Investigators say the Black Hawk helicopter may not have heard the key instructions from ATC.
The crew of the Army Black Hawk helicopter that collided mid-air with an American Airlines plane over Potomac River near Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport may not have heard the key instructions from air traffic controllers to move behind the plane.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters that the recording from the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter cockpit suggested an incomplete radio transmission may have left the crew without understanding how it should shift position seconds before the January 29 crash, in which all 67 occupants of the two aircraft were killed.
“That transmission was interrupted, it was stepped on,” she said, leaving them unable to hear the words “pass behind the” because the helicopter’s microphone key was pressed at the same moment.
Cockpit conversations a few minutes before the crash indicated conflicting altitude data, with the helicopter’s pilot calling out that they were then at 300 feet (91 meters), but the instructor pilot saying they were at 400 feet (122 meters), Homendy said.
It will take more than a year to get the final NTSB report on the collision, while Homendy made reporters aware of the fact that many issues were still being probed.
