I was watching the news with my husband on the night of Jan. 29 when a horrifying incident was reported: A helicopter and a plane had collided near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.
I immediately began messaging my sources in aviation. My New York Times colleague Mark Walker, who had been eating dinner at a restaurant, quickly paid his bill and began calling sources in the transportation world.
The crash, which occurred roughly 300 feet above the chilly Potomac River at a high speed, was unlikely to have any survivors.
In the hours that followed, additional details were revealed. The helicopter had been an Army Black Hawk, and the plane had been an American Airlines regional jet from Wichita, Kan. Wreckage landed in the Potomac.
Reporting in the days after crystallized the frightening scope of the disaster — which killed 67 people, three on the helicopter and 64 on the plane — and offered flashes of insight into the events that preceded it.
Frequent and largely unconstrained helicopter flights near the airport had made the already congested airspace even more so, we found. A single air traffic controller had been guiding both helicopters and airplanes at the time of the crash, a scenario that was “not normal” for the hour and volume of traffic, according to a Federal Aviation Administration memo. The Black Hawk had been flying higher than permitted for helicopters in the area.
Still, we had questions: How could this have happened in the United States, whose airspace is widely regarded as among the world’s safest, and in its capital no less? And was there some fundamental cause of the accident, a mistake that set in motion the series of events that led to catastrophe?
At a source’s suggestion, Mark looked into a 2022 collision in San Diego in which two helicopters crashed into each other. While there were no casualties in that case, there was a similarity with the Washington crash: an aviation technique common in U.S. air travel known as “see and avoid.”
See and avoid flying is when pilots take responsibility for spotting and evading nearby air traffic without a controller’s guidance. In both the San Diego collision and a 2019 crash in Ketchikan, Alaska, that killed six people, officials at the National Transportation Safety Board blamed see and avoid.
A vast majority of the time, Mark and I discovered, see and avoid works as intended. But factors like human error, blind spots and environmental conditions, such as darkness, can be deadly.
Just before the Jan. 29 crash, the helicopter pilots were operating under a type of see and avoid flying. They were wearing night-vision goggles, which were required for their training mission. Military pilots say the goggles can make urban lights practically blinding. The crew also had not received detailed guidance from the controller on the location or proximity of the nearby jet.
We decided that see and avoid was at the crux of our findings, but we made clear that there was no one action or mistake behind the crash.
We interviewed pilots, current and former government officials with knowledge of U.S. aviation regulations, leaders at the N.T.S.B. and controllers who had worked at the National Airport tower. We also spoke with Army officials about the helicopters they flew over the Potomac and why those missions, often cloaked in secrecy, were necessary.
I traveled to Fort Novosel, Ala., with Kenny Holston, a Times photojournalist and Air Force veteran, to see the type of Black Hawk the crew had operated on Jan. 29. Army officials explained the avionics, or dashboard equipment, on the helicopter.
Officials also let me fly a simulation of a Black Hawk flight. I was struck by the amount of visual stimulation a low-flying pilot would have to absorb, as well as how difficult it was to steer and watch the gauges.
The N.T.S.B.’s preliminary report, based on initial examinations of the wreckage and cockpit voice recordings that have not yet been made public, was a great help in our understanding of the history and final moments of both flights.
But as we began to write, we struggled with how to make a highly technical account accessible to all readers.
Our editor, Jennifer Forsyth, suggested we read the novel “Dear Edward” by Ann Napolitano for inspiration. Set in 2013, it is about the lone survivor of a plane crash in Colorado. The story of that survivor, Edward, and his physical and emotional recovery is interspersed with a dramatic account of the other passengers and the actions of the pilots.
Our article became a chronology, interspersed with analysis and new reporting. We broke the text into sections by theme and timing: the intentions of each flight; what the controller did — and did not — say; the controller’s attempt to manage busy traffic using an efficiency tactic called a squeeze play; apparent problems with some of the Black Hawk’s equipment; and, finally, the failure of see and avoid to keep the aircraft apart. This felt like the right collection of moments that led to this tragedy.
Since the story was published late last month, we have been heartened by the responses of many Times readers. Sheri Lilley, the stepmother of Sam Lilley, the first officer on the American Airlines flight, wrote in a comment, “The N.T.S.B. has long warned that ‘see and avoid’ is dangerously outdated,” adding that “the gap between what we know needs to be done and what is actually happening is costing lives.”
As the investigation proceeds, we will keep readers informed.
Kate Kelly covers money, policy and influence for The Times.
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