‘Shouldn’t have happened’: Experts baffled by DC mid-air crash

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - US Coast Guard, along with other search and rescue teams, operate near debris in a location given as Washington, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, in this handout release on January 30, 2025. — US Coast Guard handout pic via Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 — The midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a US Army Blackhawk helicopter in Washington has puzzled experts, given the perfect flying conditions and strict controls in one of the world’s busiest air corridors.

It “shouldn’t have happened,” Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said.

“That was as routine a (commercial) flight as it gets,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic.

“I’ve been on it many times. Many people in Washington who go to Kansas have been on it,” he told AFP.

President Donald Trump echoed this, commenting on Truth Social, that the flight, arriving at Reagan National Airport from Wichita, Kansas, “was on a perfect and routine line of approach.”

The collision occurred in congested but tightly controlled airspace over a city that has not seen a major aviation tragedy since the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attack. The previous accident was in 1982.

According to Flightradar24’s Ian Petchenik, the collision occurred at approximately 90 metres, mere seconds before landing.

“The runway threshold is at the river’s edge. The Kansas flight was ready to touch down,” he told WUSA-TV in DC.

The airspace around Reagan Airport regularly accommodates dense helicopter traffic, including military flights between the Pentagon and nearby bases, Coast Guard patrols, and Marine Corps helicopters serving the White House.

Commercial aircraft like the one involved are equipped with TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System), designed to alert pilots to nearby aircraft and provide last-minute collision avoidance instructions.

Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and FAA air crash investigator and head of Guzzetti Aviation, noted that Washington’s busy airspace allows civilian and military aircraft to “mix it up.”

Despite clear conditions, he said investigators would examine “human ability to perceive objects at night,” considering factors like night vision goggles and streetlight interference.

‘Whatever can happen’

Retired British Army Air Corps Major George Bacon, who has flown military helicopters in US air space, said night vision goggles could have been a factor in the crash.

“Although extremely good because it makes it almost look like daylight, they have a sort of ‘tunnel effect’” or can suffer interference from street lights, he said.

Captain Sully Sullenberger, known for safely landing his commercial plane in the Hudson River, told CBS that Reagan National was “considered a special airport that requires a bit more study to operate there safely, because of the short runways because of the proximity of other airports.”

While mid-air collisions “occur annually or biennially,” commercial aircraft involvement is rare, according to Syracuse University professor and aviation safety expert Kivanc Avrenli.

The last fatal commercial mid-air collision in the US occurred on April 9, 1990, when Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2254 collided with a Cessna in Alabama.

If confirmed as an accident, Wednesday’s crash will be Washington’s most serious since the 1982 Air Florida Flight 90 disaster, when a Boeing 737 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge during severe winter weather, killing 74 people.

That tragedy sparked significant changes in aviation safety regulations, particularly regarding de-icing procedures.

Sullenberger cautioned that catastrophic events can still occur when “all the dominoes line up in the wrong way.”

“Given enough time, given enough flights, given enough flight hours, eventually whatever can happen will happen unless we work very hard to prevent every incident from turning into an accident.” — AFP