"The placement of a helicopter route in the approach path of Reagan national airport's secondary runway created a dangerous airspace and a lack of regular safety risk reviews made it worse, the board said. That was a key factor in the crash along with air traffic controllers' over reliance on asking helicopter pilots to avoid other aircraft."
"Those include the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) denying a 2023 request by a regional supervisor to reduce air traffic at Reagan and the failures to relocate the helicopter route or warn pilots more about the dangers after an eerily similar near miss in 2013. NTSB chairperson Jennifer Homendy made no apology for her occasionally stern tone."
"We should be angry. This was 100% preventable. We've issued recommendations in the past that were applicable to use. We have talked about seeing and avoid for well over five decades. It's shameful. I don't want to be here years from now looking at other families that had to suffer such devastating loss."
NTSB members found that a helicopter route positioned in the approach path of Reagan National Airport's secondary runway created dangerous airspace that contributed to a collision killing 67 people. A lack of regular safety risk reviews and overreliance on pilots to "see and avoid" worsened the risk. The FAA denied a 2023 regional request to reduce air traffic at Reagan, and officials failed to relocate the route or better warn pilots after a similar 2013 near miss. Investigators called the crash preventable, and grieving family members reacted emotionally during the proceedings.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]