Senator Tammy Duckworth is asking for patience while the NTSB and FAA investigate the cause of the cause of the Tragic collision From a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight on Wednesday night, but it is also looking for information about how it happened.
She told Nikole Killion of CBS News in an interview on Thursday that she requested a transcription of the pilot air traffic control instructions and responses.
“What I learned was that air traffic control contacted and spoke with the helicopter crew twice, and recognized the instructions twice,” Duckworth said. “I am also asking for the flight route of both planes until the moment of impact.”
Illinois Democrat will have more information than many of her colleagues: it is an Iraq War veteran and was a Black Hawk pilot before a role -playing game knocked his helicopter during an Iraq deployment in 2004, costing Duckworth both legs and the partial use of his right arm.
Duckworth says he is sure that the soldiers who were driving the Black Hawk on Wednesday night were well trained because otherwise, “they would not be in this special airspace, the airspace around Washington, DC,” he said they were In the SFRA – the restricted area of special flight from Washington, DC, Metropolitan. It is a circular area of 30 nautical miles around Washington, DC, which also surrounds the restricted flight area, a smaller area covered by the Reagan National Airport. “
“You can’t fly in that without additional flight training,” Duckworth said.
Illinois Democrat described what the crew would have been doing in the cabin while Black Hawk flew on Wednesday night.
“The members of the crew would have divided the tasks of the crew. A person would have been flying, physically flying the plane, what he takes, you know, all his four limbs to do it,” he told Killion. “You are controlling the direction of the aircraft with your right hand, the power that goes to the engines with your left hand, you are controlling the nose and tail of the aircraft, with your two feet.” This pilot would have been trying to “follow the route”, while the other pilot would be talking to air traffic control.
“Everyone looks out of the plane to try to find that other plane that you are close,” Duckworth said. “The head of the crew in the back is also doing the same. They are also looking out the plane, detecting any traffic that is close, transmitting that information. Then, the crew would be talking to each other while also listening to the traffic controller aerial “.
At the same time, the crew would also be “listening to the air traffic controller talking with other planes, so that it has a situational awareness of everything else that is happening,” he said.
The helicopter would have had a roof, to which Duckworth knew as a “hard cover” in the restricted area where the black hawk flew.
“They are not allowed to exceed 200 feet of the sea level,” he said. “Then, they were flying quite under the Potomac River at that time, while looking up trying to detect this very busy night sky on the landing plane.”
Killion asked if this was the type of flight that would require night vision or NVGS glasses.
“I understand that they were not using NVG,” Duckworth replied. She said that in an area where there are many lights, “they are not such a useful tool” and they are really more appropriate for “a fighting situation in the dark.” Around the airport, “with such an environmental light, they were in visual flight rules, and were operating well inside the parameters for those who have been trained, and the plane was designed to operate,” Duckworth said.
She said the helicopter would have had the lights on, so the plane could have seen it. But the planes that are getting to land have the right of passage.
“They would have been looking towards the track and landing on the track,” he said. “That is the work of the crew inside the American Airlines flight … They were in a short final to land.”
“I am sure they would have been looking, but they do not have the same visibility in that plane, looking at those two small windows they have, as the helicopter would have had, with Plexiglaás.” He explained that the helicopter team “would have been basically sitting in a plexiglass bubble in the black hawk with plexiglaás on your head, under your feet and outside both sides.”
“Then, the helicopter would have had a better visual command than the American Airlines flight, which was landing, looking at the track,” said Duckworth.
When asked about the description of the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of the collision as a “elevation” problem, and President Trump Suggestion that the helicopter could have climbed or going down to get out of the plane’s path, Duckworth replied: “We have to make NTSB and FAA do their work … neither the president nor Mr. Hegseth are pilots, as far as I know .
contributed to this report.
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