Aviation expert analyzes tragic midair collision between passenger jet and military helicopter in Washington DC

In New York, the investigation into the tragic midair collision between a regional passenger jet and a military helicopter in Washington, D.C. is ongoing. Officials are working to uncover the factors that led to this fatal incident.

To shed light on the circumstances surrounding the crash, authorities are considering extracting information from various sources, including tracking devices, black boxes, and other flight data recorders that were onboard the aircraft.

According to helicopter pilot John Del Giorno from WABC-TV, unlike commercial planes, Black Hawk military helicopters are not equipped with certain features such as a cockpit voice recorder, which could provide valuable insights into the moments leading up to the collision.

Del Giorno says the aviation industry polices itself very aggressively: when a problem is identified, it is attacked.

Once of the advances in recent aviation is collision avoidance technology.

In the last few years, commercial and private aircraft have been equipped with transponders that transmit both location and altitude. This information is transmitted to everyone, including on FlightAware, and is also available from aircraft to aircraft.

In terms of mechanisms that are supposed help avoid collisions in midair, commercial aircraft have a TCAS, or a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System. This system alerts a pilot to a nearby aircraft, and is meant to give a pilot direction at the last minute to avoid a possible collision.

The key to the Washington, D.C., investigation will be where the accident took place.

It is not unusual for helicopters to be operating near the Reagan National Airport, with military and law enforcement having a constant presence over the Potomac River.

According to Del Giorno, the commercial airplane may have been low enough in altitude that the TCAS system wouldn’t alert the pilot because it didn’t want to give false alarms to planes on the ground, giving them little time to react.

Meanwhile, some may be concerned that an air traffic controller shortage could have played a role in the collision.

Del Giorno cautions that it is too early to say if this played a factor.