Quotes
They had to circle back around because there was a helicopter in the flight path,
passenger Richard Hart told the newspaper of his experience on the flight The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
President Donald Trump continued to front-run the investigation, posting on his TruthSocial We’re looking at altitude. The president was clear about that … someone was at the wrong altitude,
That investigation is ongoing.”
Asked whether the controller handling incoming traffic at the airport that night was hired or not fired based on their race, Leavitt said It takes a long time to train an air traffic controller,
Mary Schiavo, a former Department of Transportation inspector general, told CNN We have been short staffed for too many years and it’s creating so many unsafe situations,
one controller in Southern California wrote last year, recounting how a small aircraft requesting assistance could not be helped due to workload issues We are already on forced 6-day work weeks working overtime every week,
another controller in Northern California wrote Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has 25 Certified Professional Controllers and three Certified Professional Controllers in Training (CPC-ITs). CPC-ITs were previously fully certified at other facilities. The tower is authorized to have 28 controllers,
and FAA spokesperson said We expect to recover all of the bodies,
Today's decision will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic, ... The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system and today's action is a significant step towards restoring that trust."
Duffy said in a post on X This one was transitioning from track one to four as part of their normal procedure,
I am in the process of developing an initial plan to fix the @FAANews. I hope to put it out very shortly,
Duffy said on X on Thursday The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,
You need to train as you fight, you need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario,
Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,
said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation We are looking at altitude... someone was at the wrong altitude. The investigation will help us understand that – was the Black Hawk too high? Was it on course? Right now we don’t quite know,
PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ."
The controller made another call to the chopper just moments later, saying What I've heard from the audio is that they called out to [air traffic control]. The helicopter said that he had the aircraft in sight,
Do you have the CRJ in sight?"
the controller asked, and the helicopter pilot confirmed Having flown at night, having tried to look and see traffic, I think most people would say, ‘Oh, how hard is it to miss an airliner,’ right? You should be able to see that. But it's a lot more difficult than people would expect,
