Trump and Washington disaster: "The helicopter flew too high"

The military helicopter Blackhawk, who collided yesterday with a scheduled flight sul Potomac, a Washington, “He was flying too high, And a lot. “he wrote it on his social truth, the US president Donald Trump. “It was well beyond the limit of 60 meters, it is not so difficult to understand, right?”.

Trump’s words confirm the rumors published by various media, New York Times and NBC above all, according to which the helicopter flew to a higher share of the authorized one. The recordings of the conversations of the Reagan airport tower suggest that a controller has tried to warn the black hawk of the presence of the American Airlines plane a few seconds before the collision.

According to sources mentioned by the NYT, it is also possible that the Black Hawk was half a mile away from its designated route. There is a margin of only 100 meters between the designated routes of the helicopter and the jet, Which means that any significant deviation could be disastrous, said the aeronautical analyst and pilot Miles O’Brien to the CNN. Questions are also lifting on the composition of the crew of the helicopter in a crowded airspace such as that of the Reagan National.

Elizabeth McCormack, a former Black Hawk driver, said to have only three people on board was insufficient to have complete visibility. In addition, the air flight controller was carrying out two works: coordinated local air traffic and the helicopter, usually carried out by distinct people.

The controllers are trained to hold multiple positions and it is not uncommon that they carry out two works simultaneously during the calm periods, said the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

On two occasions nHe last three years, passenger planes have had to make evasive maneuvers To avoid helicopters during the approach to Reagan National, according to what was discovered by a revision of the accident reports by the CNN. In both cases, the pilots were notified of the presence of the other aircraft by the Traffic Collision Avoidance System of the plane. In a third accident that involved two helicopters, the report of a air traffic controller said that “there is not enough enough to hold all the positions in the tower”.

In addition, the helicopter crew may have exchanged a brighter and moving light in the night sky for the plane that had been educated to follow. “When the control tower asks the helicopter if he has the plane in view, the Black Hawk driver may have focused on the brighter and moving light and exchanged it for the plane he should have followed.