US restricts helicopter flights after Washington air crash; black boxes recovered

WASHINGTON – The US authorities restricted helicopter flights near Reagan Washington National Airport indefinitely on Jan 31, after

a mid-air collision

between a passenger jet and a military helicopter killed 67 people.

Officials said that 41 of the victims’ bodies had been recovered by Jan 31.

Investigators were able on Jan 31 to recover the helicopter’s black box, which captures flight data and voices in the cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member Todd Inman said at an afternoon briefing.

The information from the box, along with the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ700 airplane, could help the authorities piece together what happened just before the two aircraft collided on the night of Jan 29 and plunged into Washington’s freezing Potomac River in the deadliest US air disaster in two decades.

The board has also conducted interviews with air traffic controllers, Mr Inman said, including the lone controller working inside Reagan’s tower at the time of the crash.

The authorities have not identified a cause, and Mr Inman said the board would not engage in speculation before completing its investigation.

“The NTSB is an independent, bipartisan board – 58 years as the gold standard. Our job is to find the facts, but more importantly, our job is to make sure this tragedy doesn’t happen again, regardless of what anyone may be saying,” Mr Inman said, adding that he had not spoken to President Donald Trump or anyone at the White House.

Following the Washington crash, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sharply restricted helicopter flights near Reagan to reduce the risk of another collision, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Jan 31.

Mr Duffy said the decision “will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic”.

The FAA is barring most helicopters from parts of two routes near the airport and allowing only police and medical helicopters, air defence and presidential air transport in the area between the airport and nearby bridges.

The restrictions will last at least until the NTSB releases a preliminary report into the fatal collision, which typically takes 30 days. At that point they will be reviewed, Mr Duffy said.

American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom said the airline would work with the government “to make our aviation system even safer”.

Pulling the debris from the Potomac River will begin “in earnest” on Feb 2, Mr Inman said, an effort that will likely last all week.

Washington fire chief John Donnelly told reporters that 28 bodies have been positively identified and that he expected all victims would eventually be recovered.

The American Airlines plane was trying to land when it collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, killing all 60 passengers and four crew members aboard. Two of the three service members killed in the helicopter were identified on Jan 31.

Questions about safety

The crash has cast a harsh spotlight on questions about air safety and a shortage of tower controllers at the heavily congested airport that serves the US capital.

The FAA is about 3,000 controllers behind staffing targets. The agency said in 2023 that it had 10,700 certified controllers, about the same as a year earlier.

One controller rather than two was handling local plane and helicopter traffic on Jan 29 at the airport, a situation deemed “not normal” but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr Duffy on Jan 30 vowed to reform the FAA.

Airspace is crowded around the Washington area, home to three commercial airports, multiple military bases and some senior government officials who are ferried around by helicopter.

Over a three-year period ending in 2019, there was an average of 80 helicopter flights per day within 48km of Reagan National Airport, with the majority either military or law enforcement flights, according to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report.

The helicopter’s path has also drawn scrutiny. The military said the maximum altitude for the route the helicopter was taking is 200 feet (61m), but the collision occurred at an altitude of around 300 feet (91m), according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

Mr Trump weighed in on Jan 31, saying that the helicopter involved in the crash was flying too high.

“The Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 feet limit,” Mr Trump said, in a Truth Social post.

Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, questioned the safety of military and commercial flights separated by as little as 350 feet (107m) vertically and horizontally.

Radio communications showed that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter about the approaching jet and ordered it to change course.

The pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience, according to Mr Isom. The Bombardier jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary.

Mr Terry Liercke, vice-president of Reagan National, said two of the airport’s three runways were expected to remain closed for a week. The main runway at Reagan, which will stay open, handles about 90 per cent of the airport’s flights and is the busiest single runway in the US.

The crash victims included people from Russia, China, Germany and the Philippines, as well as young figure skaters returning from an elite national training camp in Kansas, the state from which the passenger flight took off. REUTERS