As the National Transportation Safety Board began three days of hearings into January’s deadly midair collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport, information from experts and released documents suggests the crew of the Black Hawk helicopter faced at least two problems that night: bad altitude information and bad communications with air traffic controllers.

The hearings — along with Wednesday’s release of almost 10,000 pages of investigative records — should answer key questions about what was happening on the helicopter and the airport’s control tower before the crash that killed 67 people on Jan. 29 when an Army Black Hawk helicopter hit an American Airlines regional jet that was about to land.

Barometric altimeters used by the Army crew told them the helicopter was 100 feet lower than it actually was, NTSB panelists said Wednesday. Meanwhile, according to a transcript of cockpit recordings, members of that crew complained of difficulty hearing transmissions from National Airport’s air traffic control tower.

2:27 PM: NTSB may consider safety recommendations on altimeters, chair says

National Transportation Safety Board members on Wednesday repeatedly pressed Army leaders on why they did not consider inconsistent height readings for their Black Hawk helicopters a matter of concern despite the narrow maneuvering space at Reagan National Airport and numerous close calls there.

Army officials said the Federal Aviation Administration sets the acceptable margin of error and that the Black Hawks, built in the 1980s, met those specifications. However, NTSB investigators found that the Black Hawk’s barometric altimeters were off by 80 to 130 foot discrepancy when it did three test flights in May.

“Now that they know there’s a concern, why they aren’t testing the rest of the fleet and the equipment, that I don’t know,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in remarks following the morning session.

She said that the NTSB is considering issuing additional safety recommendations related to altimeters.

She said while she thinks the Army is taking concerns seriously in the aftermath of the crash and the NTSB’s investigation, she is not satisfied with the answers she received during Wednesday’s hearing and is concerned there are unknown risks in other areas where helicopter and commercial aircraft routinely mix.

By: Rachel Weiner and Lori Aratani

2:20 PM: Traffic controller seemed ‘exceptionally busy’ on night of crash, pilot says

A pilot on a flight that landed at Reagan National Airport just before the Jan. 29 midair collision told investigators the air traffic controller that night seemed “exceptionally busy” and was “not instilling a lot of confidence” because he was changing his mind on clearances.

The controller “seemed a little bit … overloaded,” PSA Airlines captain Kevin Ashe told National Transportation Safety Board investigators, according to newly released interview transcripts. “He’s seeming like he’s overworked, got too much going on at the moment,” Ashe said.

Being busy is not unusual, Ashe said. But what caught his attention was hearing the controller “giving clearances and there were a couple of times … where he changed his mind, to do one thing, but then no, do this kind of thing,” Ashe said.

Ashe, who said he flies into National Airport probably a dozen times a month, offered broad praise for the air traffic controllers at the airport, which he believes has become too busy.

“They do an awesome job, they do a really good job with that small area they have to work out with, there’s just so much traffic there now, you really have to be on your ‘A’ game, you know?” Ashe told the investigators. “I used to enjoy going there more than I do now because it’s just gotten so busy.”

By: Michael Laris

1:05 PM: Army officials pressed on helicopter issue: ‘Civilian lives are at risk’

In a striking exchange, a member of the NTSB pressed an Army engineer on whether known issues with the helicopter model involved in the DCA crash were being addressed. The response he got was not yes.

Instead, Army aviation engineer Scott Rosengren said that the Army unit in charge of helicopters would seek an airworthiness recommendation and organize a safety working group.

“So you don’t even know if you’re going to make any changes based upon the research we’ve already done?” NTSB board member J. Todd Inman asked incredulously. “How much tolerance for [discrepancies] should there be when civilian lives are at risk?”

Rosengren said that if he were “king for a day” he would replace the 1980s-era craft, but that they met federal regulations. “The FAA provides the requirements for flying in the national airspace,” Rosengren said. “We do meet the specifications.”

Pressed on when the Army would inform aviators about the discrepancy issue, Rosengren said, “We are in public testimony, and so we have to put it out there in public testimony.” Inman shot back, “I hope every Army aviator is not having to watch the ntsb.gov live stream to figure out that there’s a discrepancy in their altitude of the planes that are flying around us.”

By: Rachel Weiner

1:01 PM: Regional jet pilot was reluctant to switch to another runway

The pilot of the American Airline regional jet expressed concern about the volume of aircraft traffic around Reagan National Airport the night of the fatal crash and was reluctant about being redirected to a different runway as he prepared to land at the airport, according to a transcript released Wednesday as part of an investigative hearing.

By: Lori Aratani and Brian Perlman

1:00 PM: Black Hawk crew had problems hearing air traffic control

The Black Hawk crew struggled to understand air traffic control transmissions and noted the bright lights of the Washington area during their flight, according to cockpit recordings released Wednesday by NTSB investigators, underlining the challenging conditions the night of the Jan. 29 midair collision.

Data recorders on the helicopter during the training flight captured the voices of the crew speaking to each other on the internal communications system, which is separate from radio transmissions made to controllers.

At one point, incoming instruction from the controller at Reagan National Airport comes in distorted. “I definitely didn’t catch what he said. I’m glad you did,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves, the instructor, told Capt. Rebecca Lobach, the pilot being evaluated.

Lobach at another moment complained that communication from the airport tower “sounds really crappy.”

The communications between the crew and controller were previously identified by investigators as a potential contributing factor. The recorders found the Black Hawk crew did not hear the complete instruction to pass behind the jet involved in the collision because someone hit a button on the helicopter radio at the same time.

The lights of the Washington area were another discussion point among the crew. Investigators and the Army believe the crew were wearing night vision goggles, whose light amplification can be overpowering in bright environments and make it hard to distinguish between light sources.

“I can’t get sucked in by that damn light,” Eaves says at one point. “That light’s really bright,” Lobach said.

A Washington Post investigation has found it was possible the lights of the incoming American Airlines jet could have been obscured by the glow of the city skyline, preventing the jet from being seen.

By: Alex Horton

12:48 PM: Pilot of Black Hawk helicopter had received high praise from leadership

The pilot flying the Black Hawk helicopter at the time of the crash, Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, had received glowing reviews from her trainers and evaluators during training and evaluations flying the Army’s Black Hawk helicopter.

A company commander who flew with her twice in 2023 described her as a “highly achieving, high motivated and driven aviator who was actually capable of accomplishing a lot more than I’ve seen [in] some of the more junior pilots of her hour level who were similar to her” and said she was “great on controls, great at process management and workload management in the aircraft.”

Standardization pilots, who are tasked with ensuring that all pilots in their unit are following Army procedures and requirements, commented that her performance was “always good” and that “I don’t think I’ve seen any more professional officer in this unit or really any unit that I’ve been in.” A safety officer who had flown with her in December last year said he was “very impressed” by her organizational skills and her attitude.

She overcame some perceived deficits early in her career.

In 2021, a standardization pilot provided training to shore up her “weak flying skills,” according to documents released by the NTSB on Wednesday, though the trainer also said her “situational awareness and leadership skills were above average for her experience level.”

The helicopter in the January crash was a UH-60L, a more difficult model to fly than the more automated UH-60M, which Lobach had initially trained on. Although she was rated as fully qualified in January 2022, another standardization pilot found her performance on one instrument evaluation flight to be “well below average” and trained her for about a month until she demonstrated full readiness again. According to NTSB documents, she did not receive any subsequent negative reviews for her flying following the remedial training.

Lobach became a commissioned officer via Army ROTC in 2019 and completed the Army’s flight school two years later. Last year, she was assigned as a platoon leader and remained in that assignment until her death in the January crash.

By: Brian Perlman

12:40 PM: Half of flights on helicopter route where crash happened flew too high

Nearly half of the helicopters using the route where the Army Black Hawk collided with the airliner flew higher than the 200-foot limit, according to a Federal Aviation Administration analysis released by safety investigators.

The FAA examined 523 flights between Jan. 1, 2024, and Jan. 30, 2025, that used helicopter Route 4, which follows the Potomac River past National Airport. It passes directly under a landing path to one of the airport’s runways, with a gap of as little as 15 feet The Washington Post has reported, and the altitude of the helicopter involved in the crash has been a major focus of the hearing.

Despite the tight airspace, the FAA’s analysis tracked numerous flights at 100 feet above the route’s limit — in some cases helicopters were found even higher. Other helicopter routes near in the Washington region had similar issues, the FAA found.

By: Ian Duncan

12:10 PM: Altitude issue shows Army and FAA failure, families’ lawyer says

NTSB hearing live updates: Army helicopter crew had trouble hearing air tower before D.C. plane crash

An attorney representing family members of multiple victims in the crash said this morning’s testimony on discrepancies in devices that Army helicopters use to determine their altitude shows officials in both the Army and the Federal Aviation Administration ignored a key safety issue.

“The equipment on the helicopters really wasn’t in sync and accurate enough to navigate in this very restricted airspace with airplanes,” Robert Clifford said. “As much as we put on the Army and deservedly so, the FAA has a major role” in the crash for allowing the military to operate as it did, he said.

Clifford is preparing to sue over the collision next month. He represents the families of Casey Crafton and Kiah Duggins, who were among the 67 victims in the Jan. 29 incident.

For Wednesday’s hearing in D.C., Gwen Duggins, Kiah’s mother, flew from her home in Kansas on the same route where her daughter died. A lanyard around Gwen Duggins’ neck held a photo of her with Kiah embracing in matching red dresses. They were celebrating their 60th and 30th birthdays together in France just a few months before the crash.

“At first I was against even going to Paris,” Gwen Duggins said. “When she said, ‘Oh, I hired a photographer, oh, we’re going to dress alike,’ I was like, ‘You’re doing too much.’ But now I’m so grateful she did too much.”

By: Rachel Weiner

11:45 AM: Controllers sought changes to helicopter routes near National Airport

Before the Jan. 29 collision, air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport proposed moving the helicopter route where the crash happened, only to be told by a regional manager that the idea was “too political,” according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

The proposal was developed by a helicopter working group at the airport’s control tower and followed a 2021 study by the Government Accountability Office that examined helicopter traffic in the Washington region, according to the report. The aim was to “deconflict” the routes with landing paths for runways at National.

The same group also proposed in 2022 labeling an area near the crash site as a known “hot spot” on aviation charts that would have directed helicopter pilots to “use caution.” The idea was denied after being reviewed by a Federal Aviation Administration office responsible for designing charts, according to the NTSB.

The working group predates the coronavirus pandemic, participants told investigators. It lacks a formal mission statement, but people involved with the group said it exists to address “challenges and safety concerns with the high density of mixed helicopter operations” near the airport.

The tower has an active local safety council that invited representatives of the Army squadron involved in the crash to attend meetings, but they never did, according to the NTSB.

By: Ian Duncan

11:11 AM: Analysis from Margot Amouyal

Lance T. Gant, the chief scientist and technical adviser for rotorcraft at the FAA, was asked whether modern flight factors, such as busier skies, would warrant requiring newer technologies in U.S. airspace. “I would say it could factor into that,” he said. The helicopter involved in the accident was designed in the 1970s.

11:02 AM: Barometric altimeter gave Black Hawk crew incorrect data, NTSB says

New data released Wednesday by the NTSB showed that before the Jan. 29 collision, the Army crew flying the Black Hawk helicopter was getting information that may have caused them to think they were flying at a lower altitude than they actually were.

Although helicopters have devices known as radio altimeters that provide altitude data, the pilot and co-pilot also have barometric altimeters that calculate altitude. While most crews at low elevation will use the radio altimeter to determine their height — because it is seen as more accurate — panelists at the NTSB’s hearing Wednesday said members of the 12th Aviation Battalion were trained to use their barometric altimeters.

During Wednesday’s hearing, the NTSB showed that throughout the flight, the Black Hawk crew called out elevations that were about 100 feet lower than the altitude recorded by their radio altimeter. Tests of three other Black Hawk helicopters after the crash showed similar discrepancies, investigators said. They also found that the discrepancy increased when the Black Hawk’s rotors were spinning.

By: Tara Copp

10:33 AM: Army makes safety changes for helicopter flights following Jan. 29 crash

Black Hawk helicopters conduct a flyover on June 11 in Arlington, Virginia.

As a result of the Jan. 29 collision, the Army is making several changes to how it flies, according to documents released Wednesday by the NTSB. Those changes include:

Requiring flight crews to verify that the aircraft’s ADS-B system — which provides real-time information on each aircraft’s location — is working before each flight. Any waiver to fly with ADS-B turned off must be approved by a higher level of authority.
For better visibility, Army helicopter crews now must fly with windows open during takeoff or landing.
The unit involved in the crash, the 12th Aviation Battalion, must complete its planned modernization by the fourth quarter of 2026.

By: Tara Copp

10:23 AM: Analysis from Brian Perlman

In an animation played during the NTSB hearing, it appeared that the Army Black Hawk helicopter remained above the 200-foot maximum altitude allowed during the entirety of the portion of the route which required it to remain below that level.

Graph showing altitude of both aircraft before the point of impact.

10:14 AM: FAA program flagged ‘some risk’ of midair collisions near National Airport

A Federal Aviation Administration safety program had identified “some risk” of midair collisions along the Potomac River, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report. The document does not say what action was taken in response to the finding.

The program’s finding, whose date was not noted in the NTSB report, flagged areas near Georgetown and the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge based on alerts from airliners’ collision warning systems. Data was not collected on any incidents that might have happened closer to the airport at lower altitudes, because of limits on how that system works.

Airline pilots received 78 of the most serious category of alerts about helicopters between 2021 and 2024, according to the NTSB. In more than half of the cases, the helicopter might have been flying above altitude restrictions.

But investigators found that the number of alerts for every 10,000 flights in the area around Reagan National Airport was well below the U.S. average.

The NTSB has faulted the FAA for not doing enough to identify the dangers in the airspace in the years before the crash.

By: Ian Duncan

10:00 AM: Wife of Black Hawk crew chief asks whether Army knew of crew’s burnout

The wife of the Black Hawk crew chief who died in the Jan. 29 collision told National Transportation Safety Board investigators that before the accident, she’d “wondered if the battalion leadership was aware that [crew chiefs] like her husband were displaying signs of burnout.”

The workload on Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara and others in his unit was so much that crews “started to show signs of burnout like feeling exhausted, visiting mental health facilities, or downing themselves to stop flying,” Danielle O’Hara told investigators, according to documents the NTSB released Wednesday.

But the mission was always prioritized, and completing it might mean that if crew chiefs were burned out, “they might not perform a maintenance task to standard or record the work correctly.”

By: Tara Copp

9:49 AM: Five things to watch for as the hearings unfold

Why was the Army helicopter at the wrong altitude?

Previously released summaries of cockpit voice recordings indicate before the collision, earlier during the helicopter’s southbound flight along the Potomac River, the instructor pilot said that the Black Hawk was at 400 feet, while the pilot under evaluation during the training flight said the helicopter was at 300 feet. The two crew members did not flag or discuss the altitude discrepancy, the NTSB has said.

What impact did night vision goggles have on the collision?

Night vision goggles amplifylight and make it brighter. Where there are multiple ground- or air-based sources of light, as is the case around Reagan National Airport, it can create a situation in which it’s hard to discern between different sources of light.

Most importantly, night vision goggles limit a crew’s field of view, much as wearing a swimming mask can reduce your field of view.

Could air traffic controllers have done more to prevent the crash?

The controller received a conflict alert about 20 seconds before the crash, according to the NTSB — a sign that something was amiss. Within a few seconds, the controller provided instructions to the Army pilots to “pass behind” the jet, and they again responded that they had it in sight.

Pilots often use “visual separation” near airports, experts said, and it allows for greater volumes of traffic to navigate busy airspace. But Scott Dunham, a former NTSB investigator, said the hearing could be an opportunity to scrutinize how it is applied.

Did the Black Hawk pilots miss key radio transmissions from the controller?

The NTSB has indicated that the controller’s instruction to “pass behind” the airliner might not have been heard from the helicopter crew because they had briefly pressed the button on their own microphone, blocking the transmission. Information that the jet was “circling” to Runway 33 was also not audible on the helicopter.

What did the FAA know about the risks of helicopters near National?

The Post reported in February that in the decade before the crash, airline pilots had received more than 100 warnings about helicopters from their collision avoidance systems — incidents that were also logged by the FAA.

By: Washington Post staff

9:36 AM: Analysis from Lori Aratani, Reporter focusing on transportation issues, including airports, airlines, and the nation's railroad and subway systems

In opening remarks, Jennifer Homendy, National Transportation Safety Board chair, spoke to the families who lost loved ones in the fatal Jan. 29 collision.

“We are so sorry for your loss,” she said. “We wish we would have met you in different circumstances. Please know your loved one are why we fight so hard for safety.”

9:19 AM: Families of crash victims got an apology. They still want answers.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll at a House hearing on June 4.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll apologized Tuesday to family members of the DCA victims during a meeting with them, an attendee said, for both the Army’s involvement in the disaster and failing to share any information about it with the families.

It “meant a lot to a lot of the people in the room and on the line,” said Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine, and 16-year-old son, Spencer, were both killed in the crash. Lane was among 168 family members who wrote to Driscoll this month to express their disappointment with the Army’s response. “Just telling our stories and having the people in a position to dream about change kind of look us in the eyes and have that vision of us in their head as they are making future decisions is really impactful.”

Family members also met with National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, who Lane says assured them the investigation is looking into “systemic issues … all the way up the chain of command.”

Lane said he is “trying really hard to forgive” everyone connected to the disaster: “The world’s a complicated place, mistakes happen, and this is kind of a perfect storm of those kinds of failures.” But he said he wants to be sure the agencies involved are being “100 percent cooperative with getting to the bottom of what happened.”

By: Rachel Weiner

9:16 AM: Findings from The Post’s investigations into the crash

Since the Jan. 29 crash, journalists at The Washington Post have been seeking to understand why the two aircraft collided and to uncover what was known about the risks in the busy airspace around National Airport. Many of The Post’s findings were subsequently confirmed by preliminary findings from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation.

Air traffic control recordings demonstrated that the helicopter crew was alerted to the inbound jet and had ample time to avoid a crash, raising the question of whether pilots were mistakenly focused on another plane.
An analysis of federal aviation charts revealed that the landing path used by the airliner comes within 15 feet of the route the helicopter was using.
Government incident logs showed airline crews got more than 100 collision warnings about helicopters near National over the course of a decade, adding to evidence that the Federal Aviation Administration could have identified the risks before the crash.
The Post created a 3D reconstruction of the minutes before the crash, illustrating how the Army pilots could have confused two airliners — especially if they were wearing night vision goggles.

By: Ian Duncan

9:15 AM: What to expect as the NTSB hearings begin

The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative hearing into the crash will unfold over three days, with different panels of witnesses addressing key aspects of the mid-air collision.

The hearing also presents an opportunity for witnesses to be held publicly accountable.

The board is breaking the hearing into five sessions. The first is focused on the Army helicopter’s data systems. The second will examine the airspace around the airport. The third will look at air-traffic control procedures. The fourth is centered on collision avoidance technology. The final panel will be on safety data and safety management.

The NTSB will also release thousands of pages of documents as the hearing begins. They will include reports from several investigative teams, records they have gathered and transcripts of witness interviews.

The hearing is a major milestone in the investigation into the crash, but a final report outlining the board’s conclusions and making safety recommendations is not expected until next year.

By: Ian Duncan

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