Share and Follow
DEVASTATING details have come to light about the midair collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight that killed 67 people in January.
New evidence from the National Transportation Safety Board’s six-month probe into the deadly crash included surveillance footage that left audience members in tears at a hearing on Wednesday.
This week, NTSB began three days of hearings to help determine what caused the collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport on January 29.
The agency released thousands of pages of documents about the incidents suggesting the Army helicopter pilots never heard an air traffic controller’s command to pass behind the plane, the NTSB said.
NTSB also said there were major “discrepancies” in the altitude readouts on the Black Hawk helicopter, leading the crew to think they were flying lower than they actually were over the Potomac River.
At the beginning of the hearing, officials showed an 11-minute animation showing the minutes leading up to the crash.
They also displayed new video from the end of the runway showing the crash, pausing to allow family members at the hearing the option to leave the room or look away from the disturbing video.
Families of the crash victims sitting in the audience broke down sobbing as officials played the newly released footage.
Some of the family members in attendance wore pictures of their loved ones on buttons or in lanyards around their necks.
The crash killed 60 passengers and four crew members on the American Airlines plane and three soldiers on the helicopter.