On Jan. 29, just before 9PM EST, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk (Sikorsky H-60) helicopter. All 64 passengers and crew on the Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and the three helicopter crewmen were killed. An immediate rescue operation in the frigid waters of the Potomac quickly became a recovery operation, with searches for bodies and the regional jet’s black boxes (cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder) underway.
Investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Army are ongoing. The hope is that a reason can be found for the incident, with such information useful to avoid future accidents like this anywhere commercial airplanes and military helicopters share common airspace.
Anyone who flies commercially, and certainly in and out of Reagan National Airport (DCA), begins to think that they could have been on the ill-fated flight. Maneuvering through DCA’s airspace is particularly challenging, given the no-fly zones around the Capital and the White House and the airport’s short runways, including the one AA 5342 was directed to land on. On this evening, the weather conditions were clear and air traffic control was in direct communication with the AA5342 crew. Military helicopters flying in the area are common. Early evidence suggests that the crash was avoidable.
A full investigation will involve a root cause analysis to eliminate what did not cause the accident. Weather and mechanical issue appear highly unlikely. Air Traffic Control also appears to have followed standard operating procedures. They did change the original flight plan for the AA flight to a shorter runway (labeled Runway 33, which points north-northwest), as confirmed by the flight crew. They also alerted the helicopter of the presence of the regional jet, which has not been confirmed. Shortly after that, the crash occurred.
That leaves human error as the likely culprit.
Whether evidence of the type of mistake made can be found, however, remains to be seen. The aircraft’s black boxes may provide some clues of what the flight crew and aircraft experienced seconds before the collision.
Given that a video appears to show the helicopter colliding into the regional jet, this suggests that the error may have been on the part of the helicopter crew. We have yet to learn whether they were following standard operating procedures during their training flight or if the crew of the regional jet acted in error.
Despite this event, U.S. airspace is remarkably safe. The last significant helicopter crash in the nation was just over five years ago, in the Los Angeles area, with NBA star Kobe Bryant among the victims. The cause of that crash was weather.
Among commercial flights, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed on landing at San Francisco International airport in 2013, with three fatalities. Prior to that, Colgan Flight 3407 crashed on final approach to the Buffalo International Airport in 2009, killing 50 people.
Travelers have become accustomed to a risk-free airspace. Events like this one at DCA jar us all back into reality — that there is risk with air travel, even if such risk is infinitesimally small.
The last airplane incident with more than 64 casualties dates back to November 2001, when 265 people died on American Airline Flight 587 out of JFK International. Flight crew error was determined to be the cause of the accident.
Any time an accident occurs leading to avoidable deaths, everyone is saddened. Passengers on AA 5342 included U.S. and Russian figure skaters, their coaches and family members. Family and friends of every person on the flight are left behind to mourn their loss.
The next several days will likely provide a clearer picture of what transpired before, during and after the collision. The best-case scenario is that this is a one-off incident caused by an isolated human error, not any systemic issues that require widespread system changes.
Given that the Army helicopter was on a training flight out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia, human error with the helicopter crew appears plausible, though not definitive. The same can be said with the air traffic controller communications to the helicopter crew. When they alerted the helicopter crew about the regional jet, were they talking about and seeing the same aircraft?
Until all this is confirmed or refuted, we all will need to wait, as 67 avoidable deaths will be mourned and remain in the public eye.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in computer science in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He used his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.
