 "Army helicopter in Washington DC crash was flying outside of approved path: Report")
The US Army helicopter involved in the Washington DC crash was flying too high and outside of its approved flight path, according to a report.
A US Army Black Hawk helicopter with three personnel collided in the air on Wednesday evening with an American Airlines passenger aeroplane with 60 passengers and four crew members. The passenger plane was approaching the Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, at the time of collision. Both the aircraft crashed into the Potomac river after the crash. No one in either of the aircraft is believed to have survived the crash .
The New York Times has reported four persons aware of the matter as saying that the Army helicopter was flying too high and outside of its flight path by hundreds of feet.
The helicopter was supposed to fly on a specific, predetermined route with a flight ceiling of 200 feet on the east side of the Potomac river, but the helicopter was above 300 feet, not below 200 feet as mandated, and was at least half a mile outside of the approved route at the time of the collision, according to The Times.
The route that the helicopter was supposed to fly but deviated from is called the ‘Route 4 at Reagan’ and has been specifically carved out for military helicopters that let them avoid the civilian traffic of the Reagan airport.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWhen the helicopter confirmed visual sight of the American Airlines plane, the air traffic controller instructed the pilot to follow ‘Route 4 at Reagon’ and go behind the plane, but the helicopter did not follow that route, according to the people who spoke to The Times.
Had the helicopter followed that route, the helicopter and the passenger plane would not have come each-other’s path.
Even as the investigators are looking into the crash, the worst in the United States in 2001, US President Donald Trump has started politicising it and assigning blame . He blamed staffers hired under the previous Joe Biden and Barak Obama administrations under the diversity programmes for the crash. He said such staffers reduced the safety standards. Previously, he had blamed the helicopter pilot for the crash.
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a clear night, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. Not good! (sic)” said Trump in a post on Truth Social.
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