THE CEO of American Airlines has blamed a military helicopter for the devastating midair collision that killed 64 people in Washington DC.
Officials have no clear answer as to why an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter crashed in a fatal incident on Wednesday night.
All people onboard the American Airlines plane, 60 passengers and four crew members, are feared dead in the deadliest aviation disaster in 24 years, officials said on Thursday.
At least 30 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River after the Black Hawk smashed into the American Airlines plane, breaking the aircraft in three pieces as it plunged into the frigid waters.
“At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said on Thursday morning.
Video of the helicopter’s flight path on a tracker website sparked concern online as it was seen flying near three other aircraft right before the crash.
Some even called the Black Hawk’s movement “erratic” as it curved to fly along the river and appeared to nearly intersect multiple planes.
However, pilots shot down claims those moments were near misses.
Experts online said there would have been “significant” vertical separation between the helicopter and the other planes it passed before the crash.
The difference in altitude between the aircraft causing speculation isn’t made immediately clear in the flight tracker videos.
The military helicopter flew at around 200 feet, according to flight tracker history by ADS-B Exchange.
The planes that appeared to come close to the helicopter were actually flying at around 6,000 feet and 4.000 feet, meaning they were nowhere near each other.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said altitude was likely a factor in the fatal collision, in contrast to the vastly different elevations in the suspected near misses.
“There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating,” Hegseth said.
Conditions were also clear at the time of the crash, according to Sean Duffy, the new secretary of transportation, at a press conference on Thursday.
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The area over the Ronald Reagan National Airport is a notoriously crowded airspace as the Federal Aviation Administration investigated at least three near-misses in recent years.
In May 2024, an American Airlines jet preparing for takeoff almost collided with a King Air plane arriving nearby.
In another incident, JetBlue and Southwest planes nearly crashed on a runway due to instructions from air traffic controllers.
FAA investigated both of the incidents.
Duffy said the helicopter and plane were traveling normal routes for the area.
“Prior to the collision, the flight paths that were being flown, from the military and from American, that was not unusual for what happens in the D.C. airspace,” Duffy said.
“This happens every day,” he added.
“Something went wrong here.”
President Donald Trump also suggested the military helicopter might be at fault.
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport,” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Thursday morning.
“The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time.
“It is a clear night, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn,” he said, adding that it “looks like it should have been prevented.”
The president later said at a press conference on Thursday he heard the audio tapes of the pilots on the American Airlines flight and that they did everything right.
After saying diversity efforts could be to blame for the fatal collision, he vowed to bring back Americans’ trust in airlines.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13418215/washington-dc-crash-helicopter-robert-isom-blame/
