Key safety system off in Army helicopter that collided with American Airlines jet, senator says

[Wicked Blue]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - A key safety system was turned off on the U.S. Army helicopter that collided with an American Airlines (AAL.O) regional jet last week near Washington's Reagan Airport, killing 67.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz told reporters the Black Hawk helicopter had turned off its automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), which is permitted for military aircraft.

"This was a training mission, so there was no compelling national security reason for ADS-B to be turned off," Cruz said after a briefing from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.

In the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years, the aircraft collided last week, with both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River. The helicopter was flying about 100 feet (30.5 m) over the maximum allowed for that route, the NTSB said earlier.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/key-safety-system-off-army-helicopter-that-collided-with-american-airlines-jet-2025-02-06/

[Bluethroughu]

1. Hhhhuuuuummmm!

Get badbreath in front of the cameras to answer questions, or is he at the strip club.

[Lovie777]

2. Yea right..................

[LiberalArkie]

3. Conspiracy Mode: ON Maybe it wasn't a training mission.

Early reports said that Coast Guard could not use choppers and had to bing in boats as there were way too many Army copters there. I can see the Army wanting to help, but it struck me weird cause the DC Fire and Coast Guard are the search people. And very professional at it.

[Irish_Dem]

6. This is one possibility. It was not a training mission.

[James48]

4. Actually, that would not have mattered.

The helicopter did have its regular transponder on, and the radar screen at National clearly had the data of both aircraft on screen.

ADSB didn’t matter in this crash. There was no effect either way.

[lostnfound]

5. By regular, do you mean Mode S?

This mentions TCAS weaknesses below 1000 feet. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/107854/are-black-hawk-helicopters-equipped-with-a-tcas-traffic-collision-avoidance-sys

[VMA131Marine]

7. What's going to come out in this investigation

is that the issues on board the Blackhawk that led to this crash were systemic and it was pure good fortune that this didn’t happen earlier. My guess is that if you look at all the rules broken and guidelines ignored by this Blackhawk crew you would find some combination on a large fraction of similar operations by military helicopters around the DC area. The normalisation of rule breaking/bending is a constant threat to safety and it always goes hand-in-hand with the justification that nothing bad happened the last time. And then it does and we realise how close to edge we have been for a long time.