The collision of American Airlines flight 5342 and an Army helicopter is the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. in 23 years. But there were warning signs. WSJ's Benjamin Katz reports on recent safety concerns about D.C.'s increasingly busy airspace and explains where the investigation goes next. Further Listening: -Your Flight Delay Is Probably New York's Fault Further Reading: -How a Plane and a Helicopter Collided in a Crowded Airspace Around Reagan Airport -Washington’s Jam-Packed Airspace Has Prompted Warnings for Years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Wednesday started as a pretty normal day at Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation.
You know, that day there'd been probably about 700 flights, that's takeoffs and landings from Reagan National.
That's our colleague Ben Katz. He covers aviation.
And then suddenly flight 5342 got a call from air traffic controllers asking if they would, instead of coming into the primary runway at Reagan National, instead take runway 33.
Flight 5342 was arriving from Wichita, Kansas, and had 64 people on board.
And less than a minute later, there was a sudden alert inside the air traffic control tower.
The alert said the Wichita flight was at risk of colliding with a military helicopter. Air traffic control alerted the helicopter's crew to the plane.
The helicopter crew acknowledged that they were aware of the aircraft, and then 15 or so seconds later, the two aircraft collided. 67 people have died. The search and rescue teams are still trying to recover all of the bodies.
How unusual is a tragedy of this scale?
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