The pilots flying the American Airlines Flight 5342 that collided mid-air with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on January 29, made a heroic attempt to save everyone on board, new data shows.
The jet carried 64 passengers, and the helicopter was carrying three soldiers who retraining the president’s emergency evacuation route, which is a part of a contingency plan for the continuity of government.
At the time of the accident, the plane was approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in an attempt to land.
Unfortunately, there are no survivors.
Rescue teams have not recovered all of the bodies up to this point.
Data from the plane’s black box revealed that the pilots, 34-year-old Campos, and his 28-year-old co-pilot Lilley, made a desperate final attempt to pull the plane up seconds before the crash.
“At one point very close to the impact, there was a slight change in pitch, an increase in pitch,” Todd Inman, an official of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said during a press conference on February 1.
Further, Inman said that they don’t have the data from the helicopter, but “obviously an impact occurred, and I would say when an impact occurs, that is typically where the altitude of both aircraft were at the moment.”
Preliminary data from the plane’s black box showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of both aircraft.
When hit over the Potomac River, the American Airlines plane was flying at an altitude of 325 feet, with a 25ft margin of error on either side.
On the other hand, data provided by the control tower showed that the Black Hawk was flying at an altitude of about 200ft, which is he maximum of what a helicopter can safely operate at in the area.
Hopefully, they would be able to reconcile the differences in the altitude once they get to the data of the helicopter’s black box which was retrieved but waterlogged.
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