One of the reasons that Trump wanted Pete Hegseth as his Secretary of Defense was because he insisted standards were not being followed in the military.
Sadly, that is what appeared to cause the crash between the Black Hawk and American Airline passenger flight.
According to the latest reports, the crash was likely the fault of the helicopter pilot, who was flying well above the approved ceiling for the flight.
Training Flight Gone Wrong
If you have ever flown into Ronald Reagan Airport in DC, you know how busy that particular area is over the Potomac.
That is a very popular helicopter route, but helicopters are not permitted to fly over 200 feet because of the steady flow of airline traffic.
In this case, the helicopter was likely flying over 300 feet, as the crash took place at 325 feet according to the planes black box.
Radar logs showed the Black Hawk at 300 feet, but the radar rounds to the nearest 100, so it was somewhere between 251 and 349, which meshes with the airliner data.
It also appears that the pilot of the plane tried to climb at the last second, but from the video evidence, this all appeared to be on the Black Hawk pilot.
Now, that is an assumption being made from the data and the video, so we will have to wait until the investigation is complete before we know the final verdict on this.
All three crew members on the Black Hawk died in the crash, as did all 64 people on board the plane, which was four crew and 60 passengers.
All of the bodies have already been recovered, and as of this report, 66 of the 67 bodies have been identified.
This is the worst civilian airliner crash in decades in the United States, but it was one that likely could have been avoided unless we find out something went horribly wrong with the Black Hawk.
