MATTER OF TIME

Congested Airspace Near Army Training Ground Made D.C. Plane Crash ‘Inevitable’

A Reddit user who said they are a former helicopter pilot described the incident as like a “semi truck going [the] opposite direction suddenly jumping the median.”

Pilots and planespotters have taken to social media to share their views about the causes of the fatal air crash in Washington D.C., with some citing frustration about widespread sharing of conspiracy theories.

One user of r/flying, a popular Reddit forum for the aviation industry, said they believed the fatal crash was “inevitable” because of how busy the skies were around the airport.

OSINTtechnical, a D.C.-based plane spotter, posted a widely shared thread on X, which said, “For many in the D.C.-area flying community, the crash tonight wasn’t a matter of if, but when.”

“It’s the first place I expected something like this to happen, because DCA [Ronald Reagan Airport] is extremely complicated,” wrote one commenter on Reddit, whose profile said they have experience flying large commercial airliners.

“For some reason they allow military helicopters to pass by... hundreds of feet from a runway,” they added.

The air crash involved an American Airlines jet, which collided with a U.S. Army helicopter while it was on approach to Ronald Reagan Airport.

The helicopter was operating from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and had the callsign PAT25, indicating it was part of the Priority Air Transport mission that provides VIP transport.

The helicopters are a common sight over Washington, D.C.

Overworked air traffic controllers and an overtaxed airport combined with military traffic from helicopters “makes this feel like this was an inevitability,” wrote another user under the name paynesvilletoss on r/flying.

The Daily Beast reached out to several of the Reddit users for further comment and to verify their credentials, but did not receive a reply.

One user who said they were a former Priority Air Transport pilot said that they had been angered by “uninformed” hot takes and that they had been in the “exact position” as the crashed American Airlines flight “multiple times.”

They described the incident as like a “semi truck going [the] opposite direction suddenly jumping the median and cutting in front of you,” and pleaded for people to “let the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] paint the full picture.”

Other pilots have provided context about why the technology on the two aircraft may have failed to prevent the collision.

Commercial aircraft usually have technology called TCAS, which stands for Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, and is designed to alert pilots and to direct them to avoid other aircraft with loud warnings and instructions in the cockpit.

The system may have automatically disabled in the American Airlines aircraft because it was so close to the ground, said Eyewitness News helicopter pilot John Del Giorno.

TCAS systems can automatically ignore alerts when the plane is within 1,000 feet of the ground, in order to avoid false alarms with other aircraft taxiing on the ground.

Another key technology which can help avoid collisions is ADS-B, which stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast, which sends data between aircraft and air-traffic control systems.

Aviation website The Aviationist said the Blackhawk was not transmitting ADS-B data, and was instead transmitting “Mode S” data, which it said “is often not 100% accurate, especially at lower altitudes.”

Overcrowding at the airport has also previously been highlighted by politicians.

Maryland’s two U.S. senators issued warnings about overcrowding at Ronald Reagan Airport nine months ago when they were among four senators to vote against a FAA reauthorization bill.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at the time that he was “outraged” about the bill, which added 10 new flights to the airport, one of the country’s busiest.

Sen. Mark Warner from Virginia said he had “repeatedly” raised the issue of the runways being too busy, speaking at a press conference held Thursday morning at the airport.

“I think we will ask questions, but at the appropriate time. In this period right now, where families are still being notified, we’re still trying to figure out what happened. There will be time for those discussions,” he said.

Meanwhile, passengers of flights that have previously landed at the airport have posted their experiences of close calls there.

Mitch Harper, a lawyer and former city council member in Fort Wayne, Indiana, recounted one story of a last minute go-around.

Dominic Cardy, a Canadian politician and pilot, shared a popular thread on X which included details about the congested airspace around Washington D.C.

“My feed is filled with nonsense,” he said, adding that the likely cause was overcrowded airspace and pilot error.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Conrad Quilty-HarperReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.