- A passenger jet collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Airport on Wednesday, January 29.
- The collision may have occurred due to limited visibility and night vision goggle use, says former pilot Mark Stephens.
- He reminds nervous passengers that flying in an airplane is still safer statistically than a car.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mark Stephens, a 68-year-old retired Delta Air Lines pilot who completed his career as an Airbus A350 captain in November 2021. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I was a Delta pilot for 30 years, and I landed at Reagan Washington National Airport many times throughout my career.
There are two airports on the East Coast that I consider particularly dangerous: LaGuardia and Reagan. Due to heavy air traffic, both airports handle takeoffs and landings on intersecting runways at very high speeds. It’s incredibly close quarters.
One suggestion I have for safety is to limit the size of the planes flying in. The American Airlines flight was small — around 60 seats — which is much harder to see than a larger plane like an Airbus A320.
They could require the airplanes flying in to be bigger and have fewer of them, but that’s unlikely because it would reduce the number of places airlines can fly.
Here’s what I think may have happened at DCA
What might’ve happened on January 29 when a passenger jet collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan is that neither of the aircraft saw the other.
In a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) situation, a set of regulations governing how pilots should operate in clear weather conditions, the Black Hawk could be as close as a few hundred feet to commercial planes. The air traffic controller would’ve pointed out the passenger airplane to the helicopter, whose pilot would’ve said, “Roger, we’ll maintain visual separation.”
At close range, the pilot in the helicopter with night vision goggles may not see the other plane because the goggles narrow your field. Also, at night, depth perception and your peripherals are reduced. I don’t think the helicopter pilot ever saw the airplane they hit.
Another possibility is that the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is not fully effective below 700 feet, the approximate altitude of the crash
TCAS is a vital tool, and it saved me once. It warns pilots of possible collisions and gives automated instructions to prevent crashes.
One time, I was flying a Delta commercial plane out of Atlanta at 16,000 feet, and another plane, flown by a civilian pilot, was approaching. I was flying this departure on course, at altitude, and we got a TCAS alert.
The other pilot was descending in altitude. I’d seen him above me earlier but could no longer see him. The VSI, or vertical speed indicator, gives you a little green range where you need to get the airplane down to avoid hitting the other plane. Right at the last minute, my TCAS instructed me to descend 2,500 feet a minute.
Because he was coming down toward us, we had to go below him. We pushed it aggressively to get the plane flying down 2,500 feet a minute and got to negative G-force, so the flight attendants were in the air until I got back into positive G-force.
At that last second, I looked up and saw him go by. We could’ve crashed if the TCAS system hadn’t worked. It saved my life coming out of Atlanta and everyone on that airplane.
I don’t think the collision on Wednesday was a TCAS failure, though. TCAS doesn’t provide solutions at low altitudes as aircraft are landing for safety reasons.
I retired in November 2021
I hate to say it, but changes in the procedures of airliners and helicopters happen after blood is involved. For example, after September 11, cockpits were locked down with bulletproof doors so hijackers couldn’t commandeer the plane.
I expect that after this, the military won’t allow night vision goggles around commercial airports within five miles.
For those scared to fly, I used to tell nervous passengers that if they ride in a car, they are so much safer statistically on an airplane because cars kill way more people.
