Three days of hearings into the equally tragic and public collision in January between an Army helicopter and a passenger plane within a stone's throw of the nation's capital got underway on Wednesday, reports NBC Boston. The National Transportation Safety Board, which won't release its final report until sometime next year, has already concluded in its preliminary report that the Army Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high on its route near Reagan National Airport when it collided with American Eagle Flight 5342 on Jan. 29, killing all 67 aboard both aircraft. Black Hawk pilot Rebecca Lobach had been instructed to maintain an altitude of 200 feet, reports the New York Times, but had difficulty doing so and was at 300 feet at the time of the collision.
The AP notes that the NTSB plans broadly to "question witnesses and investigators about how the actions of the Federal Aviation Administration and its air traffic controllers and the Army may have contributed to the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001. It's likely too early for the board to identify the cause of the crash." Reagan National Airport also had a history of some 85 near misses that the FAA failed to identify, much less address.
But beyond the immediate causes of the crash, others are looking at the bigger picture of a crowded airspace and how to improve safety. Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday introduced legislation mandating that all aircraft broadcast two forms of their location data to other planes and air traffic controllers. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said her agency has cheered that move since at least 2008, telling the FAA that it would have "an immediate and substantial contribution to safety," per the AP.
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