The National Transport Security Board will certainly hold 3 days of investigatory hearings starting Wednesday to examine the Military and FAA authorities along with various other events to the examination and offer its searchings for from the continuous examination right into January’s midair accident in between American Airlines Trip 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington’s Reagan National Airport terminal.
The NTSB is likewise anticipated to launch hundreds of web pages of proof in a public docket Wednesday early morning.
The local jet was flying from Wichita, Kan., right into Washington when it rammed the Military helicopter, which got on a training trip, eliminating all 64 travelers and team on the jet and the 3 team participants in the helicopter.
The NTSB will certainly concentrate on a range of subjects in the hearings. The very first day will certainly concentrate on the helicopter’s altimeters and information systems along with the style and use the airspace around the flight terminal.
In this January 30, 2025, data picture, emergency situation devices react to aircraft wreck in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport Terminal in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, DOCUMENTS
” We’re mosting likely to concentrate on [air traffic control], so air traffic control service and training, support, treatments, what was taking place airborne that evening, and once again, that is within FAA’s province,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy informed press reporters on Tuesday.
The NTSB will certainly likewise go over accident evasion systems on airplane along with any type of security information that was readily available and inaccessible and exactly how security administration systems can be carried out and enhanced.
Witnesses that are affirming at the hearings consist of employees from the Military, American Airlines and the Federal Air Travel Management.
Homendy likewise claimed the board would certainly be launching “hundreds of web pages of proof” in a public docket on Wednesday.
On the eve of the investigatory hearings, Sen. Ted Cruz presented regulations called “The Blades Act,” which would certainly call for all airplane, consisting of army, to send ADSB place when flying. The regulations is co-sponsored by 8 various other Republican legislators. Cruz was signed up with at a press conference by Transport Assistant Sean Duffy, Homendy, FAA Manager Bryan Bedford and relative of the very first police officers and those that passed away in the collision.
In this April 11, 2025, data picture, Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transport Safety And Security Board Talks throughout an interview after a helicopter collapsed on the Hudson River in Jacket City, New Jacket.
Sight Press through Corbis through Getty Images, DOCUMENTS
Automatic Dependent Security– Program (ADSB) is an airplane system which enables it to send its place to various other airplane along with to air web traffic controllers. All airplane flying over 18,000 feet are called for to have ADSB yet particular airplane, consisting of army airplane, are excluded from sending ADSB place for protection factors.
Homendy claimed the NTSB suggested to the FAA to call for ADSB on all airplane almost twenty years back.
” ADSB, and I can not emphasize this sufficient, is a game-changer, a game-changer when it pertains to security and will certainly give, as we claimed in 2008 prompt and significant payment to security. This will certainly conserve lives. This regulations will certainly conserve lives,” Homendy claimed.
In its initial record, the NTSB claimed there is no sign the Black Hawk team can inform it got on a clash with Trip 5342, which was touchdown at the very same time the helicopter was passing completion of the path.
Sen. Ted Cruz adventures in a lift beyond the Us senate Chambers in the United State Capitol on July 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Documents
The helicopter team could have had negative info from their altimeter, which gauges elevation, as the pilots had varying elevations in the secs prior to the collision, the NTSB claimed in its initial record in February.
” We are checking out the opportunity of there might misbehave information,” Homendy claimed at the time.
The team of the helicopter could not have actually listened to a transmission from the tower that advised them to go behind the airplane since the pilot might have keyed her radio at the very same 2nd and tipped on the transmission from ATC, the NTSB initial record searchings for revealed.
One helicopter pilot believed they went to 400 feet and the various other idea they went to 300 feet. The NTSB claimed it was not prepared to state precisely just how high the helicopter went to effect.
