On the day of the plane crash over Washington, when an army helicopter collided with a passenger plane, there was a shortage of air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
This is reported by The New York Times, citing a previous report by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
A Sikorsky H-60 Army helicopter may have deviated from its approved flight path before it collided with an American Airlines passenger plane over the Potomac River in Washington. New details emerged as investigators combed the crash site for evidence.
Details of the helicopterʼs final location indicate that it was not following its approved route and was flying higher than it should have been above the ground as it crossed congested airspace near the nationʼs capital.
An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration says the controller who was handling helicopters near Reagan Airport on the evening of January 29 was also directing planes landing and departing from its runways. These tasks are usually handled by two controllers.
Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the planeʼs black boxes — the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder — and taken them for laboratory analysis.
- A Bombardier CRJ700 passenger jet collided with a helicopter over Washington, D.C., at approximately 9:00 p.m. local time on January 29. The plane was approaching the runway at Reagan National Airport. The plane plunged two meters into the Potomac River and broke into two pieces. 67 people died.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.