At a case hearing, the pilot’s last words were made public. The pilot was operating a helicopter when it crashed fatally into a passenger plane.
Washington, DC, was horrified on January 29 of this year when a Black Hawk military chopper crashed into an American Airlines plane that had taken off from Wichita, Kansas, and was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
After both planes crashed into the Potomac River, the search and rescue effort swiftly turned into a recovery effort after it was discovered that all three people on the helicopter and all 64 people on the commercial jet perished in the crash.
Audio recordings of the last conversation the instructor and pilot had on board the Black Hawk, just before impact, are among the new revelations that are now coming to light regarding the fateful helicopter.
In an attempt to ascertain what transpired, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) held a hearing on Wednesday, 30 July. The pilot, Captain Rebecca Lobach, 28, and the instructor, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves, 39, were identified.
As part of a nighttime assessment, the plane was also carrying 28-year-old Staff Sergeant Ryan O’Hara to Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
American Airlines Flight 5342 last spoke with air traffic authorities when they were instructed to switch runways for landing, which they complied with, according to an animation shown at the trial.
Investigators did learn, however, that the service team on board the helicopter might not have known their location or altitude.
The presentation shows that the Black Hawk flew far higher than the 200-foot maximum permissible altitude near the airport, reaching as high as 300 feet as it approached Reagan Airport.
According to officials, it’s possible that an altimeter miscalculation caused the crew to feel they were lower in the air than they actually were. For example, at different points in time, the crew reported being about 100 feet below their actual attitude.
According to the hearing, the NTSB has since tested several helicopters from the same unit and discovered issues with their barometric altimeters.
In the meantime, a transcript of the cockpit audio tape was also made public, and some unsettling revelations surfaced.
Lobach and Eaves were heard laughing and chatting during the 15-minute trip, which may have meant they were not aware of the risky collision path they were travelling.
Eaves allegedly gave the pilot manoeuvring assistance, and Lobach said air traffic control broadcasts sounded “pretty muffled.”
Additionally, according to the teacher, the control tower seemed to be “stacked up tonight” with traffic.
The animation then shows that approximately two and a half minutes prior to the accident, Eaves instructed Lobach to “come down for me” and fly at 200 feet while they were at 300 feet.
The helicopter was then twice alerted by air traffic control about the passenger jet, once approximately two minutes prior to the crash and again ninety seconds later.
On both occasions, the helicopter acknowledged that it could see the plane and asked for a “visual separation” so that they could move more easily.
About 20 seconds prior to the collision, a controller gave the team the go-ahead to “pass behind” the plane after approving that.
But according to a cockpit transcript, the Black Hawk’s microphone experienced an audio glitch that prevented the command from being heard.
Five seconds after the final warning about the plane, Eaves could be heard saying to Lobach, “Alright, kinda come left for me ma’am, I think that’s why he’s asking.”
Her response was, “Sure.”
The instructor then said, “We’re kinda out towards the middle,” to which Lobach replied: “Oh-kay, fine,” reportedly drawing out her ‘okay.’
Four seconds passed during their talk. Later, it was discovered that the American Airlines plane was only 320 feet in the air as it descended towards the runaway, while the helicopter was 270 feet high.
During the hearing, Scott Rosengren, the chief engineer in charge of the Army’s utility helicopter headquarters, stated that if he were “king for a day,” he would promptly retire all of the older Black Hawk helicopters, including the one involved in the disaster, due to their allegedly antiquated altimeters.
The hearing goes on.