An aviation expert spoke to WFAA about what potentially led up to a mid-air collision near Washington D.C.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.
An American Airlines jet with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while coming in for a landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington. Officials do not believe there are any survivors.
The collision Wednesday of the Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine plane and UH-60 Blackhawk occurred over the Potomac River and the aircraft fell into the water.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet coming from Wichita, Kansas, with U.S. and Russian figure skaters and others aboard, was making a routine landing when the helicopter flew into its path.
Three soldiers were onboard the helicopter during a training flight, an Army official previously said.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts’ final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.
WFAA’s Tiffany Liou spoke with a former American Airlines pilot about what potentially led up to a mid-air collision near Washington D.C. and what he’s looking to learn from the investigation:
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The helicopter was on a training flight. Military aircraft frequently conduct training flights in and around the congested and heavily-restricted airspace around the nation’s capital for familiarization and continuity of government planning.