U.S.
Army helicopter was alerted to plane’s presence 2 minutes before collision
By
The Washington Post February 1, 2025
Ian Duncan, Evan Hill, Samuel Oakford and Meg Kelly
The Washington Post February 1, 2025
D.C. Fire Chief John A. Donnelly, left, listens to Terry Liercke, VP and manager of Reagan National Airport, at a news conference discussing the recovery efforts of the fatal midair collision of an Army helicopter and a passenger jet. (John McDonnell for The Washington Post)
Air traffic controllers twice alerted the crew of a U.S. Army helicopter to the presence of an inbound American Airlines jet, with the first warning issued two minutes before the aircraft collided Wednesday night near Reagan National Airport, radio transmissions show.
While the quality makes it difficult to hear the audio recordings, aviation experts who reviewed the communications for The Washington Post said that a member of the Black Hawk helicopter crew responded each time by saying that he could see the plane and requested “visual separation,” meaning the helicopter crew would maintain a safe distance. Each time, the request was approved.
At about 8:48 p.m., roughly 12 seconds after the second alert from the control tower, the aircraft collided several hundred feet above the Potomac River.
Audio recordings captured airport staff reacting. “Oh my, did you see that?” one said. “I just saw a fireball, and then it was just gone,” said another.
All 64 people on board the flight from Wichita and the three soldiers on the helicopter are believed to have died. Rescue workers are still recovering bodies from the icy river.
The radio transmissions indicate that the helicopter had more than enough time to take action to avoid the plane, according to three aviation experts. That the helicopter crew said it would do so but did not, experts told The Post, suggests that the crew may have seen something else — such as another aircraft in the area — and not the American Airlines flight flagged twice by the air traffic controller.
“If he was looking at the right airplane, he wouldn’t have hit him,” retired National Transportation Safety Board investigator Scott Dunham said. “They were miles apart. … The resolution literally takes seconds.”
Flight path data shows another inbound plane behind the American Airlines plane and around 11 miles from the helicopter at the time of the first warning. Dunham said the second plane could have been difficult to distinguish from the jet arriving from Wichita, particularly at night.
The midair accident is the first deadly crash involving a major U.S. airline in the United States since a single passenger flight crashed into a house outside Buffalo nearly 16 years ago, killing 50 people, and has led to questions about management of the congested civilian and military airspace around Washington’s closest airport.
The cause of the collision remains unclear, and the investigation is in very early stages. Just before the crash, the Black Hawk had been flying above a 200-foot ceiling for helicopters in the area, according to radar and flight tracking data and a person familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing probe.
At a news briefing Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said that there had been “standard” communication between the aircraft and air traffic control tower. “I would say the helicopter was aware that there was a plane in the area,” Duffy said.
The helicopter was flying south along the Potomac, and the plane was flying north toward the airport.
As the American Airlines plane neared the airport, flight controllers redirected it from Runway 1, where the audio records suggested there was other air traffic, to Runway 33. The plane adjusted its course, making a wide turn that brought it northwest across the river on a trajectory that intersected with the helicopter’s path.
At about 8:46 p.m. on Wednesday night, air traffic controllers first notified the helicopter, a Priority Air Transport flight using call sign PAT25, about the American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 coming in for landing on Runway 33.
The helicopter crew member responded saying he had “traffic in sight” and requested “visual separation,” an agreement with air traffic controllers that they will keep eyes on another aircraft and avoid it, according to the radio communications. Air traffic controllers in the airport tower quickly approved the request.
Two aviation experts who listened to the audio said the speaker used the PAT25 call sign.
Shortly after 8:47 p.m., audio from the control tower captured a sound that aviation experts said is consistent with a conflict alert, like a backup camera on a car that says you are getting close to an object.
Around the same time, the letters “CA” began to flash in red next to the two aircraft on an FAA radar display, according to video playback reviewed by The Post. Such “conflict alerts” are accompanied by an audible alarm to ensure they are noticed, Dunham said.
Immediately after the alert, the air traffic controller asked the helicopter: “PAT25 do you have the CRJ in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ.”
“Aircraft in sight, request visual separation,” the helicopter crew member responded seconds later, confirming for a second time that they were aware of a plane ahead. No further communications between the controllers and the helicopter are audible after this exchange.
The American flight continued northwest on its descent over the next several seconds, according to flight data and video. The helicopter continued on its path south along the river.
Roughly 12 seconds after the final audible communication between air traffic control and the helicopter, gasps can be heard in the audio recordings from the control tower. Around 8:48 p.m., both aircraft disappear from the FAA radar video.
Dash cam video obtained by The Post shows the passenger plane in its final descent as the helicopter flies above the Potomac. A white flash lights up the sky as they collide, and pieces of debris fall into the river.
In the audio reviewed by The Post, there is no audible communication between the air traffic controllers and the passenger jet in the moments before the crash. Experts cautioned, however, that audio feeds can be incomplete.
Alerts from cockpit traffic collision avoidance systems, which are meant to automatically detect other nearby aircraft and send alarms, are limited during landings so that pilots can concentrate on flying the planes, said Capt. Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot who flew for the airline for 40 years, including flights to and from Reagan National Airport. Those warnings are limited below around 1,000 feet, according to FAA documents, and the passenger jet was flying below that altitude at the time of the crash.
Aimer said that the gusting winds, congested airspace and crisscrossing nature of the airport’s landing and takeoff runways created layers of challenges for aircraft that night.
Reagan National Airport “is one of the most congested airspaces in the country,” Aimer said. “And we’ve been kind of warning for the past few years of the saturation of traffic, and the fact that we’ve had such a good run of safety, but unfortunately it came to an end.”
Alex Horton, Álvaro Valiño, Amaya Verde and Andrew Ba Tran contributed to this report.