MISSOURI – The National Transportation Safety Board has yet to determine the cause of Wednesday’s deadly crash involving a military helicopter and a commercial flight in Washington, D.C.
Lute Atieh is a pilot who operates the Fly Tech Pilot Academy in northwest Missouri. His heart goes out to the victims, and he said conversations with other pilots on Thursday included an emphasis on the importance of being vigilant about safety.
“It’s just a really a heartbreaking situation, and it highlights how human this whole process is,” he said. “It’s not normally one particular issue that causes an incident or an accident; it’s several little things.”
Wednesday’s tragedy resulted in 67 deaths, including a woman with family ties to St. Louis.
Chip Shanle is a retired military pilot with extensive commercial experience. He’s also an award-winning author and a military aviation technical adviser for the movie industry.
Shanle said recordings of air traffic control communication prior to the crash indicate the pilot of the Army helicopter involved in a training exercise had a visual on nearby traffic. Shanle said it’s possible the pilot was referring to a different aircraft and never saw the American Airlines plane that was landing.
“When you’re maneuvering to land, you’re not going to look over the rail down, and the helicopter, they only have so much visibility,” he said.
Mel Burkart served as a captain in the U.S. Navy and is a retired commercial pilot with 34 years in the industry, ending his career as an international captain for TWA. Additionally, he has served as the principal of MG Burkart Associates as an aviation safety and management consultant.
He said Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is known for a heavy amount of air traffic in confined airspace.
“I wonder if they didn’t kind of get lost in the darkness there with all of the city lights and the airport lights,” he said.
Shanle said it will take time before the public has answers from federal investigators.
“You’ll get an initial investigation of what they think they’re pretty positive happened, and then you’ll get a more long-term investigation that will go into great detail and that will be a matter of record, but it’ll take a while,” he said.