US government admits negligence in helicopter-plane collision that killed 67 | US news
The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the military played a role in a January crash between a passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital that killed 67 people in the deadliest crash on American soil in more than two decades.
The official response to the initial lawsuit filed by families of one of the victims said the government was responsible for the crash because the air traffic controller violated procedures for when to trust pilots to maintain visual separation that night. It was also stated in the filing that the army helicopter pilots’ “failure to take care to see and avoid” the airline jet made the government liable.
But the dossier suggested others, including jet pilots and airlines, may have played a role. The lawsuit also stated that American Airlines and its regional partner PSA Airlines were also charged for their role in the crash, but those airlines filed a motion to dismiss.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter flew into the path of an American Airlines regional jet as it was landing at Ronald Reagan airport in Northern Virginia, just across from Washington, D.C., authorities said. While there were 60 passengers and 4 crew on the plane, there were 3 soldiers on the helicopter.
Robert Clifford, an attorney for victim Casey Crafton’s family, said the government acknowledged “the Army’s responsibility for the unnecessary loss of life” and that the FAA’s failure to follow air traffic control procedures “rightfully” acknowledged that others (American Airlines and PSA Airlines) also contributed to the deaths.
The victims’ families “remain deeply saddened and humbled by the pain caused by this tragic loss of life,” he said.
The government’s attorneys said in the filing that “the United States owed plaintiffs a duty of care, violated it, and therefore acknowledged that it was a proximate cause of the tragic accident.”
A spokesperson for American Airlines declined to comment on the filing, but in the airline’s motion to dismiss, the airline said “plaintiffs’ legal recourse is not against Americans, but against the United States government…Therefore, the court must remove Americans from this case.” The airline said it has focused on supporting the families of the victims since the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board will release its report on the cause of the crash early next year, but investigators have highlighted a number of contributing factors, including the helicopter flying 78 ft (24 m) higher than the 200 ft (61 m) limit on a route that allowed only minimal separation between planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway and helicopters passing below. Additionally, the NTSB said the FAA failed to recognize the dangers around the busy airport even after 85 near misses in the three years before the crash.
Before impact, the controller twice asked the helicopter pilots if the jet was in their line of sight, and the pilots responded that they were and asked for visual separation confirmation so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. FAA officials acknowledged in NTSB investigative hearings that controllers on the Reagan became overly reliant on the use of visual separation. This is a practice the agency has since ended.
Eyewitnesses told the NTSB that they have serious questions about how well the helicopter crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were looking in the right spot.
Investigators said the helicopter pilots may not have realized how high they were because the barometric altimeter read 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude recorded by the flight data recorder.
The crash victims included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coach, who had just entered a competition in Wichita, Kansas, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
