The midair collision between a passenger jet and a helicopter over Washington on Wednesday night was the deadliest plane crash in the United States in more than 20 years.Emily Steel, a Times investigative reporter who has been covering the crash, explains what happened.Guests: Emily Steel, an investigative reporter for the business desk of The New York Times.Background reading: The crash has renewed concerns about air safety lapses.Staffing was “not normal” in the control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport, according to an F.A.A. report.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Full Episode
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroweth. This is The Daily. On Wednesday night, a passenger jet and a helicopter collided midair over Washington, D.C. It was the deadliest plane crash in the United States in more than 20 years. Today, my colleague Emily Steele explains what we know about what went wrong. It's Friday, January 31st. Emily, it's 5.30 p.m.
on Thursday, not even 24 hours after this awful plane crash in Washington. And we're talking to you because you've spent a lot of time investigating aviation safety. Can you just explain what exactly happened on Wednesday night?
So at 618 on Wednesday night, there's an American Airlines flight that takes off from Wichita, Kansas. It's going to Washington's Reagan National Airport, and there are 64 people on board. There are American and Russian figure skaters. They are flying back from a competition. There's parents. There's coaches. There are a couple of friends who had just been coming back from a hunting trip.
This flight is scheduled to land at 9 o'clock in Washington, D.C., where it's a clear night. And about that same time, there's a Black Hawk helicopter. It's an Army helicopter. And there are two officers on board. There's a sergeant on board as well. And they are conducting flight training in the area.
Mm-hmm.
So the jet from Wichita is on track to land on runway one at Reagan's National Airport. And the air traffic controller asks the pilot on board if they can land on a different runway, on runway 33. Okay. instead. So inside the cockpit on the American Airlines jet, the pilots are re-navigating their landing.
You can imagine the people on the airplane are making sure that their seat belts are fastened. They might be able to look out and see the lights of the city. They're very, very close to their landing. And it's about that time that there's an alert that blares in the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The Army helicopter and the American Airlines jet are on a collision course. The controller asks the helicopter pilots, do you have this other jet in sight? And initially, there's no response. And then the controller again directs the helicopter to fly behind the jet and then says, do you see this other airplane? And the helicopter pilot confirms, yes, they can see another airplane.
And then moments later, there's a crash.
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