause, this week's hearings confirmed a troubling mix of equipment failure, institutional inaction, and operational shortcuts that ultimately led to one of the deadliest aviation disasters in recent US history.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
Washington Air Crash: Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy talks with members of a U.S. Army panel of experts before the start of day three of a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigative hearing on the January 29 mid-air collision of an Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 1, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Over three days of sometimes contentious hearings this week, the National Transportation Safety Board interrogated Federal Aviation Administration and Army officials about a list of things that went wrong and contributed to a Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet colliding over Washington, D.C., killing 67 biggest revelations: The helicopter's altimeter gauge was broken, and controllers warned the FAA years earlier about the dangers that helicopters one point NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolded the FAA for not addressing safety concerns."Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?" she said. "Fix it. Do better."Victims of the January crash included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches and four union steamfitters from the Washington is a look at the major takeaways from the hearings about the collision, which alarmed travelers before a string of other crashes and close calls this year added to their worries about flying:The helicopter's altimeter was wrong The helicopter was flying at 278 feet (85 meters) - well above the 200-foot (61-meter) ceiling on that route - when it collided with the airliner. But investigators said the pilots might not have realized that because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data NTSB subsequently found similar discrepancies in the altimeters of three other helicopters from the same expert with Sikorsky, which makes the Black Hawks , said the one that crashed was an older model that lacked the air data computers that make for more accurate altitude readings in newer Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that an 80- to 100-foot (24- to 30-meter) discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter would not be alarming, because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Plus Army pilots strive to stay within 100 feet (30 meters) of target altitude on flights, so they could still do that even with their altimeters that far Rick Dressler of medevac operator Metro Aviation told the NTSB that imprecision would not fly with his helicopters. When a helicopter route like the one the Black Hawk was flying that night includes an altitude limit, Dressler said, his pilots consider that a hard and Army defend actions, shift blame Both tried to deflect responsibility for the crash, but the testimony highlighted plenty of things that might have been done differently. The NTSB's final report will be done next year, but there likely will not be one single cause identified for the crash."I think it was a week of reckoning for the FAA and the U.S. Army in this accident," aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti officials said the greater concern is that the FAA approved routes around Ronald Reagan International Airport with separation distances as small as 75 feet (23 meters) between helicopters and planes when planes are landing on a certain runway at Reagan."The fact that we have less than 500-foot separation is a concern for me," said Scott Rosengren, chief engineer in the office that manages the Army's utility Chief Warrant Officer David Van Vechten said he was surprised the air traffic controller let the helicopter proceed while the airliner was circling to land at Reagan's secondary runway, which is used when traffic for the main runway stacks up and accounts for about 5% of Vechten said he was never allowed to fly under a landing plane as the Black Hawk did, but only a handful of the hundreds of times he flew that route involved planes landing on that runway. Other pilots in the unit told crash investigators it was routine to be directed to fly under landing planes, and they believed that was safe if they stuck to the approved McIntosh, the head of the FAA's air traffic control organization, said he thinks controllers at Reagan "were really dependent upon the use of visual separation" to keep traffic moving through the busy airspace. The NTSB said controllers repeatedly said they would just "make it work." They sometimes used "squeeze plays" to land planes with minimal the night of the crash, a controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. Testimony at the hearing raised serious questions about how well the crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right controller acknowledged in an interview that the plane's pilots were never warned when the helicopter was on a collision path, but controllers did not think telling the plane would have made a difference at that point. The plane was descending to land and tried to pull up at the last second after getting a warning in the cockpit, but it was too was warned about the dangers of helicopter traffic in D.C. An FAA working group tried to get a warning added to helicopter charts back in 2022 urging pilots to use caution whenever the secondary runway was in use, but the agency refused. The working group said "helicopter operations are occurring in a proximity that has triggered safety events. These events have been trending in the wrong direction and increasing year over year."Separately, a different group at the airport discussed moving the helicopter route, but those discussions did not go anywhere. And a manager at a regional radar facility in the area urged the FAA in writing to reduce the number of planes taking off and landing at Reagan because of safety NTSB has also said the FAA failed to recognize a troubling history of 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the collision,NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said "every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that." But after the accident, the FAA transferred managers out of the airport 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.'"
