Night goggles may have hampered sight of army pilots before DC plane crash, experts say

The Guardian

4 days ago

The pilots of a US army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over Washington DC in January would have had difficulty spotting the plane while wearing night vision goggles, experts told the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Friday.
The army goggles would have made it hard to see the plane's colored lights, which might have helped the Black Hawk determine the plane's direction. The goggles also limited the pilots' peripheral vision as they flew near Ronald Reagan Washington national airport that evening.
The challenges posed by night-vision goggles were discussed at the NTSB's third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash, which left all 67 people aboard both aircraft dead.
Experts said another challenge that evening was distinguishing the plane from lights on the ground while the two aircraft were on a collision course. Also, the helicopter pilots may not have known where to look for a plane that was landing on a secondary runway that most planes didn't use.
'Knowing where to look. That's key,' said Stephen Casner, an expert in human factors who used to work at Nasa.
Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that likely contributed to the collision, sparking NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy to urge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to 'do better' as she pointed to warnings the agency ignored years earlier.
Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near Ronald Reagan airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there.
It's too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. A final report from the board won't come until next year.
But it became clear this week how small a margin of error there was for helicopters flying the route the Black Hawk took the night of the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001.
The January collision 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.
The board focused on air traffic control and heard Thursday that it was common for pilots to ask to use visual separation or relying on their eyesight just as the army Black Hawk's pilots, who were wearing night vision goggles, 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 DC.