Air traffic controller ‘left early’ on night plane collided with a helicopter in Washington DC
AN air traffic controller was allowed to leave their post early on the night a plane collided with a helicopter in Washington DC, it was claimed yesterday.
The supervisor was said to have clocked off before the end of their shift on Wednesday night, leaving the air traffic control tower undermanned.
According to US reports, there was just one controller managing traffic for both helicopters and planes at the time of the crash, which killed 67 people.
The job is usually handled by two staff on 10am to 9.30pm shifts.
Typically, the volume of air traffic tails off after 9.30pm, so the two jobs are combined.
But according to The New York Times, that night an air traffic control supervisor left their post early.
The newspaper reported the Federal Aviation Administration found that staffing levels in the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were “not normal” for that time of day.
Responding to the claims, President Donald Trump slammed the competence of air traffic control.
He said on his social media platform Truth Social: “Right there, is what I’m talking about.
“Competence would be, you’re not gonna have a shortage, but if you had the right people, you wouldn’t need as many people either.”
Dramatic new footage emerged yesterday of the moment American Eagle flight 5342 struck a military Black Hawk helicopter mid-air, exploding in a ball of flames.
The passenger jet from Wichita, Kansas, was on its final landing approach at 9pm when it was hit by the chopper, sending both aircraft plunging into the freezing Potomac River.
The jet’s pilots were yesterday named as captain Jonathan Campos, 34, and first officer Samuel Lilley, 28.
Last night Mr Trump suggested the chopper was “flying too high by a lot” seconds before the crash.
It is understood the military pilots had requested a predetermined flight path, referred to as Route 4, from air traffic control.
This would have allowed the Black Hawk, which was carrying three “fairly experienced” pilots wearing night vision goggles, to fly at low altitude along the bank on the east side of the river.
But the doomed chopper flew higher and further away from the bank than it should have done, officials told The New York Times.
The helicopter should have flown below 200ft but it is claimed it had ascended to more than 300ft when it hit the plane.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said: “The Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200ft limit.
“That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
Mr Trump has signed an executive order demanding an immediate assessment of aviation security.
Investigators have already started analysing the black box data recorder recovered from plane.