
Ian Payne 4am - 7am
5 February 2025, 08:31
The Black Hawk helicopter which collided with a passenger plane in DC was flying too high, investigators have confirmed.
The helicopter crashed into an American Airlines flight as it was preparing to land in Washington DC last Wednesday.
The remains of all 67 victims of the mid-air collision have since been recovered from the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, authorities said.
Sixty passengers and four crew were on the American Airlines flight, including figure skaters returning from the 2025 US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
The Black Hawk was on a training mission with three people on board.
Information from an air traffic control radar confirmed that the helicopter had been flying 100ft too high.
The chopper, which was being flown by Captain Rebecca M Lobach, was at 300ft, despite the maximum altitude permitted for helicopters in the area being 200ft.
Black box data recovered from the wreckage suggested this was the case but the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) was awaiting further information from air traffic control.
Passenger jet collides with Army helicopter near Washington DC
Radar data is rounded to the nearest 100ft, so the helicopter could have been flying anywhere between 251 ft and 349 ft, according to the NTSB.
Meanwhile, the passenger plane was at 325ft when the crash occurred, having been given the green light to land.
Just moments before the crash, the plane's pilot made an effort to bring the aircraft up to avoid the helicopter.
"At one point very close to the impact, there was a slight change in pitch, an increase in pitch," the NTSB's Todd Inman said on Saturday.
Brice Banning, the NTSB investigator in charge, said: "This is a complex investigation.
"There are a lot of pieces here. Our team is working hard to gather this data."
The jet’s two black boxes, which captured sound in the cockpit as well as flight data, revealed that "the crew had a verbal reaction", he said.
"Sounds of impact were audible about one second later, followed by the end of the recording."
All 67 people on board the two aircrafts were killed.
Officials said they are focusing first on the plane and hope to recover the Black Hawk helicopter later this week.
Salvage crews on Monday were able to pull one of the two jet engines from the river, along with large pieces of the plane's exterior.
They were also working to recover a wing of the plane, which had flown out of Wichita, Kansas.