WASHINGTON (AP) — A public hearing opened Tuesday to make clear what factors played the biggest role in a midair collision that killed 67 people a year ago near Washington, D.C., and the National Transportation Safety Board will recommend what should be done to prevent similar tragedies.
“It will not be an easy day,” board member Todd Inman said. “There is no singular person to blame for this. These were systemic issues across multiple organizations.”
Everyone aboard an American Airlines jet flying from Wichita, Kansas, and an Army Black Hawk helicopter died when the two aircraft ran into each other and plummeted into the icy Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025. It was the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001.
The Federal Aviation Administration made several changes shortly after the crash to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same crowded airspace around the nation's capital, and last week made those changes permanent. The NTSB will recommend additional action, and families of the victims have said they hope that leads to meaningful changes.
Early in the hearing, NTSB investigators showed a video animation to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for the pilots in both aircraft to spot the other amid the lights of Washington. The animation also showed how the plane’s and the helicopter’s windshields, and the helicopter crew’s night vision goggles, restricted views.
Lead investigator Brice Banning said an air-traffic controller was handling six airplanes and five helicopters at the time.
Some people were escorted from the room, including two in tears, as an animation of the flights began. Several entered the auditorium wearing black shirts bearing the names of crash victims.
“I hope that we see a clear path through the recommendations they offer to ensure that this never happens again,” Rachel Feres, who lost her cousin Peter Livingston and his wife and two young daughters in the crash, said ahead of the hearing. “That nobody else has to wake up to hear that an entire branch of their family tree is gone, or their wife is gone or the child is gone. That’s what I hope coming out of this. I hope we have clarity and urgency.”
Whether that happens depends on how Congress, the Army and the Trump administration respond after the hearing. Victims' families say they will keep the pressure on officials to act.
Young Alydia and Everly Livingston were among 28 members of the figure skating community who died in the crash. Many of them had been in Wichita for a national skating competition and development camp.
The NTSB has already spelled out many of the key factors that contributed to the crash and detailed what happened that night. That includes a poorly designed helicopter route past Ronald Reagan National Airport, the fact that the Black Hawk was flying 78 feet (23.7 meters) higher than it should have been, the warnings that the FAA ignored in the years beforehand, and the Army’s move to turn off a key system that would have broadcast the helicopter’s location more clearly.
Several other high-profile crashes and close calls followed the D.C. collision, alarming the flying public. But NTSB statistics show that the total number of crashes last year was the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, with 1,405 nationwide.
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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and White reported from Detroit. AP Airlines writer Rio Yamat contributed from Las Vegas.
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