Pilot made two deadly mistakes moments before plane crash that killed 67 people

Seconds before a US Army Black Hawk helicopter into a domestic flight carrying 64 passengers, the pilot made two fatal mistakes, a new report has claimed.

The bombshell report into the at Washington DC's Ronald Reagan International Airport, which also killed the three Army personnel aboard the helicopter, claims that Captain Rebecca Lobach did not follow an order to change course. 

Just 15 seconds later as Flight 5342 came into land, shortly before 8.48pm, a fireball lit the sky over the Potomac River.

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The crash claimed the lives of 67 people in total, including a team of young figure skaters, but reporting has revealed that there were two opportunities for it to be avoided. 

Shortly before, the Black Hawk had received an alert from air traffic controllers that the regional passenger jet was nearby, which the crew acknowledged before requesting permission to conduct what is usually a routine aviation manoeuvre.

One of the US Army pilots asked to begin "visual separation," a practice in which the crew uses their eyesight to determine the best path and keep their distance from other aircraft, rather than the controllers in the tower. “Visual separation approved,” the controller can be heard saying in response on audio recordings from the incident.

These requests happen every day around the without causing collisions; however, Cpt. Lobach failed to visually separate from the incoming passenger jet. The New York Times indicated that this was either because she did not spot the plane, or was unable to pilot the helicopter to a safer position.

Lobach, who had accrued 500 hours of flying time, was flying over Ronald Reagan Airport as part of her annual flight evaluation for the Black Hawk, when was reported to have made this first mistake while the American Airlines flight was circling to land. Then her evaluator and co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, relayed an order from the tower to turn left "toward the east river bank."

This would have created more space between the two aircraft, but Lobach was aid to have failed to follow this order and 15 seconds later, everyone on both aircraft was dead. It is still unclear why this routine manoeuvre was not executed, or why the order to move left was not followed, according to flight data.

"There is no indication that [Capt. Rebecca Lobach] was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments aboard the Black Hawk, according to friends and people familiar with the crash investigation, which included autopsies and performance log reviews," the report claims.

Instead, investigators now believe that a microphone malfunction could have obstructed key information from entering the cockpit of the US Army chopper. Both the pilot and co-pilot might have simultaneously pressed the button to talk, which cuts out incoming audio, and so failed to hear the word "circling."

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the US National Transportation Safety Board, said this error suggested that the incomplete message could have left Lobach and Eaves unable to see where to move their helicopter to avoid the jet.

"At 8:47:42 - or 17 seconds before impact - a radio transmission from the tower was audible on both CVRs directing the Black Hawk to pass behind the CRJ," Homendy told reporters.

"CVR data from the Black Hawk indicated that the portion of the transmission that stated 'pass behind the' may not have been received by the Black Hawk crew."

She also revealed that the pilot, alongside her annual evaluation, was being tested on her use of night vision goggles, which investigators believe the crew had been wearing for the entire flight up to the moment of impact.

The Black Hawk, which was also flying higher than it was meant to, also saw its Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system switched off in the minutes before the collision, according to statements by Senator Ted Cruz. This relays altitude and tracking data, as well as the location of other aircraft in the sky or on the runway.