D.C. Air Site visitors
Airplane Averted Helicopter Over D.C.
1 Day Earlier than Disaster
Printed
A flight to Reagan Nationwide Airport was pressured to abort its preliminary touchdown resulting from helicopter exercise within the D.C. space … sooner or later earlier than the catastrophic crash that left dozens lifeless.
Take a look at the video … Republic Airways Flight 4514 is clearly on a easy monitor from Connecticut and begins its descent … after which abruptly circles round earlier than touching down.
In an audio recording revealed by LiveATC.internet, air visitors management is heard warning the pilot … “There’s a helicopter over Georgetown northbound 300 feet.”
The pilot of the twin-engine Embraer ERJ 175 instantly responds .. saying they’re halting the descent and “going around” to climb to an elevation of three,000 toes.
“We had an RA with the helicopter traffic below us,” the pilot provides, referring to a decision advisory from the Site visitors Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) … meant to warn pilots concerning the hazard of a collision.
Shut name … however fortunately the plane landed safely 13 minutes forward of schedule.
After all, American Airways Flight 5342 had a distinct end result … colliding with an Military Black Hawk helicopter throughout its descent to Reagan Nationwide. All 64 folks on board the industrial flight and the three troops contained in the Black Hawk died.
The NTSB confirmed Thursday evening that the airplane’s black packing containers have been recovered and will likely be despatched for evaluation down the highway on the NTSB lab.