Free Republic

Over three days of sometimes contentious hearings this week, the National Transportation Safety Board interrogated Federal Aviation Administration and Army officials about a list of things that went wrong and contributed to a Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet colliding over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people. The biggest revelations: The helicopter's altimeter gauge was broken, and controllers warned the FAA years earlier about the dangers that helicopters presented. At one point NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolded the FAA for not addressing safety concerns. “Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?”...

The U.S. Army has identified the female soldier in the doomed Black Hawk helicopter which crashed into an American Airlines flight this week, killing more than 60 people. Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, was assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, who served since July 2019, the Army said in a statement. The Army had initially refused to identify Lobach at the request of her family. The decision to release her name came “at the request of and in coordination with the family,” according to the statement. “We are devastated by the loss of...

The air traffic controllers union responded Friday to claims by President Trump this week that diversity programs contributed to the fatal crash in Washington Wednesday night. “Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones. The standards to achieve certifications are not based on race or gender,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), said in a statement.

transgender soldier has spoken out after being incorrectly named as one of the Black Hawk helicopter pilots involved in the collision with an American Airlines plane in Washington D.C on Wednesday. "Some craziness has happened on the internet and I'm being named as one of the pilots of the DC crash," Ellis wrote on Facebook on Friday. "Please report any accounts or posts you see. It's insulting to the victims and families of those lost and they deserve better than this BS from the bots and trolls of the internet." Newsweek has contacted Ellis for further comment on Facebook...

The co-pilot of the Black Hawk that crashed into a passenger plane in DC , killing everyone on board in both aircraft, was a woman who was being evaluated. The female pilot has not been named but Fox News reported it was a woman with 500 hours of flying of experience, which is considered a 'normal' amount...Army chopper may have been flying higher than approved The Black Hawk involved in the crash appears to have been flying too high and outside its approved flight path during the tragedy on Wednesday, The New York Times reported. The chopper was reportedly supposed...

The Federal Aviation Administration was hit with a class-action lawsuit last year alleging it had denied 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers jobs because of diversity hiring targets — as it was revealed that staffing levels were “not normal” at the time of this week’s deadly midair collision. Complaints about the FAA’s hiring policies resurfaced after the American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, killing 67 people in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter-century. Details of the litigation re-emerged, too, as Andrew Brigida, the lead plaintiff in the suit, suggested...

The low-altitude helicopter corridor that was in use at the time of this week’s fatal mid-air collision has indefinitely been shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency official tells CNN. The move is the most significant action taken by the FAA since an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter collided midair on Wednesday night before plunging into the frigid Potomac River in clear weather. Sixty seven people were killed. The US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was using what’s known as helicopter Route 4, a specialized corridor utilized by law enforcement, medevac, military, and government...