WASHINGTON D.C. — Struggling to understand how it could have happened, Captain Scott was about to take off for his morning flight.
The local pilot for a major airline joined Wisconsin’s Morning News minutes before he took to the skies and hours after a U.S. Army black hawk helicopter collided with a commercial airliner on final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It’s an approach he’s made many times.
“You fly the Potomac to a certain point, and then you make a turn to line up,” he told WTMJ.
Captain Scott shared that the sky is crowded around the nation’s capital:
“Andrews Air Force Base right there. So much military operation interacting with the commercial side of things, so it’s very, very busy airspace.”
He also suggested it’s trickier, still, in the dark.
“It’s nighttime in that airspace, very low to the ground, so many lights, all over the place. Lots of other aircraft,” he described.
All that said, the veteran pilot believes the airliner was on a proper course. He thinks the black hawk should have been able to steer clear, and if not, that either or both of the aircraft’s safety measures should have kicked in.
“Still doesn’t help me understand why the Blackhawk’s collision avoidance system or why the regional jet’s collision avoidance system for that matter wouldn’t have operated,” he said.
