Helicopter flew outside its approved path and air traffic controller was juggling two jobs at the same time
Emergency response units search the crash site near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Thursday. Photograph: Maansi Srivastava/New York Timesdeadly collision Wednesday night between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet
But the catastrophe already appeared to confirm what pilots, air traffic controllers and safety experts had been warning for years: Growing holes in the aviation system could lead to the kind of crash that left 67 people dead in the Potomac River in Washington.
While there were no unusual factors causing a distraction for controllers that night, staffing was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the preliminary FAA report said. Before a helicopter can enter any busy commercial airspace, it must get the approval of an air traffic controller. In this case, the pilot asked for permission to use a specific, predetermined route that lets helicopters fly at a low altitude along the bank on the east side of the Potomac, a location that would have let it avoid the American Airlines plane.
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