President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed final week’s lethal collision of a passenger jet and Military helicopter on what he referred to as an “obsolete” pc system utilized by U.S. air site visitors controllers, and he vowed to exchange it.
Trump stated throughout an occasion that “a lot of mistakes happened” on Jan. 29 when an American Airways flight out of Wichita, Kansas, collided with an Military helicopter because the aircraft was about to land at Ronald Reagan Nationwide Airport close to Washington, killing all 67 folks on board the 2 plane.
Within the fast aftermath of the tragedy, Trump blamed range hiring packages for the crash. However on Thursday, he blamed the pc system utilized by the nation’s air site visitors controllers.
“It’s amazing that it happened,” Trump stated throughout a speech on the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast on the U.S. Capitol. “And I think that’s going to be used for good. I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers. Brand new — not pieced together, obsolete.”
Trump stated the U.S. spent billions of {dollars} making an attempt to “renovate an old, broken system” as an alternative of investing in a brand new one. He stated in his personal personal jet, he makes use of a system from one other nation when he lands as a result of his pilot says the prevailing system is out of date.
Federal officers have been elevating issues about an overtaxed and understaffed air site visitors management system for years, particularly after a collection of shut calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the many causes they’ve cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, lengthy shifts, intensive coaching and obligatory retirements.
Trump stated that if the nation had a more moderen system, alarms would have sounded when the Black Hawk helicopter, which was on a coaching train, reached the identical altitude because the aircraft.
However an FAA report after the crash stated that the controller did get an alert that the aircraft and helicopter have been converging once they have been nonetheless greater than a mile (1.6 kilometers) aside. The controller responded by asking the helicopter if it had the aircraft in sight and directed the helicopter to cross behind the aircraft. The helicopter responded that it did have the aircraft in sight.
An early focus of the investigation has been confirming the altitude of the aircraft and helicopter. The jet’s flight recorder confirmed its altitude as 325 toes (99 meters), plus or minus 25 toes (7.6 meters).
Information from the airport’s air site visitors management system suggests the helicopter was above its 200-foot (61-meter) flight ceiling. The display the controller was that night time confirmed that based mostly on radar and different information, the helicopter was at 300 toes (91 meters), the NTSB stated, noting that the determine would have been rounded to the closest 100 toes (30 meters).
To get extra exact info, investigators want to have the ability to study the wreckage of the still-submerged Black Hawk to confirm the information. The helicopter isn’t anticipated to be recovered till later this week.
This crash was the deadliest within the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed right into a New York Metropolis neighborhood simply after takeoff, killing all 260 folks on board and 5 on the bottom.