We Know the How Things Were at the Reagan Control Tower Before the Crash. It’s Not Good.

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The nation is reeling from the Reagan National Airport disaster. There are no survivors. The American Airlines flight that collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter last night around 9 PM spared no one. All 67 people on the aircraft and the chopper perished in what is the worst aviation accident in recent memory. For some, this was an event waiting to happen, given the congestion, the length of the runway, and variating flight patterns.

Reagan Airport has seen more than a few close calls. It doesn’t help that the air traffic control tower has one staffer doing the work of two people. The conditions before the tragic crash were described as “not normal.” The media lambasted President Trump for insinuating the DEI initiatives were partially to blame, along with the control tower. He was right about the latter (via NYT):

Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate the job. One reason is that the controllers can use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.

(Read more from “We Know the How Things Were at the Reagan Control Tower Before the Crash. It’s Not Good.” HERE)