A new video from the moment of the collision of the American Airlines civilian aircraft with the military helicopter over Washington's Ronald Reagan Airport, which also records the fall of the plane with 64 people on board into the Potomac River, has been released online in recent hours.
Watch the video
The control tower was understaffed at the time of the accident.
The staffing of the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington was not “normal for the time and volume of traffic” on Wednesday night, according to an internal preliminary safety report from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) into the collision of the American Airlines commercial plane and the military Black Hawk helicopter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.
The controller operating helicopters in the airport area at the time was also giving instructions to planes landing and departing from his runways. These tasks are usually assigned to two controllers, not one.
This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate their job. One reason is that controllers may use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying airplanes and pilots flying helicopters. So while the controller is communicating with the helicopter and airplane pilots, they may not be able to hear each other.
According to the FAA report on the fateful night, helicopter traffic management and aircraft management duties are split between two people from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the airport. After 9:30, these duties are usually merged, provided that traffic is light.
However, an air traffic controller judged that the traffic was not "congested" and decided, sometime before 9:30 p.m., to allow an air traffic controller to leave early before the end of his shift.
This staffing configuration was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” and it remains unclear why the supervisor chose to do this on Wednesday night.
Source: protothema.gr
