Washington: In what seemed to be an important dissemination about the investigation, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, said Friday that the Blackhawk helicopter that crashed with a regional passenger plane in Washington, DC, was flying too high in the accident moment.
The US Army. UU. He did not immediately respond to a comment request.
US military helicopters regularly fly a route on the Potomac River near the busy Ronald Reagan Washington, known as Route 4. for security reasons, the altitude in those helicopter flights is limited to 200 feet (61 meters).
“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by far. It was well above the 200 feet limit. That is not really too complicated to understand, right? Trump said in a social publication of truth.
The accident remains under investigation by federal transport authorities.
Defense Department to examine the Military Chopper flight recorder; Expected report in 30 days
The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegseth, said previously that there seemed to be a problem of elevation with the Blackhawk, and said that the army researchers were on the ground looking at the matter.
However, Hegseth and the army said the three -member soldiers team in Blackhawk had experience. The army said the instructor’s pilot, who was the designated pilot in command, had 1,000 flight hours, while the other pilot had 500 hours.
The third soldier was a crew leader, typically rode on the back of the helicopter.
The researchers also recovered the so -called black boxes of the plane, an American Airlines bombing plane that transported 60 passengers and four crew members, which collided with the Blackhawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River while preparing to land at the National Airport Ronald Reagan Washington.
No one survived. The names of all the victims have not been released, but included promising skaters and people of Kansas, where the flight originated.
Senator Maria Cantwell said the dead also included citizens of Russia, the Philippines and Germany, and Chinese state media Xinhua reported that two Chinese citizens had been killed in the accident.
Initial report in 30 days
The researchers recovered the cabin voice recorder and the flight data recorder of the Bombardier Crj700 passenger plane, the National Transport Security Board said. A preliminary report on the incident is expected within 30 days.
The NTSB member, Todd Inman, said the military helicopter was equipped “with some form of recording devices and the DOD or for us will read it.” He said NTSB and DOD have agreements to share data on those recorders.
The agency has begun to collect remains, including parts of the helicopter, and is storing it in a hangar in Reagan National. The Washington Fire and Emergencies Department said their divers had searched all accessible areas and would perform additional searches to locate the aircraft components on Friday.
The Secretary of Transportation of the United States, Sean Duffy, said that both planes had been flying standard flight patterns on Wednesday and that there was no breakdown in communication.
“Everything was routine to the point of the accident,” insisted the governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin. More than half of the bodies had been recovered, he said.
The airport is on the other side of the river from Washington in Virginia.
However, President Trump, without providing evidence, said that “federal diversity efforts” could have been a factor, reiterating a issue that has become a focus of his presidency. The rights groups and the Democrats complained that he was politicizing the disaster.
Trump also criticized helicopter pilots and suggested that air traffic drivers were to blame.
Radio Communications showed that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter on the plane that was approaching and ordered him to change course.
Air traffic controlle
A controller instead of two was handling the traffic of local airplanes and helicopters on Wednesday night in Reagan National, a situation considered “non -normal” but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to an informed person on the matter.
The decision to combine duties at night is not uncommon, the source said. The New York Times First reported the “non -normal” designation.
The shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States in recent years has stimulated security concerns. In several facilities, controllers work during mandatory overtime and six -day work weeks to cover shortage. The Federal Aviation Administration has around 3,000 drivers less than it says.
Posted in Dawn, February 1, 2025
