NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy speaks throughout a press convention at Reagan Nationwide Airport because the search continues on the crash website of the American Airways aircraft on the Potomac River on Jan. 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.
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The crew of the helicopter that collided midair with an American Airways jet close to Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Nationwide Airport may not have heard directions from the air site visitors controller to cross behind the aircraft, investigators mentioned Friday.
Nationwide Transportation Security Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy mentioned the recording from the Black Hawk helicopter cockpit suggests the crew might have missed the important thing instruction simply earlier than the Jan. 29 collision, wherein all 67 aboard the 2 plane had been killed
Homendy mentioned the helicopter was on a examine flight that evening when the pilot was being examined on using evening imaginative and prescient goggles and flying by devices. Investigators imagine the crew was sporting evening imaginative and prescient goggles all through the flight.
The collision was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001, when a jet slammed right into a New York Metropolis neighborhood simply after takeoff, killing all 260 individuals on board and 5 extra on the bottom.
Homendy mentioned the Black Hawk crew by no means heard the phrases “cross behind the” throughout the transmission from the controller as a result of the helicopter’s microphone key was depressed proper then.
At one level throughout the flight earlier than the collision the helicopter’s pilot known as out that the Black Hawk was at 300 ft, however the teacher pilot mentioned the helicopter was at 400 ft, Homendy mentioned.
“Presently we do not know why there was a discrepancy between the 2,” Homendy mentioned.
