A tragic crash of an American Airways regional jet Wednesday evening at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport (DCA), which ended an extended accident-free run in home aviation, drew shocked reactions from security consultants and the flying public.
Video footage of the crash captured by safety cameras and passing automobiles rapidly went viral however revealed little. The crash occurred simply earlier than 9 p.m. ET, when a navy Black Hawk Sikorsky H-60 helicopter collided with a PSA Airways Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by American Eagle because it was about to land, in keeping with an preliminary report issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. Each have been plunged into the Potomac River. This was the nation’s deadliest air crash since 2001, and the tragedy appeared inexplicable, given how uncommon such civilian air accidents have grow to be.
Officers have acknowledged that there have been no survivors among the many 64 individuals aboard the American Eagle Flight 5342, which originated in Wichita, Kansas. Three pilots on the Military chopper additionally perished. The final time the toll was larger in a U.S. air accident was in November 2001, when an American widebody jet crashed shortly after taking off from John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) in New York, killing 265 individuals. Since then, there was just one different deadly business airline incident in the USA: the 2009 crash of a commuter jet outdoors Buffalo, New York, when all 49 aboard died, together with one individual on the bottom.
Getting solutions to what went unsuitable will take a while. The investigation into the causes will probably be led by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board. The essential “black field” tape recordings will have to be recovered and analyzed, and air visitors management audio will probably be studied. At press time, divers have been nonetheless pulling plane wreckage from the Potomac River.
Security consultants have been fast to level out that Reagan Nationwide Airport, the capital’s close-in hub, is likely one of the nation’s most congested and delayed. Proposals to extend the variety of flights on the airfield have drawn robust objections from native politicians and security officers. The airport has one important runway and two different shorter runways typically utilized by smaller planes. The airport can be used for navy helicopters, which is one other trigger for concern. An air visitors management tape launched after the crash prompt doable confusion on the a part of the chopper pilot. “There have been questions in regards to the setup of the airspace there,” Mary Schiavo, a former inspector for the Division of Transportation, mentioned in an interview on CNN.
Whereas U.S. air journey has remained remarkably protected over the previous 20 years, there have been quite a few incidents of shut calls in recent times. Staffing shortages on the FAA haven’t helped, together with an absence of air visitors controllers. “For months we’ve been listening to about close to misses within the air and shut calls on the bottom, and now we will throw drones into that blend,” Schiavo added.
As restoration efforts within the Potomac proceed, some airways have granted waivers to passengers looking for to reschedule flights to DCA, which shut down briefly after the crash and will expertise disruptions by way of the rest of the week. United Airways mentioned it might grant passengers scheduled on flights by way of Saturday (February 1) the choice to rebook their journey for a restricted interval, with out incurring change charges and fare variations. Delta has additionally issued a journey waiver for the airport.