It could take up to a year to learn how an Army Blackhawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet on Wednesday night, the first major deadly crash in the United States involving an airliner in nearly 16 years.
64 people onboard American Airlines Flight 5342 along with the crew of 3 were killed on the military chopper when the collision happened just before 9 p.m. ET as the regional jet was on final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Not since 2009 – when a commercial aircraft crashed in Buffalo, New York – has there been a major loss of life on a passenger jet.
Just a few weeks before Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed during landing killing 47 people, the nation was celebrating the miraculous water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 when ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ pilot Captain "Sully" Sullenberg and crew successfully performed a water landed on the Hudson River after a bird strike caused catastrophic engine failure.
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Sullenberger said on ABC’s Good Morning America, once the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) releases the probable cause and contributing factors there would likely be changes.
“What we always do after an accident, learn from it and improve our system and change for the better,” said Sullenberger. “What seems apparent from the air traffic control communications is that the airplanes were able to see each other, at least one was able to see the other, and the air traffic controller was able to relieve himself of the requirement to have him separate the airplanes and the pilots would have to separate from each other visually by identifying the other aircraft and staying a safe distance away,” added Sullenberger.
“Obviously, at some point, separation was tragically lost.”
ABC News reported it appeared the helicopter crew was aware the American Airlines jet was operating in the area, according to LiveATC.net communications between ATC and the chopper.
The helicopter crew was asked if “you have CRJ in sight?” CRJ references the type of aircraft – a Bombardier CRJ700.Seconds later, ATC told the chopper crew to “pass behind the CRJ”, reported ABC.
During a Thursday briefing, the NTSB stressed it will take time to uncover the cause of the crash and that a preliminary report should be expected within 30 days.
As part of the probe, investigators will work to determine if the unique challenges of operating in and out of Reagan National Airport were a factor in the crash.
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“It’s a legacy airport built, you know, a long time ago to different standards,” added Sullenberger. “It's been upgraded in certain ways, but it's land locked with the river on one side and civilization on the other. There's not much room for expansion to make the runways longer or to have larger safety areas, and it's kind of a special airport that pilots need to have unique training on to fly in and out of.”
Considered a “special airport”, he said airline pilots “require a bit more study to operate there safely” because of high traffic and other nearby airports.
“If you're an airline pilot, it's considered a special airport that requires a bit more study to operate there safely, because of the short runways, because of the proximity of other airports and because of the traffic level,” said Sullenberger. “It's a high traffic, high density area, and lots of different kinds of traffic that's mixed together. In this case, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.”
He said that in that mix of aircraft and challenges “it makes things more complex.”
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As of Thursday afternoon, more than two dozen victims have been recovered from the American Airlines jet and one body was pulled from the helicopter as the nation begins to learn the names and stories of the passengers of the flight and crew onboard the military chopper.
Meanwhile, as the nation processes the tragedy and any upcoming potential changes to aviation safety, Sullenberger said it’s important to keep the country’s overall aviation safety record in mind.
“We have to realize how many things have to go right every day for us to have this now ultra-safe transportation industry. The chances of any one of us being in an airline crash is infinitesimal, that we have a lot of people who work very hard every day and are very dedicated to keep us safe, and we have 1,000s of people doing that every day,” said Sullenberger. He said while 10,000 flights a day operate safely in the U.S., any lapse could prove to be fatal.
“We have a lot of safety layers in there. If all the dominoes line up in the wrong way, we can have – on rare occasions – a catastrophic event,” said Sullenberger. “Given enough time, given enough flights, given enough flight hours, eventually, whatever can happen will happen unless we work very hard to prevent every incident from turning into an accident.”
You watch Sullenberger's analysis in the video player below:
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