Unbroken vigil: On the mid-air accident in the U.S.

Aviation safety experts will be poring over one particular snatch of ATC instructions and exchange to unravel one of the worst air accidents in the United States in recent years. “PAT25, do you have the CRJ in sight?... PAT25, pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds later, another pilot in the vicinity asks air traffic control tersely, “Tower, did you see that?” The mid-air collision between an American Airlines flight, AA5342, a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet with 64 passengers, while on finals to runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter and its three-member crew, has been described as a baffling accident in one of “the most controlled portions of airspace in the world”. The airport, which handled 25.5 million passengers in 2023, operates in a complex ecosystem: of commercial aviation, private aviation, military traffic as well as helicopter operations existing side by side, with flight paths that often overlap. It is also an area in political heartland, is near military bases and is in close proximity to Washington Dulles and Baltimore, the other aviation gateways. With such varied aviation operations — and, as a result, airport-specific procedures, which include manoeuvres for noise abatement — and also stringent safety and security requirements, some experts have focused on the potential for incidents to occur when the ‘borders’ of these operations converge. There will be questions, for example, about the operations of the 12th Aviation Battalion’s Army helicopter, a high-technology machine bristling with very accurate electronic aids. Even though it was on an annual night flight training session, the crash could well be a case of the Swiss cheese model of accident causation.

In the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s safety records for Reagan, on air misses, about 10 involve military aircraft in 30 such incidents since 1987. A Government Accountability Office report (2021) shows that over a three-year period that ended in 2019, there were 88,000 helicopter operations within 48 kilometres of Reagan, and these included about 33,000 military and 18,000 law enforcement flights. There has also been some concern, from political quarters in particular, about a series of air incidents flowing from ‘understaffed’ air traffic control operations across the U.S. With the FAA’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Program overseeing India as well, the crash investigation findings by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will be most relevant — there are some airports in India that share civil and military traffic — as the Reagan accident is a reminder that air safety demands unbroken vigil.