On Wednesday evening, the sky was clear. According to officials, American Eagle Flight 5342 was making a normal descent to the runway in the crowded airspace over the nation’s capital while the pilots were communicating with air traffic control. Nevertheless, in the first significant deadly commercial airline disaster to occur in the United States in sixteen years, the passenger jet and an Army helicopter collided in midair, exploded in flames, and plunged into the Potomac River.
In what is anticipated to be a protracted procedure, federal investigators are currently looking for answers. According to aviation experts, a variety of technological and human-driven factors, such as the proper operation of multiple systems intended to prevent collisions, may have contributed to the fatal accident.
“Unfortunately, everything came together for this accident to occur,” said Kenneth Byrnes, a pilot and the chairman of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University’s flight training department.
The U.S. Army and Federal Aviation Administration will also be involved in the probe, which is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board. The meticulous procedure will involve gathering evidence from the scene, reviewing radio traffic and aircraft flight path data, speaking with air traffic controllers, and conducting interviews with them. The NTSB is the only organization permitted to offer an official cause for the crash, and these investigations may take a year or more to complete.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters Thursday that we consider the environment, the machine, and the human. We’ll examine every person who was a part of this mishap. We’ll examine the plane. Let’s examine the helicopter. We’ll examine the setting in which they were functioning. That’s the norm.
The crash, which is thought to have killed all 64 people on board the American Eagle jet and all three crew members aboard the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, is still too early to speculate on, officials said.
Investigators will likely focus on a number of factors, according to aviation experts, including the pilots’ communications with air traffic controllers, any visual obstructions that might have prevented them from seeing each other, and an automated system that should have alerted the pilot that another aircraft was approaching. They will also look into any mistakes made by the pilots, although according to two aviation experts who spoke to NBC News, there was no evidence of any.
Just before 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the American Eagle jet, a regional aircraft owned by American Airlines, was descending into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where airline pilots frequently negotiate congested and narrow airspace. This was the first significant fatal commercial plane crash in the United States since 2009.
The majority of military helicopters lack the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, a safety feature found in commercial jets that alerts pilots verbally when they are in danger of colliding with another aircraft, according to Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center. According to him, the helicopter involved in the collision lacked it.
In any case, TCAS has its limits. In order to prevent false warnings from other aircraft on the ground, the system first lowers the amount of alerts it sends out as a plane descends. The airplane tracking website FlightAware reports that the American Eagle’s last reported altitude was 375 feet.