Update: Current information from NTSB on February 4 at 6 pm: the plane likely tried to avert the crash one second before and pointed the nose to the sky. General Holt said the helicopter didn’t flinch as it dove into the plane. He points to the problem as something with the crew on the helicopter.
Original Story
A knowledgeable former air traffic controller named Michael Pearson told Greg Kelly on his show last night that the D.C. crash that killed 67 people was 100% the fault of air traffic control because he gave incorrect instructions.
The segment began with Mr. Pearson criticizing then-President Obama’s anti-white rule changes in 2011. You’ll catch a little of that in this clip. However, he then explains why it’s the air traffic controller’s fault.
Here’s some of what he says:
Mr. Pearson, who is now a private pilot, said it is not the fault of the helicopter pilots.
“It’s 100% air traffic control’s fault. It’s not only me, but approximately 45 current FAA managers and air traffic controllers agree with me. I spent about six hours looking at the data track and listening to the voice tapes the very night it happened.
“Before the media, it was very apparent to me, and I can tell you exactly why air trafficking did not issue proper traffic instructions.
Greg Kelly played the short audio of the air traffic controller’s instructions.
Mistake 1
The CRJ is the problem. They didn’t say where that CJR is. One o’clock, two o’clock, five o’clock, low, high, Kelly said.
Mr. Pearson said there are set air traffic rules that tell you exactly how you issue traffic. The problem with saying, do you see an RJ at night is that there are RJs on the runway. There are RJs in the air. He didn’t get the clock position. He didn’t say, off to your right, off to your left. Do you see the RJ in sight?
Pearson said the controller might have done it earlier but doubts it, because of the nature of how fast it moved.
Mistake 2
“Not only that,” Pearson said, “you have to have a means of separation ensured both before and after the application of visual separation; they had none. They should have kept that helicopter at least 500 feet or a mile and a half longitudinally from that airplane.
Mistake3
“Last but not least, the data track shows that the conflict alert was going off as these two airplanes were emerging, courses headed toward each other. There’s a loud CA, and it flashes on your screen, it’s red, and there’s a very loud, it’s like a smoke alarm going off, audible warning in that tower. And it looks to me like that, seven to nine seconds, that was going off, and the controller failed to undertake what’s called merging target procedures.”
Updated 2/2/25 07:23
- One reporter said: The controller’s initial callout of the traffic to PAT25 was specific: “PAT25, traffic just south of the Woodrow Bridge, a CRJ it’s 1200 feet setting up for Runway 33”. That was left out of the interview. It was mere seconds before the crash. Go to 2:16 on this link. It might have come too late.
- It is also important to note that the air traffic controller was doing the job of two controllers.
- The helicopter might have been flying within bounds.
- The PSA plane, CRJ, was flying within its bounds at about 325 feet, plus or minus 25 feet. The air traffic controller’s screen might have shown the Black Hawk at 200 feet. Go to 24:46 on this link.
Watch:
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It’s 100% not the fault of the controller for *causing* the accident.
But it absolutely is 100% the fault of the controller for failing to prevent it.
The time that the controller spent making that final radio call to PAT25 could have been used to issue control instructions to the CRJ that would have ensured vertical separation (by instructing the CRJ to execute a go around with an immediate climb).
No one should be willing to accept a controller that takes this passive of a response to an imminent mid-air collision. He HAD the tools available to him to separate these airplanes, but instead he chose to try visual separation a second time – after the first attempt at VS produced no discernible change in track that indicated a divergence.
Controllers online saying “but but but the 7110.65 allows visual separation everything he did was legal!”
Okay, sure. Still doesn’t mean it was the right decision. In this context, the right decision would have been the one that didn’t leave both aircraft in the river with no survivors. It’s hard to argue that anything that happened in the tower that evening was anything other than an absolute failure.
He saw the conflict, and had time to make a radio call. It’s a real shame he didn’t take the opportunity to actually solve the problem that was in front of him.
This much I know, Trump is not at fault, the helicopter and controller are.
I’d bet mid air collisions are rarely direct hits like that one.
The helicopter pilot and copilot both would have seen the plane.
There were numerous aircraft “stacked up” waiting to land. Asking the Black Hawk if he sees the incoming plane is taking for granted that they were focusing on the same aircraft. I have a strong feeling that the helicopter pilot and co-pilot and some of the tower personnel will be blamed for the mishap.
ATC: Helicopter, turn 90 degrees left, NOW. Not: to helicopter pilot: Do you see the plane that I’m looking at? and Helicopter pilot looking at another plane: Yes, I have it in sight.
The term is IMMEDIATELY. Only used in an emergency situation.
It was the helicopters fault. It could see the incoming plane, it had the ability to hold position yet it flew directly into the aircraft that was landing. The controller has some culpability, but this was 100% the helicopters fault