A new report released by the Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs has shed light on a deadly incident involving an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army helicopter in the airspace over Washington, D.C. The report, titled "The DCA Incident: Assessing the Military’s Role in the National Airspace Tragedy," details a series of communication mishaps and procedural lapses that led to the January 29 collision, resulting in a call for a comprehensive evaluation by the DoD Inspector General into military operations in civilian airspace. Chairman William Timmons (R-S.C.) and Ranking Member Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) presented the report, emphasizing the need to improve safety and coordination to prevent future accidents, as stated in the press release.
The Subcommittee's investigation revealed key findings, including communication issues between the UH-60 Black Hawk and air traffic control, which were significant in the crash. Discrepancies in reported altitudes and unclear instructions contributed to the mid-air collision. The National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) Aviation Investigation Preliminary Report from March showed that a partial transmission failure caused the helicopter crew to miss an instruction intended to prevent the crash. "Similarly, the report mentions that seventeen seconds before the collision, the tower directed the Black Hawk to ‘pass behind the’ Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ). However, according to the helicopter’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR), a portion of ‘pass behind the’ may not have been heard by the crew, as reported in the Subcommittee's document, according to the same press release.
Adding to the tragedy, the use of night vision goggles by the Black Hawk pilots limited their ability to see the approaching commercial airplane, an issue that was raised during the NTSB hearing by human factors expert Dr. Stephen Casner. Casner noted that the goggles drastically reduce peripheral vision and the ability to detect oncoming aircraft. Furthermore, the Black Hawk was not transmitting Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out, hindering visibility on traffic systems used by other aircraft operators in the vicinity. This was highlighted during the hearing by Rick Dressler from Metro Aviation, who stated in the press release that this lack of information poses "an extreme challenge when those aircraft [military helicopters] are not usually transmitting ADS-B" for maintaining safety.
The Subcommittee's report also found that there are gaps in the Army's knowledge about DCA airspace a critical factor in ensuring safe aircraft operations in the area. Without adequate training on fixed-wing aircraft approaches to DCA runways, pilots like those from the 12th Aviation Battalion are at a disadvantage in such a complicated airspace. An additional breakdown in air traffic coordination was exposed when it was discovered that a critical DoD to DCA hotline was offline, an issue only uncovered after a separate May 1 near-miss incident.
Based on these findings, the Subcommittee has recommended a thorough evaluation of the DoD’s practices within U.S. civilian airspace and their adherence to aviation safety protocols. This assessment, as the report argues, would provide vital insights into risks and potential improvements to ensure the safety of military and civilian aircraft alike. It's a step that seeks to address the systemic weaknesses laid bare by the DCA collision and concurrent near misses, in an effort to forestall the recurrence of such avoidable catastrophes.
