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Though officials stress that air travel has never been safer in America, Wednesday’s accident has raised concerns, particularly in high-traffic areas like the nation’s capital. Reagan National airport presents unique challenges — limits on where commercial flights are allowed to fly, skies congested with military aircraft and plenty of light on the ground, said Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline pilot and an assistant professor at the Center for Aviation Studies at the Ohio State University.
“Reagan is just so saturated with lights. It’s very easy to lose sight of an airplane in that flood of lights,” he said.
The aviation experts said there is also a possibility that the aircraft were in each other’s blind spots — which planes and helicopters have, just like cars. The fact that the two aircraft were so close to the ground would have meant they had limited time to maneuver around blind spots.
“Helicopter pilots can’t be just constantly leaning forward or backward, because you could become disoriented,” Pruchnicki said. “So there could have been a visual obstruction for them as they were trying to find this jet, and they ran out of time.”
A report this month by the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center found that in fiscal year 2024, the Army had the highest number of serious accidents, including fatalities, in a decade. Of the 15 incidents, only one involved a Black Hawk. The report noted that pilots might not be getting enough flight hours.
Jimmie Cummings, a spokesperson for the center, said it was difficult to explain the spike. He declined to comment on the flight-hours issue, however. “We’re really not doing things differently. We do all we can to promote safety but, at the end of the day, what we do is dangerous,” Cummings said.
The American Eagle jet, which was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members from Wichita, Kansas, was on a normal approach to Reagan, officials said. The chopper, a U.S. Army Black Hawk with three crew members from nearby Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was conducting a training flight — a common practice in the busy airspace above Reagan.
“This was not unusual with a military aircraft flying over the river and aircraft landing at DCA,” Duffy said, referring to the airport. “If you live in the area, you’ll see that frequently with those two aircraft working together.”
Dean Winslow, a retired Air Force colonel and onboard physician, said Black Hawks “are not incredibly maneuverable” and would have difficulty avoiding an airliner. “It would have been very difficult to see and avoid,” Winslow said.
The Army pilots aboard the helicopter had night vision goggles, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X. Winslow said night goggles can help view terrain and obstacles, but also can restrict a pilot’s field of view, “like looking through soda straws.”
Radio traffic recordings indicate that one of the last communications that took place was a controller asking the helicopter pilot if they saw the plane, and directing the chopper to pass behind it.
Seconds later, the helicopter slammed into the plane, a fireball lighting up the sky.
Jason Abbruzzese and Jay Blackman contributed.