There appeared to be some issues between airplanes landing at Reagan National Airport and military helicopters a week leading to Wednesday’s deadly crash.
According to a report The Washington Post, a plane aborted its landing in order to miss hitting a military helicopter on Tuesday night, just a day before the deadly crash on Wednesday that killed all those in the airplane and helicopter.
On Jan. 23, a plane arriving from Charlotte aborted its landing because a helicopter was in its way.
A passenger on that flight explained what happened.
“They had to circle back around because there was a helicopter in the flight path,” RIchard Hart said. “At the time I found it odd. … Now I find it disturbingly tragic.”
On Wednesday night an inbound commercial flight from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter over the Potomac River.
Sixty-seven people — 64 passenger American Airlines Flight 5342 and three soldiers on the Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk — are presumed dead.
Safety concerns are now being raised given the close proximity of Runway 33 and the helicopters’ location.
An air traffic controller dedicated to helicopters has been placed by the Federal Aviation Administration in the National Airport tower to handle the hazards, the report said.
