Washington, DC
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The National Transportation Safety Board questioned witnesses Thursday about air traffic management coaching, a key half of the investigation into January’s deadly midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was the second of three days of investigative hearings into what occurred within the accident that killed 67 individuals.
That night time, the air traffic management tower warned the US Army Black Hawk helicopter concerning the approaching American Airlines regional jet, operated by PSA Airlines, however didn’t inform the passenger aircraft’s pilots, an Federal Aviation Administration official confirmed within the hearing.
Standard procedures, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy famous, require controllers to warn pilots about close by traffic.
“Were any traffic advisories or safety alerts issued?” she requested.
“No safety alerts,” Nick Fuller, the FAA’s performing deputy chief working officer of operations, mentioned.
“Should the local controller have let the PSA crew know that there was a helicopter there?” Homendy requested once more.
“Yes,” Fuller acknowledged.
That night time, the Black Hawk pilot advised air traffic controllers they might see the regional jet, and would keep away from it – however moments later they collided.
“It’s still remarkably hard to identify aircraft when you are flying,” testified Rich Dressler of Metro Aviation, which operates medical helicopters in Washington. “We use traffic alerts and traffic monitoring systems in our helicopters, all the DC operators, the civilian and law enforcement side.”
But on January 29, the Black Hawk didn’t have its ADS-B monitoring transmissions turned on, which was a typical apply. Dressler mentioned helicopter pilots who flew within the Washington space all acknowledged one another, and he was cautious of that army unit.
“Is there any unit that when you hear it makes you feel uncomfortable?” requested Brian Soper, NTSB investigator.
“Sadly, yes,” Dressler responded. “And as I said yesterday, I don’t like saying this. I’ll say it again on the record. I’m a former Army aviator, and I’m a retired Air Force officer … and I don’t like saying that 12th aviation battalion gives us all pause in the community. And I’m speaking from my group there; we are all very uncomfortable when those two units are operating.”
Multiple air traffic controllers and pilots at Reagan National Airport advised the NTSB in on-site interviews they struggled with the fixed stream of planes, in accordance to Brian Soper, NTSB investigator.
“This is ‘we just make it work,’ because we don’t have another choice,” he mentioned. “There are airplanes coming in and everything was related to the capacity, the demand or the amount of traffic.”
He requested the FAA consultant within the hearing what that phrase meant to him.
“As far as a controller perspective and my own personal perspective, making it work is utilizing all available tools to you to compensate for the compacted volume,” mentioned Clark Allen, air traffic management specialist with the FAA.
Before the accident, he mentioned, “making it work” was routine.
“It can be taxing on a person, you know, constantly (having) to give, give, give or push, push, push in order to efficiently move traffic,” Clark mentioned.
Board member Todd Inman pressed for solutions as to why controllers at Reagan National Airport had been pressured and if that compromised security.
“We don’t feel that pressure,” Fuller, the FAA’s performing deputy chief working officer of operations, responded. “Our whole mission, and everything we base it around is safety first, and all I get is ‘let us know who we have to have the conversation with, if you’re not getting what you need.’ So, I don’t know what happened beforehand, but I can tell you right now I don’t feel that pressure at all.”
Bryan Lehman, a entrance line supervisor on the FAA’s air traffic management heart dealing with traffic approaching and departing Washington, testified he does feels the stress to hold planes shifting.
“I feel like our ratio of safety to efficiency has gone slightly too far towards efficiency,” he mentioned.
Reagan National Airport is one of the busiest within the nation and the quantity of plane departing and arriving is commonly at capability.
Njuen Mandi Chendi, traffic administration officer on the FAA, attributed the stress that he mentioned controllers really feel to too many flights being scheduled.
“Whenever we get the chance to apply a ground delay program for DCA the operation goes well, no issues,” she mentioned.
On Wednesday, the day started with an outline of the incident, together with an 11-minute detailed timeline of the moments before the helicopter and regional jet collided midair. NTSB members later questioned witnesses for the Army and Federal Aviation Administration.
The NTSB additionally launched hundreds of pages of data gathered through the investigation, together with cockpit voice recorder transcripts that element the ultimate moments before the collision. The transcripts confirmed one second before the collision, the helicopter’s instructor had told the pilot to change course.
The helicopter route on the time of the collision allowed the Black Hawk to fly as shut as 75 toes under planes descending to land on runway 33 at Reagan National Airport, in accordance to the NTSB.
In 10 hours of questioning Wednesday, the NTSB Chair Homendy grew annoyed with some of the solutions given by representatives of the FAA and Army. After the hearing concluded for the day, she advised reporters she has “concerns” there’s a “safety culture” downside in each Army aviation and the air traffic group of the FAA.
The hearing additionally uncovered that Army helicopters would repeatedly fly under plane that had been descending to land at Reagan National Airport and so they generally used civilian heliports with out authorization.
“I don’t have concerns about the leadership, but I think they have issues below the leadership, with respect to flying underneath aircraft,” Homendy advised reporters Wednesday night time. “At no point should there ever be helicopters flying underneath civilian aircraft that are departing and landing on any runway, any runway in the national airspace. I’m concerned that if it’s happening here, that it’s happening somewhere else.”
Sixty-seven individuals died within the accident over the Potomac River, together with 60 passengers and 4 crew members on the aircraft and three troopers on the helicopter.
The NTSB will meet once more on Friday. A dedication of what precipitated the crash will are available January.