A former Black Hawk helicopter pilot said that “three different things” went wrong in the Washington, DC, plane crash earlier this week.
Elizabeth McCormick told CNN that the first thing that went wrong was only having three people on board the helicopter. Although three is the minimum for a Black Hawk crew, McCormick said she thought four would have been better suited given the “crowded airspace” at the time of the accident.
“They really should’ve had two crew chiefs to clear each side. If the pilot … only had visibility of the front 180 degrees, your crew chiefs clear the back. If you only have one crew chief how much can you clear? I think that was a major issue,” McCormick said.
Even if the crew had been wearing night vision goggles at the time, which has been previously reported by newly appointed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, McCormick stated that all of the light in the area could cause the pilots to become “disoriented.”
The collision between the helicopter and the American Airlines flight reportedly occurred at around 350 to 400 feet, despite the fact that the Black Hawk was supposed to have been flying at 200 feet.
While this was attributed to pilot error, McCormick attributed the final oversight to air traffic control after recordings from the time of the incident were released.
“Air traffic control said, ‘Do you have the CRJ in sight?’ Well there were two aircraft in their field of view, and actually only one was really obvious to them and that was, if you watch the video, the aircraft taking off in the foreground is probably the one they were facing, the pilots were facing and said, ‘Yea I got it,'” she told CNN.
“Air traffic control should have said ‘Do you have the aircraft at 5 o’clock?’ so they were looking at the rear. If they had done that, the Black Hawk is maneuverable, the Black Hawk could have moved out of the way quickly, they can move on a dime, and make that happen. And it wouldn’t have happened,” McCormick continued.
An internal preliminary safety report reviewed by the New York Times revealed that only one controller was handling the directions for both airplanes and helicopters in the airspace at the time of the accident. Two controllers are standard.
The soldiers on board the helicopter included both an instructor pilot and an experienced pilot, who each had hundreds of flying hours logged, Jonathan Koziol, Headquarters Department of the Army Aviation Directorate chief of staff, told reporters.
All 67 passengers and crew on board the plane and helicopter during the Wednesday night crash are believed to have died. The plane’s black boxes have since been removed from the wreckage.
An investigation into the crash remains ongoing.
Originally published by Latin Times.
