DC plane crash: Flight recorder ‘black box’ from army Black Hawk helicopter recovered

The fatal midair collision on Wednesday evening between an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet moments away from landing at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport was a shocking and extremely rare occurrence, according to experts who believe human error is the likeliest explanation behind the tragedy that claimed dozens of lives.

Justin Rohrlich has more:

A passenger jet had to suddenly abort its landing at Reagan National Airport because of a helicopter in its flight path, just a day before an airliner and a military helicopter catastrophically collided in the same airspace, highlighting the complications of managing helicopter traffic around the busy Washington-area airport.

On Tuesday night, a Republican Airways Flight radioed air traffic controllers at Reagan they’d gotten an alert about “helicopter traffic below us,” prompting the tower to tell the twin-jet Embraer ERJ 175 jet to “go around,” The Washington Post reports.

“They had to circle back around because there was a helicopter in the flight path,” passenger Richard Hart told the paper of his experience on the flight. “At the time I found it odd. … Now I find it disturbingly tragic.”

Another flight from Charlotte into the airport had to abort for similar reasons on January 23.

Two separate recorders were recovered from the passenger plane, a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, according the the National Transport Safety Board.

According to NTSB spokesman Todd Inman, the data recorder was “actually in what we consider good condition” and was soaked in alcohol overnight to help the data extraction process. “We have a high level of confidence that we will be able to get a full download in the very near future,” he said.

Information from the flight data recorder will not be released immediately, as investigators will have to go through and correct up to 2,000 data sets to ensure they are synchronized, Inman said.

The cockpit voice recorder had “water intrusion” after crashing into the Potomac River, which according to Inman is “not uncommon. “We deal with that all the time,” he said. “Our recorders division is one of the best in the country, in the world.”

The voice recorder was also soaked overnight in ionized water, at which point it was put into a vacuum oven in order to extract moisture. The NTSB team is still checking electric connections to determine if they’re ready to try a download.

The National Transportation Safety Board says it will only issue recommendations on changing rules once the full report on the incident is finished.

“Once this investigative report comes out, we will be advocating, probably for years, for changes that need to be made,” NTSB member Todd Inman said on Friday.

“We will not speculate on what needs to be done until we have the facts,” he said, adding that this incident “should not have happened.”

The bodies of all three service members who were on the Black Hawk helicopter have now been recovered from the wreckage, a source familiar with the recovery efforts has told CNN.

All three “black box” devices have been recovered following the midair near Washington, D.C, Wednesday evening, officials have said.

Flight 5342 from Kansas was on the final approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport when it collided with the Black Hawk helicopter before exploding a huge fireball.

There were 67 people aboard the two flights when they crashed, and all are presumed dead.

While questions still remain, here’s what we know so far:

The Army has confirmed the names of two male crew members who were killed when their Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet on Wednesday night.

The men were identified as Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, who was also previously identified by family.

The remains of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, have not yet been recovered, therefore is duty status-whereabouts unknown.

The Army did not identify the third crew member, a female pilot, citing her family’s request for privacy.

“Our deepest condolences go out to all the families and friends impacted during this tragedy, and we will support them through this difficult time,” said Major General Trevor J. Bredenkamp, commander Joint Task Force

“Our top priority is to assist in the recovery efforts, while fully cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and other investigative agencies to determine the cause of this tragic incident.”