The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation of the D.C. plane crash could take a year or more to complete, but here’s where investigators will focus on in the days, weeks and months ahead.
Emergency response units search the crash site of the American Airlines plane on the Potomac River ... [+]
The NTSB has launched a go-team to the crash site involving a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 airplane and a Black Hawk military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
While local law enforcement continues the recovery effort, NTSB investigators will begin photo documenting and analyzing a mountain of evidence that includes debris from the accident site, voice recorders, data recorders, air traffic control and radar data, pilot and crew training, aircraft maintenance, weather, visibility and other factors.
Aircraft debris appears to be relatively accessible in shallow water so collecting the pieces “should not take as long” as for some crash scenes, aviation safety expert and former commercial pilot Kathleen Bangs told Forbes.
Over the coming months, NTSB investigators will painstakingly reconstruct both aircrafts in a hangar.
NTSB investigations like this typically take a year to 18 months to conclude, Jeff Price, a Denver-based aviation security expert, told Forbes.
Authorities say there are no survivors among the 67 people aboard a PSA Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter that collided midair outside Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., late Wednesday.
The crash has put a spotlight on the congested airspace shared by civilian and military aircraft over the Washington, D.C., area, which includes three major airports, numerous military bases and no-fly zones over the White House, the National Mall and the vice president's residence. Last spring, two near-collisions at Reagan National Airport—one between Southwest and JetBlue jets and the other between an American Airlines jet and a small plane—raised concerns. While the U.S. aviation system has been challenged by an ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exceeded its hiring goal for 2024 as it tries to reverse the decades-long air traffic controller staffing decline.
Aviation expert and veteran pilot Capt. John Cox speculated that the Black Hawk is “not likely to have much in the way of recorders on board.” But Price told Forbes “cockpit and data voice recorders are common on commercial aircraft, of course, but also on military aircraft.” Neither the U.S. Army nor the NTSB immediately responded to outreach from Forbes.
Did the pilots have what’s known as “visual separation”? On audio captured by LiveATC.net (JIA5342/PAT25), an air traffic controller at Reagan National Airport can be heard asking the helicopter if it has the passenger jet in sight and then issuing a command. Seconds later, the two aircraft collide and audible gasps are heard in the control tower.
“It seems like both aircraft were where they were supposed to be, except visual separation may or may not have existed,” says Price. “That's where one pilot, literally, visually sees the other aircraft and can acknowledge that to air traffic control. We don't know if the airline pilots saw the helicopter, but based on the air traffic control tapes, it sounds like the helicopter could see the airliner.”
Black-Box Recordings In Runway Near-Misses Were Overwritten, Say Investigators (Forbes)