Captain Jonathan Campos and First Officer Samuel Lilley were desperately trying to prevent disaster as their PSA Airlines aircraft raced toward a Black Hawk helicopter, data from the flight’s black box reveals.
On January 29 at 8:47 p.m. ET, a tragic mid-air collision occurred when Flight 5342, a jet owned by American Airlines, struck the Black Hawk helicopter carrying three US soldiers who were part of a training mission.
The plane, with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard, was en route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington DC when it collided with the helicopter as it was approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for landing.
This disaster marked the deadliest plane crash in the US since 2001 and the first major aviation incident in the country in 16 years. Both the aircraft and the helicopter plunged into the Potomac River, and over 300 first responders rushed to the scene. Unfortunately, no one survived the crash.
According to information retrieved from the plane’s black box, both pilots made a final attempt to avert the crash. Todd Inman, an official with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), explained at a press conference on February 1, “At one point very close to the impact, there was a slight change in pitch, an increase in pitch.”
The safety board also mentioned that the preliminary data from the aircraft’s flight recorder didn’t match the control tower’s reading of the helicopter’s altitude at the time of the crash (via CNN).
According to the flight recorder, the helicopter’s altitude was around 325 feet at the moment of impact, whereas the control tower had recorded it at 200 feet.
