The National Transportation Safety Board says the Black Hawk helicopter was likely higher than its maximum-allowed height at the time of the crash.
The crew of the Army Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last month was likely wearing night vision goggles at the time of the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Feb. 14.
The agency also said it was confident that the helicopter’s radio altitude at the time of the collision was 278 feet, higher than its 200-feet maximum altitude for that route.
Additionally, the helicopter crew did not hear air traffic control’s (ATC) communication to “pass behind” the CRJ-700 jet.
“We believe the helicopter crew was likely wearing night vision goggles throughout the flight, given the nature of the flight,” NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news briefing on Feb. 14.
Homendy said the crew was performing a combined annual and night vision goggle check ride.
“Additionally, had they been removed, the crew was required to have a discussion about going unaided. There is no evidence on the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR, of such a discussion on this chart.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had said a day after the crash that the crew was likely wearing night-vision goggles at some point during the flight.
Multiple veteran pilots told The Epoch Times that the goggles can significantly obscure the visual line of sight when looking at bright lights during evening flights.
The plane’s landing lights, along with Washington’s vast city lights on the ground below, could be “blinding,” one pilot said, potentially being a “tremendous contributing factor” to the crash, the other pilot said.
The NTSB also said the helicopter was likely above its maximum allowed altitude for that route.
“Now we’re confident with the radio altitude of the Black Hawk at the time of the collision, that was 278 feet. But I want to caution that does not mean that’s what the Black Hawk crew was seeing on the barometric altimeters in the cockpit,” Homendy said.
