A conversation with aviation safety expert Dr. Daniel Bubb
Last Wednesday night, a regional commercial plane and a military Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River near Washington, DC, sending both aircraft into the river. All 64 people onboard the plane and all three members of the helicopter crew died in the crash. The first commercial aircraft crash in 15 years and the deadliest in more than two decades sent the US into a sense of national agony. The fact that a number of the passengers on the airplane, American Airlines Flight 5342, were young people returning from an ice skating event, alongside people of every age, only added to the sense of woe.
But the crash and its circumstances also immediately led to questions about what had happened—as well as political wrangling and mudslinging over the disaster and who was to blame. President Trump pointed at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that he said were put in place by Democrats (though he also said that the helicopter appeared to be flying too high). Democrats pointed at the firing of the FAA director and other air safety officials in the first week of the Trump administration.
Understanding what exactly went wrong will take an investigation. The airspace near Reagan International Airport is one of the densest, and members of Congress and other politicians are in part responsible for that, keeping commercial and military flights available constantly in the same area. There has also been a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, who need years of training to be able to work at these kinds of busy airports. There was reportedly one controller doing the job of two at the time of the crash. Which of any of these factors may have been involved is not yet clear.
To understand more about the crash and the current state of aircraft safety in the US, we spoke with an academic who studies the industry and is a former commercial pilot as well as a current pilot with 44 years of experience.
This must be a very difficult story for you to be interviewed about.
I’ve been doing media interviews since Wednesday night. These aren’t easy topics to discuss because they’re so devastating.
We’ve all seen these terribly tragic stories of little kids losing their lives. Then there was the child who survived cancer and was killed together with her mother.
It’s heartbreaking not just for the passengers, but also for the flight crew and the aviation industry as a whole. The industry is very big but it’s tightly knit, so it’s devastating to us as well.
You said “us.” Are you still part of that industry?
I used to be, but even those of us who aren’t in it anymore still feel like we’re part of it. That’s certainly the case with what I do professionally as a professor and I also do research. I still have a lot of colleagues and former students from when I was a flight instructor who are currently flying for the airlines.
There are many pieces to what happened that I would like to understand. First, this was a civilian flight that collided with a military helicopter. Then there’s the technological aspect of the aircraft plus the air traffic controllers. Where do you feel the focus should be?
I think the focus should be on the communication between the Black Hawk pilot and the air traffic controller. I’ve seen various reports. One said that the controller told the pilot to maintain visual separation from the American Eagle airliner, and the helicopter pilot replied. Other reports say that the helicopter pilot didn’t reply. But from the most credible reports I’ve seen, it seems to me that the pilot did reply, in which case the controller assumed, “Okay. You’ve acknowledged my instructions and are going to follow them.”
Another really interesting thing here—and some of it has been discussed, although not really broadly—is that in passenger jets, and this was the case even when I flew, there’s an instrument in the cockpit called a traffic collision avoidance system, or TCAS.
That sounds like the collision avoidance system the newer cars have.
Right. It lets us know the proximity of other aircraft and alerts us if they get too close. It announces, “Traffic, traffic!” so we can do some sort of evasive maneuver. I picked up something interesting when they were originally reporting on what happened. One of the eyewitnesses on the ground said that he saw the plane start to turn at a steep bank angle and then he saw sparks. That tells me that while the passenger jet was on final approach to the runway, the TCAS was going off and they tried to take evasive action. Unfortunately, it was too late. But many of the military helicopters don’t have TCAS, so it’s possible that this Black Hawk didn’t have one either. Still, that’s why you talk to air traffic control, especially in that airspace. You cannot fly through that airspace without talking to a controller. Did the pilot follow instructions? Was there communication? Will the military now install TCAS instruments in their helicopters? All of these are areas for investigation.
From what you’ve said so far, it seems that you think it’s the military’s fault combined with the air traffic controller rather than the civilian airliner, which was doing everything appropriately. Is that correct?
That’s my understanding.
Why would you come to that conclusion at this early stage of the investigation?
I’m not ready to place blame. In fact, what I’ve been telling everyone is that it’s better to wait until the National Traffic Safety Board report comes out because they have access to the black boxes and the cockpit voice recorders, and they also have forensic scientists who can analyze what happened. My suggestion would be for all of us to wait until then, at which point we will have a much clearer idea of what occurred. That would be the prudent thing to do.
The media and President Trump seem to be very focused on the controllers and whether DEI, understaffing or other issues are at fault. They’re also saying that the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is particularly understaffed and overburdened. What would you say to that?
There’s a shortage of air traffic controllers all over the country, but the classes are full. It also takes a while to train them. I believe they go through a two-year program, and even after they graduate they’re going to be sent to a small airport where it isn’t busy, or they may be sent to a center where they talk to planes at very high altitudes where there isn’t much traffic. Once they’ve built up experience and demonstrated proficiency, the FAA will offer them the opportunity to go to a busier airport like Ronald Reagan, Dulles, Kennedy, LaGuardia and places like that.
Sometimes there can be a situation where a controller calls in sick or something happens, so now someone else has to work a double shift, or at least a lot of overtime. The danger is that if you overextend that controller, he’s going to be exhausted, which is when you have a safety issue. The FAA is trying to remedy that by hiring more controllers. I suspect that they just need to finish training them and give them time to build up their experience before putting them in these busier airports. That’s part one of my answer.
Part two is with respect to what the president said. But as I said earlier, I would caution him to wait until the NTSB report comes out and then make an observation or judgment or whatever. It isn’t helpful this early in the game. These investigations take months, and it’s likely that we won’t get the full story of what happened until next year. I know that everyone wants answers right now, but I would advise people to be patient. I think the NTSB is going to have a preliminary report out in about 30 days.
Well, with all due respect, the president is a politician. I don’t think he’ll interfere with the investigation, but he would like to get as much political steam out of this as he can.
That’s a valid point.
People are thinking back to what happened under President Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he laid off all those striking air traffic controllers, but the people who were working back then would have been long retired by now anyway.
Absolutely.
Do you see any parallels with this case?
I see slight overtones, but not to that extent. Approximately 11,000 controllers were fired by Reagan after they went on strike. I don’t see that happening now because it would be insane. It would create such a dire safety issue. I would prefer to give the FAA the resources it needs so we don’t have controllers who are working overtime and double shifts because they don’t have enough staff. If I were a politician, I would make sure those agencies are fully funded so they can fill those open positions.
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