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On the evening of Jan. 29, a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines CRJ700 near Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport (DCA), killing 67 people. The worst U.S. commercial air safety disaster in 16 years has raised questions about potential safety gaps created by airspace design, military flights in D.C., operations at DCA, air traffic controller staffing and much more.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is holding a three-day investigative hearing to collect sworn testimony and further its analysis of the disaster. While no safety recommendations or final reports will be issued during the hearing, it will provide fresh insight into the facts and safety concerns that the NTSB has uncovered during its investigation to date.
Live updates from The Air Current’s editorial staff will follow below, bringing you the latest from nearly 25 hours of scheduled proceedings beginning at 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, July 29, and scheduled to end at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, Aug. 1.
Wednesday, July 30:
6:51 pm: Chair Homendy briefly became angry towards the end of day one after a back-and-forth between Board members and the FAA’s Katie Murphy regarding what the NTSB viewed as the agency’s failure to implement recommendations to add cautionary warnings or “hot spots” to helicopter route charts.
According to Homendy, a request was made at an FAA symposium “to include something on the chart that said: ‘Pilots, use caution for runway 3-3 departures when DCA is in a north configuration,’ which [at the time of the accident, the airport] was.”
Murphy responded that the agency did not implement the hot spot recommendation “due to the fact that they are not within the VFR aeronautical charting standard.” When asked if the FAA offered an alternative, the official pointed to a separate meeting hosted twice a year as an avenue for stakeholders to make chart recommendations.
In a similar line of inquiry, Member Inman asked Murphy why charts for LAX caution pilots of “intense helicopter activity” but charts for DCA did not have that caution note before this accident.
“They did not ask for it,” Murphy said. “But they did, did they not?” said Inman. “They asked for ‘hot spots,’” Murphy countered.
After reciting the 2023 recommendations of the DCA Helicopter Working Group, Homendy momentarily lost her cool.
“I’m not looking for an answer right now because honestly, I don’t get it. Every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that. Yet … you transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in the tower was saying there was a problem. But you guys are pointing out, ‘Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.’ … Fix it. Do better.” — BGG
5:42 pm: Chair Homendy, Member Inman, NTSB staff and FAA deputy chief operating officer Nick Fuller just concluded a lengthy exchange, sparring over the particulars of whether and how the FAA was “fully forthcoming” with all Board information requests as a part of this investigation. Homendy claimed the agency “dumped” thousands of pages of information about which controllers were on duty at DCA during the accident on the Board the Friday before this hearing despite her staff requesting it for months. The FAA said it complied and was managing hundreds of requests for information “outside of our normal processes and procedures.” — WG
5:32 pm: In a contentious string of questioning from Chair Homendy, FAA witnesses revealed that the DCA tower has had 13 air traffic managers since 2013 — five in the last five years and three in the last two years. Homendy asked how managers are supposed to reliably raise safety issues and evaluate airspace changes if there has been so much turnover. “My only response to that is that it is defined in the FAA order 7210.3,” said Katie Murphy, who oversees aeronautical charting at the FAA. “Is this where it would be defined?” Homendy asked, holding up a printed version of the nearly 700-page document. “I believe so,” Murphy responded. — WG
4:40 pm: An FAA spokesperson told The Air Current that the agency is looking into prescribing specific widths to helicopter routes across the country. In hearing testimony, representatives for the regulator described routes on the nation’s eight existing helicopter route charts, which do not have firm lateral boundaries, as “recommended paths” because they are shown on visual flight rules charts with the expectation that helicopters will deviate as necessary to remain clear of clouds and maintain obstruction clearance. Although FAA witnesses said it was the agency’s goal to add these new lateral parameters, the spokesperson said the plan was preliminary and had not gone through a safety risk management review. — WG and Elan Head
4:16 pm: Military aircraft are operating in D.C.’s congested Class B airspace with ADS-B off “to this day,” said Rick Dressler of Metro Aviation. PAT25, the accident Black Hawk, and other military helicopters do not use ADS-B reporting systems when flying operational missions like the training flight on Jan. 25. That exemption for the Army was part of a longstanding agreement between the Department of Defense and the FAA. “It adds an unacceptable layer of complexity and risk to this system,” Dressler said, even before considering the simultaneous use of vision-inhibiting night vision goggles. The traffic collision avoidance devices used by many civil aircraft including air medical and law enforcement helicopters are “completely useless if aircraft don’t show up because they’re not broadcasting, so it adds an enormous risk.” – JO
3:17 pm: Army officials told investigators that pilots are expected to be able to maintain their assigned altitude within 100 feet either above or below. “I don’t think there’s any expectation that we can maintain an altitude … plus or minus zero,” said Army standardization officer David Van Vechten. “There’s too many limiting factors … I think the reasonable expectation is that being off on altitude by 50 or 70 feet one way or the other would not lead to a catastrophic event.”
Rick Dressler, aviation site manager for medical services company Metro Aviation, asked to address that comment in an exchange that hints at how the Army assesses risk. “In the civilian side, that is a hard altitude for us,” he said. “We do not accept a plus or minus of 100 feet in the DCA route structure … that is unacceptable, and how none of our civilian members are trained in the D.C. airspace. So, a 200-foot altitude or 300-foot altitude is a hard ceiling for us.” — WG and BGG
3:10 pm: FAA officials told NTSB that before the crash users of the D.C. airspace had identified helicopter route four — which the accident Black Hawk was flying on — as having a potential conflict when runways 15 and 33 are in use. At the time, FAA was told changes could not be made without impacting government and security missions within the national capitol region, the agency officials said. Besides the alterations made after January’s crash, route four had not been changed since 1991, they added. — WG
2:46 pm: Clark Allen, who at the time of the accident was a manager at DCA tower, told investigators that controllers have “had trouble” understanding military aircraft in the past. He said civil aircraft generally operate newer aircraft with better equipment, typically including dual radios, and therefore are easier to understand. Asked if there are specific operators within the DCA Class B airspace that are particularly challenging when it comes to communication quality, Allen said, “We’ve had trouble in the past with the Air Force and the Army.” — WG and Brian Garrett-Glaser
2:36 pm: During a short interview on the sidelines of the hearing, Tim Lilley, father of Flight 5342 first officer Sam Lilley, told The Air Current that yesterday’s meeting between DCA crash families and U.S. Army officials was a “good first step,” but added that “we have a long way to go” with the branch. Up until that meeting, Army officials had not met with families of the crash victims, having been criticized by families for their slower-than-desired response to calls to improve communications. — WG
2:23 pm: In an interview with NTSB investigators, the DCA tower controller who was working the two accident aircraft that evening said he “could tell something was off” in the moments before the crash. Though the controller said that he was unable to tell visually if the helicopter was too high, he did say he could generally tell if an aircraft wasn’t where it was supposed to be. He told investigators he was primarily focused on looking outside, not at the radar systems in the tower that have received scrutiny in recent months for their potentially inaccurate altitude readings. — WG
1:49 pm: A central line of questioning for the first panel focused on how the Army is testing its remaining fleet of older Black Hawks like the accident helicopter (UH-60L, known as the “Lima” model) for potential faulty barometric altimeters that could present incorrect information to pilots. Initial discovery of the potential for fleet-wide altitude issues was made during May test-flights with Lima Black Hawks involving the NTSB.
Chair Homendy told reporters during a lunch break that she is “not satisfied” with how the branch has conducted that testing so far, as well as with its plan to communicate further issues to pilots. The branch stated it is aiming to put out an alert to pilots by Sept. 15 if an issue exists, and will make a determination whether a policy change needs to be implemented via a longer-term revision of the aircraft’s flight manual. — WG
12:41 pm: Member Inman reveals that the entire Board completed simulations of the accident helicopter’s route using night vision goggles, adding that he felt it was a difficult flight regime that can involve distractions including cross-checking flight instruments as well as the iPad or tablet used as an electronic flight bag all while one’s field of vision is reduced. Army representative Kylene Lewis responded that during this type of flying she would not want a pilot looking at their iPad to reduce distractions, even though that device contains charts and may also show ADS-B traffic. — WG
11:43 am: In the months leading up to the accident, a PSA summary of Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) alerts showed five individual activations during the airline’s approaches to DCA airport from Sept. 13, 2024 to just one the day prior to the Jan. 29 mid-air collision. That flight on Jan. 28 while approaching from the north was advised by ATC of two Black Hawks while descending to 3,000 feet. A resolution advisory (RA) guided the crew to level off. “Crew reacted accordingly, and ATC also gave a vector away from traffic.” The report estimates that the helicopters were 600 feet below and one to two miles away from the PSA flight at the time of the RA. — Jon Ostrower
11:14 am: The day after the crash, an FAA air traffic control review team found that “potential systemic training issues” had been identified at DCA. The agency said that “a misconception may exist that the helicopter routing structure is procedurally separated with arrivals and departures,” meaning controllers would think they have more buffer room when working mixed helicopter and jet traffic. The review also found that on the day of the accident, the approach control facility failed to adhere to an agreed-to four mile horizontal separation minimum between aircraft, forcing arrivals to be spaced closer together, something DCA controllers said is “routinely not adhered to.” — WG
10:28 am: According to an FAA memo posted on the accident docket, the Potomac-area ATC facility manager opposed a provision in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 that added additional flight slots to the airport. “The proposal to add additional flights, through expansion of the DCA slot program, would exacerbate current operational challenges,” the memo says. “Increasing the overall number of operations at DCA will likely result in longer arrival/departure banks, increased traffic at low altitudes, increased fuel consumption, increased probability for airborne holding, and augment missed approaches.” The FAA’s air traffic organization added that reports indicating DCA could accommodate additional flights were “flawed.” — WG
10:01 am: As a part of post-accident altitude tests on three representative Black Hawk helicopters, the NTSB found that the height shown on the pilots’ barometric altimeters was significantly lower than actual height above mean sea level (MSL). Recorded altitude on the accident helicopter was about 80 to 100 feet lower than height above MSL. — WG
9:40 am: As a part of an 11-minute animation of the accident, the NTSB is playing the air traffic control audio from the event as well as live surveillance video of the two aircraft colliding in a chilling reminder of the severity of this crash. The NTSB provided time for spectators to leave the room before it was played if they desired. — WG
9:24 am: Initial review of cockpit instrumentation documentation for the Black Hawk helicopter indicates that the wreckage of the left hand side radar altimeter (which shows height above the terrain directly below it) indicated 250 feet while the right hand side indicated 295 feet. Preliminary information from the NTSB had previously indicated the helicopter was above its maximum permissable altitude of 200 feet, and that there was a discrepancy between what both pilots were seeing. — WG
9:17 am: U.S. Army Brigadier General Matthew Braman, former Director of Army Aviation, is present as a part of the branch’s investigative group, confirming earlier reporting from The Air Current which said he would appear at the hearing despite having been reassigned as Chief Marketing Officer. — WG
9:01 am: The hearing has started with an announcement from Board Member Tom Chapman, who said he is recusing himself from all proceedings because he still receives flight benefits from American Airlines as a part of an arrangement with a former employer. Board Member Alvin Brown was removed earlier this year by the Trump Administration for unknown reasons, leaving this investigative board with just three of the usual five members. — WG
9:00 am: Good morning from L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. where NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has gaveled in day one of the investigative hearing. Today, the board will convene two panels — one in the morning to discuss the accident Black Hawk’s systems and another in the afternoon focused on D.C.’s Class B airspace and the design of its various helicopter routes. — Will Guisbond
