united state army helicopter accidents like the one that removed an industrial American Airlines trip over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening are extremely unusual, yet there has actually been an uptick in these occurrences in recent times, according to army stats and an aeronautics professional.
A total amount of 64 individuals, consisting of travelers and trip team participants, were aboard AA Flight 5342 from Wichita to Reagan National Airport (DCA). Three soldiers were carrying out a training procedure on the Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk that originated from Fort Belvoir inVirginia
“It’s concerning, certainly, the number of incidents that there have been,” Timothy Loranger, an aeronautics lawyer at Wisner Baum and a Marine Corps expert, informedFox News Digital “But if you compare it to the thousands and thousands of hours of flights that occur without any incident … that’s all very good.”
The accident has actually triggered concerns concerning just how such a destructive mishap can occur in among one of the most firmly regulated airspaces in the nation and the globe. The last considerable deadly business accident occurred in 2009, when a Continental Airlines trip collapsed right into a home in Buffalo, New York, eliminating 49 individuals.
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Crew get wreck of American Airlines Flight 5342 in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., onJan 30, 2025. The airplane was associated with a deadly accident with a UNITED STATE Army Black Hawk helicopter the previous evening. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)
“Is there something that we can point to? Training? Is the budget of the military sufficient to make sure that pilots and the crew have enough training and experience in order to fly those aircraft?” Loranger claimed. “Those are the kinds of questions that have to be asked. If it’s a problem with the aircraft itself, a mechanical issue, what is that? Is it a design issue? Is it a manufacturing issue? Is it a maintenance issue?”
Military helicopter accidents, while unusual, have actually been taking place a lot more regularly over the in 2014, according to Army information.
AMERICAN AIRLINES AIRPLANE, MILITARY HELICOPTER COLLIDE OUTSIDE REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT TERMINAL NEAR WASHINGTON DC
FBI representatives stand near particles, after American Airlines Flight 5342 rammed a Black Hawk helicopter while coming close to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and collapsed right into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, onJan 30, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Fiscal year 2024 had one of the most extreme aeronautics occurrences that caused casualties considering that 2014 and the most awful price of fatalities and extreme injuries from occurrences per 100,000 hours considering that 2007, according to Army statistics.
Fox News counted at the very least 10 fatalities from united state army helicopter accidents alone in 2024, consisting of 5 Marines in the very same airplane, and several others hurt. Since 2012, there have actually been 21 Black Hawk accident fatalities.
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Loranger called the uptick in army helicopter fatalities in 2014 “concerning.”
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed “Fox & Friends” on Friday that authorities “will get to the bottom of what happened here.”
“It’s completely unacceptable in our nation’s capital or anywhere. The military trains, and it trains robustly. And we’re not going to stop training, even though there’s a pause on this unit, on this exercise, which is an important one. And we should have that pause until we get to the bottom of this,” Hegseth claimed. “…We have to train safely. Something like this can never happen. And it’s completely unacceptable.”
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The teacher pilot accountable that was flying the Black Hawk on Wednesday for a training procedure obviously had 1,000 flying hours, which is taken into consideration extremely knowledgeable, and the co-pilot that was additionally being assessed had 500 flying hours, which is taken into consideration an ordinary quantity of experience, according to a united state authorities that spoke with Fox News.
“This is a relatively easy route,” an Army primary warrant police officer 5 with years of experience flying Army helicopters informed press reporters at the Pentagon onThursday The pilot was flying down the facility of the river, which is usually dark, most likely using evening vision safety glasses. Memorial Bridge would certainly have been their last checkpoint.
The Jan 29 Washington, D.C., plane-helicopter accident map.
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Military and various other federal government helicopters fly the very same course practically daily, the elderly Army pilot and warrant police officer informed press reporters.
“This should not have been a problem,” the authorities claimed.
Loranger explained DCA as “a very complicated airspace, very busy airspace.”
Photos of targets adhering to the accident in between an American Airlines jet and a UNITED STATE Black Hawk helicopter. (Getty Images)
“There’s a lot of airplanes and aircraft flying in and out,” he claimed, including that aircrafts have systems in position created to assist provide details to pilots concerning pilots or various other items flying close-by to stay clear of accidents like the one onWednesday It may have been hard for the business aircraft and the Black Hawk to see each various other during the night over the river, Loranger claimed.
Staffing at the air control tower at DCA was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an interior initial Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) record assessed by The New York Times.
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The controller that was taking care of helicopters Wednesday evening was additionally advising aircrafts that were touchdown and leaving from the flight terminal paths, the Times reported. Those jobs are usually designated to 2 controllers.
An aircraft flies near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in the consequences of the accident of American Eagle Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that collapsed right into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, onJan 30, 2025. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
“I don’t know exactly how the staffing occurred in that particular air traffic control tower,” Hegseth informed “Fox & Friends.” “It sounds like there was a shortage [of controllers], and the investigation will tell us more about that. But the environment around which we choose pilots or air traffic controllers, as the president pointed out correctly yesterday, better be the highest possible standard — the best of the best who are managing … a flight a minute and managing radio traffic.”
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The air control tower at Reagan Airport has actually been understaffed for many years with 19 completely accredited controllers since September 2023. The FFA and controllers’ union, nonetheless, required 30 controllers in its staffing targets.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, Liz Friden and Louis Casiano added to this record.
