Photo:Getty
Getty
On the night of Jan. 29, a CRJ700 passenger jet operating as a regionalAmerican Airlines flight collided in midair with a Black Hawk Army helicopteras the former was landing at Reagan International Airport. As of the morning of Jan. 30, no survivors have been found, according to officials. There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the American flight and 3 soldiers aboard the helicopter.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are investigating what led to the crash.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty
In August 2023, theTimesreleased a report digging into the recent alarming uptick in close calls happening between planes, both in the sky and on the tarmac, including why they happen and why the public often doesn’t know about them.
According to the investigation, incidents involving aircrafts nearly coming into contact with one another have seen a rapid rise across the country, involving almost every airport and major airline.
The report cited a lack of warning systems at airports coupled with a staffing shortage of air traffic controllers as some of the main contributing factors to these near-catastrophes that happen, on average, multiple times a week.
“This has really opened my eyes to how the next aviation accident may play out,” a pilot wrote to NASA after preventing a collision on the runway in January 2023, according to the outlet.
After another near miss that same month, an air-traffic controller asked, “Is it going to take people dying for something to move forward?”
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Speaking to theTimesWednesday night after the American Airlines collision, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who piloted the Miracle on the Hudson flight in 2009, weighed in on that sentiment.
“We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents, and not accidents,” he said.
The last fatal crash involving a major U.S. airline occurred in February 2009 whena Continental flight crashed into a house outside of Buffalo, N.Y. killing all 49 people on board. The lack of collisions between that event and Wednesday night marked the longest period of time without a fatal crash from a major U.S. airline.
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However, PEOPLE has reported on a number of near-misses in the last two years.
In January 2023, a Delta plane was preparing for take off when air traffic controllers noticed another craft crossing the runway in its path. Delta’s Boeing 737managed to safely stop roughly 1,000 feet shortof an American Airlines Boeing 777, according to the FAA.
Air traffic controller.Getty/Daniel Reiter / STOCK4B
A major problem, theNew York Timesreported, was the lack of properly staffed air-traffic control centers.
This has been a growing problem since the 1980s, says the outlet. The Reagan administration cut thousands of controllers who were on strike, and since, the department has seen departures in waves as controllers approach retirement age with no new trainees to take their place.
In June 2023, the Department of Transportation’s Inspector Generalreleased a reportstating, that the “FAA has made limited efforts to ensure adequate controller staffing at critical air traffic control facilities."
Speaking to the American public on Thursday, Jan. 30 President Donald Trump speculated, “We think we have some pretty good ideas” about what caused the crash. “We’ll find out how this disaster occurred and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
Trump also announced that he appointed an acting commissioner to the FAA for the investigation.
source: people.com
