Washington: The passenger plane that collided with a military helicopter while landing in the US capital was about 325 feet (99 metres) above the ground at the time of impact, crash investigators have revealed, lending credence to President Donald Trump’s earlier declaration the chopper was flying too high.
However, preliminary radar data has led investigators to believe the helicopter may have shown an altitude of 200 feet to controllers in the tower – its prescribed maximum height when flying in the approved corridor near Washington’s busy central airport.
An American Airlines airplane takes off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.Credit: Bloomberg
The National Transportation Safety Board said it did not yet have an altitude readout from the US Army Black Hawk helicopter, and it would not yet say definitely how high the aircraft were when they collided. But board member Todd Inman said the 325-feet figure for the American Airlines plane, give or take 25 feet, was “a data point we feel very comfortable with”.
Inman said there was an “internal debate” among investigators about whether to release the information before the helicopter’s altitude or the radar data were confirmed. “We have not finalised that,” he said.
The figures lend support to a theory the military helicopter was higher than it should have been, as Trump has publicly stated. “The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” he posted on his TruthSocial account Friday. “It was far above the 200-foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
Inman would not comment directly on that when asked by reporters on Saturday. The possible discrepancy between the helicopter’s altitude and what controllers saw on radar would be investigated, he said.
National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said the American Airlines flight was at an altitude of about 325 feet at the point of impact.Credit: AP
Investigators ran through a timeline of the minutes leading up to the collision, confirming air traffic control alerted the helicopter pilots to the incoming American Airlines plane a full two minutes before impact.
Twenty seconds before impact, tower controllers asked the helicopter whether it had the jet in sight. Three seconds after that, the tower instructed the chopper to “pass behind” the passenger plane.
