Photo: X The US government took responsibility for the fatal accident.
The US Department of Justice issued a statement admitting that failures in the performance of the Black Hawk helicopter crew and the control tower controller led to January's fatal air crash in the skies over Washington.
The Justice Department also acknowledged that it failed to protect passenger safety, thereby violating its duty of care, and argued that failures by the US military and the Federal Aviation Administration were among the direct causes of the tragic accident.
Accordingly, the admission, included in court papers that were filed as part of a civil lawsuit by the family of one of the passengers who died in the crash, makes the government liable for the damages.
In other words, it creates room for additional compensation claims from the families of other victims as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continues its investigation.
As a reminder, the disaster occurred in January of this year, when American Eagle Flight 5342, which was en route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., collided in midair with a military helicopter nearby Ronald Reagan Airport in Virginia. The passenger plane, a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700, began preparations for landing in the evening, with 67 passengers and crew on board.
The helicopter involved was a Sikorsky H-60 (Black Hawk). According to the released documents, the helicopter crew had promised to maintain a considerable distance from the civilian aircraft but failed to do so. All 67 passengers and crew members died in the collision.
It should also be noted that, following the crash, the NTSB issued an interim report with an unequivocal recommendation to prevent helicopter flights in the Ronald Reagan Airport area. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy explained that the distance between airplanes and helicopters at Reagan Airport is insufficient and represents an intolerable risk to aviation safety, stressing the need for immediate steps to reduce the risk in Washington’s busy airspace.
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