DC Air Disaster: Final Minutes Revealed (2026) Movie Script
[ominous tone plays]
[narrator]
In January 2025,
a collision between
a Black Hawk
military helicopter
and a passenger plane
over Washington DC
shocks America.
-[indistinct radio chatter]
-[pilot] Tower, did you
see that?
67 people lost their lives.
What led to this catastrophe?
That was when I saw
what looked like
a very big Roman candle,
but up in the air.
Now, one year later,
investigators use
forensic analysis to
examine the evidence
and piece together
what happened
in those
final minutes.
[Jeff] The margin
of safety wasn't there.
This accident was preventable.
The collision comes at
the start of a deadly year
for global aviation.
I was shocked that we survived.
What caused America's
most fatal aviation disaster
in more than 20 years?
And as our skies grow
increasingly crowded...
what can be done to safeguard
the lives of passengers?
[orchestral music plays]
Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport
in Arlington, Virginia,
is one of the busiest airports
in the United States.
Built in the early 1940s,
it handles more than
800 takeoffs and landings
every day.
Washington National Ronald
Reagan Airport sits right on
the Potomac River, just less
than a mile from the monuments
of Washington DC.
It's a very popular airport for
the congressmen and senators
here because they can fly
nonstop back to
their constituents
in other states.
Commercial flights coming in to
land follow the course of
the river, a route which
provides a never-ending
spectacle for those
on the ground.
[Ari] If you're in the vicinity
of Washington National Airport
at night, what you will see is
a string of pearls of airplanes
lined up way out into
the distance at regular
intervals coming in to land.
It's almost like a ballet
or a dance, watching them come
in, especially when the weather
is really good and clear
as it was that night.
On the evening of
January 29, 2025...
American Airlines Flight
5342 was getting ready
to travel from Wichita,
Kansas to Washington DC.
The flight was operated
by PSA Airlines, and the route
from Wichita was
relatively new,
opened just 12 months earlier.
Among the 64 passengers
and crew were 28 people
returning from a figure skating
training camp.
My name is Doug Lane.
My wife, Christine Conrad Lane,
and my 16-year-old son,
Spencer Lane, were both
on the flight that day.
Spencer was about nine months
old when we adopted him.
From the moment I met him,
I started to think of him
as my little adventurer because
he was just always looking for
the next thing to get into.
He started later in figure
skating than is traditionally
the case, so he was
about 12 years old.
I don't know that anyone has
ever done what he did in terms
of going from basic learn
to skate in 2022 to winning
sectionals at the intermediate
level in late 2024.
It's very competitive to get
invited to that camp.
And it really just signifies
the fact that you are somebody
who's on the radar
as a prospect for Team USA.
I talked to Christine not long
before they got underway.
She had mentioned to me some of
the other people that were
on the flight, and, um...
and that was that.
So they got underway.
The flight took off from
Wichita at 6:39 PM
on a journey that was due to
take two hours and 45 minutes.
At the controls were
Captain Jonathan Campos
and 28-year-old
First Officer Sam Lilley.
Sam's decision to become
a professional pilot meant
following in
his father's footsteps.
[Tim] My name is Tim Lilley.
I've been a professional pilot
since 1986.
Sam was a great
character, actually.
He was a great kid growing up.
We all loved him.
I was very proud when Sam told
me he wanted to become a pilot,
and I was very proud
when he accomplished it.
At 8:15 PM,
Flight 5342 began its descent
into Washington DC.
As the jet approached
Ronald Reagan National Airport,
it entered an airspace
crisscrossed by a network
of helicopter routes.
The airspace over
Washington DC
is extremely complex,
so there is a large mix of
military helicopters
and commercial airline traffic.
Airliners can't cross over
into the east side of
the Potomac River because that's
where the White House is.
At the same time as Flight
5342 was coming in to land,
US Army Black Hawk helicopter
Call Sign Priority
Air Transport 25
was on a training mission.
It was following
the Potomac River south along
helicopter routes 1 and 4.
-[whirring]
-[suspenseful music plays]
[Jeff] The helicopter had
an instructor pilot,
another pilot that was
receiving instruction,
and a crew chief.
It was a night training mission
to fly around that area
and to also fly using
night vision goggles.
At 8:43 PM,
American Airlines Flight 5342
was 10.5 nautical miles
from Ronald Reagan
National Airport.
It was scheduled to land
at Runway 1.
But at the last moment,
air traffic control asked it to
switch to Runway 33 because
of wind conditions.
The helicopter
is flying south
towards
National Airport
along the Potomac River.
Meanwhile,
you had an airliner
heading north
to land
on Runway 33.
The helicopter crew
was talking to
air traffic controllers
at Washington
Reagan National Airport.
The controller pointed out
traffic to the helicopter
and said that you've got
an airliner that's circling to
land, and the helicopter crew
acknowledged that transmission.
As Flight 5342
continued its descent,
on the ground was
Ari Shulman.
He was in his car on his way
home from church.
I was coming home
unusually late.
I remember that the highway was
very clear and also that
the air was very clear
and that there was,
it was very dark
and there was no moon.
So you could see the planes
really, really well.
And I remember being struck
by how unusually beautiful
and brilliant the planes were.
At 8:47 PM, air traffic
control once again made contact
with the helicopter.
The controller instructed
the Black Hawk
to avoid
the passenger jet.
The airliner was now so low,
it was clearly visible to
eyewitness Ari Shulman.
[Ari] I was driving along
the highway, and at a certain
point, I passed by the airport.
So it was then that I looked
off to my left and saw this
plane coming in to land.
I was very close to it.
It was brightly illuminated.
I could see all of the details.
I could see the wing lights
on the plane.
The two aircraft were just
seconds apart.
What happened next was captured
on an airport
surveillance camera.
[indistinct radio chatter]
That was when I saw
what looked like a very big
Roman candle, but up in the air.
For a few moments,
there is silence.
Until another pilot calls in.
-[pilot speaking]
-[indistinct].
Despite what has happened,
there are still planes
and passengers in the air.
Air traffic control must
determine how to land all
the aircraft safely while also
alerting fire and rescue.
[air traffic control speaking]
The US Coast Guard is among
those contacted.
In charge of the station
at Washington DC
is Lieutenant Commander
Kim Jenish,
who has just finished
for the day.
On January 29th, on that
evening, I was already home
and had just finished dinner
with my husband, settling in for
the evening, and the call
came in at 8:52 PM.
Hearing the words, "A plane has
just crashed into the river,"
felt unreal.
Kim and her colleagues know
they must reach the crash site
as quickly as possible if they
are to rescue any survivors.
On that night,
the priority was to find anyone
in the water and pull them out.
The conditions were quite harsh
between the wind,
the ice conditions,
and the murky waters.
There were parts everywhere,
and in addition to that,
there was a significant amount
of fuel in the water.
And when looking out across
the river, all you could see
was a whole line of emergency
vehicles from everywhere.
I'd never seen
that many emergency vehicles
concentrated in such
a small area.
[suspenseful music plays]
Hundreds of miles away
in Rhode Island is Doug Lane,
whose wife Christine and son
Spencer were on the plane.
They were due to catch
a connecting flight home.
I was kind of tracking
their flight to DCA
just because, you know,
I'm like that and I'd like to
just track and see
what's happening.
And as the time was coming for
the flight to land, I was kind
of refreshing the status
and it just kind of
wasn't really updating.
I tried texting them
and the texts weren't
going through.
And so that was a little odd.
Just as I was killing time,
I actually pulled up CNN.com
and there wasn't even
an article, but there was just
a little like breaking news
ticker across the top that
said, "Small plane crashed
in the Potomac River."
And I immediately flashed back
to talking with Christine about
how when you fly into DCA,
you always have to go
over the Potomac.
And then just my breath was
literally just taken away,
and my heart was kind of just
beating out of my chest
at that point.
Tim Lilley, the father of
First Officer Sam and himself
a pilot, is also concerned
by the news.
[Tim]
When this accident happened,
I was in Teterboro because
I was out on a trip, and I was
gonna have an early morning
show, and I saw on TV
there had been an accident.
And it was in DC,
and I realized it was a CRJ,
and it was flying under
the American Airlines flag,
so I immediately started
texting him.
But, of course, he didn't
text me back, right?
And that's not unusual,
because if he was flying,
he would have turned
his phone off.
Tim is unable to get a hold of
his son, so messages his wife.
Together, they contact
Sam's fiance.
And then my wife put us on
a three-way phone call.
My wife actually asked her
what leg he was flying,
and she said, "Well,
from Wichita to DC," and that
was devastating because
that was the point that
we knew it was probably him.
Tim's worst fears are
confirmed just before 10 PM.
How could a passenger jet
collide with a helicopter
over the nation's capital?
In the freezing waters
of the Potomac River...
rescuers work to find survivors
of Flight 5342
and Army Helicopter
PAT 25.
Restricted by the darkness
and numbed by cold,
the scene is almost
beyond comprehension.
[Lt. Cdr. Jenish]
I had received a third call
from my duty officer,
who was part of the search
and rescue crew.
At that point,
his crew members, who're some of
our youngest members
at the station,
they were starting to pull
victims onto the boat.
And at that point,
the reality of it
really became real.
The helicopter wreckage lies
approximately .7 miles to
the southeast of the airport.
The plane has broken
into pieces,
the bulk of which are located
less than half a mile
from the runway.
[Lt. Cdr. Jenish]
Every emergency first
responder out there went out
with the hope to find
survivors early on.
Unfortunately, into the early
morning, it started to become
clear that we would not
be finding survivors,
but rather the focus would be
on recovering all the victims.
The realization
is gut-wrenching,
but the effort continues.
I had never seen
as much heart, courage,
and dedication
just absolutely put out there.
In such harsh conditions,
that was never a barrier
to people's response.
[dramatic chord strike]
Daylight reveals the true scale
of the collision,
the partially submerged
fuselage of the jet
and the Black Hawk
in the icy river.
No one on board either aircraft
has survived.
67 people lost their lives.
It's the first large-scale
fatal crash involving
a commercial American airliner
for 16 years.
How did it happen?
Investigators from the National
Transportation Safety Board,
NTSB, arrive on the scene.
They are the agency responsible
for investigating
air traffic accidents.
[Graham]
When an aircraft accident
occurs, the priority for
the investigator is to
make sure that evidence
is preserved.
So, they will tend to deploy
quite rapidly to
an accident site.
Their aim is to understand what
happened, why it happened,
and what recommendations may be
made to make sure it doesn't
happen in the future.
One of the team's first
actions is to launch a drone to
record the position of
the two aircraft.
In every case, the NTSB
uses a very detailed forensic
approach to
document the wreckage.
Typically, the majority of
the wreckage is documented
immediately, within a few days
of recovery.
The freezing conditions
stir memories of the last
major fatal crash to happen
at the airport.
On January 13, 1982,
Air Florida Flight 90
crashed into the frozen
Potomac River.
Photojournalist Chester Panzer
witnessed the disaster.
[Chester] The weather
that day was really cold.
It had stopped snowing
when we got to the crash site.
The river had been frozen over
because it had been so cold
for such a long time.
I described the crash site
as what looked like a baseball
going through a plate-glass
window, but you could not
see a plane.
The plane was underwater.
The 737 jet, with 79
passengers and crew,
hit the 14th Street Bridge
moments after takeoff.
Rescuers faced even worse
sub-zero temperatures than
those 40 years later
as they searched for survivors.
We then went a little closer
to the rescue scene where
the helicopter had lifted
a female out of the water with
a rope under her arms.
When the last survivor was
still in the water,
I was convinced
she was gonna drown
because of the helicopter.
The wash was
pushing her underwater.
Only five of the 79 people
on board survived.
Four died on the ground.
The investigation found
that weather played
an important factor
in the crash.
[Graham] In 1982, the aircraft
took off in conditions that were
snowy and icy.
It unfortunately meant that
the wing was contaminated with
snow and ice, and also it seems
that the engine anti-ice system
was not activated, so the power
from the engine
just was not enough for that
aircraft to accelerate
away and climb.
In Washington,
investigators hunt for a vital
piece of equipment that
they hope will help them
unravel the cause of
the latest accident,
the two aircraft's flight data
and voice recorders,
known as black boxes.
[Jeff]
In major airline accidents,
the flight recorders are key
to solving the accident.
The flight data recorder
is recording several
parameters across the whole
aircraft, and you can marry up
the timing of the conversations
and noises with the flight data
recorder, and that really gives
you a much better picture of
exactly what was happening
second-by-second just prior
to the accident.
As the search for the black
boxes gets underway,
the families of the victims
face an agonizing wait
for answers.
Doug Lane, whose wife Christine
and son Spencer were
on the flight, is at home
with his other son.
I'm not sure I actually
remember when I got
confirmation about
the lack of survivors.
I think it was pretty early
in the process.
There was a point, as there
often is, where they say,
"We're moving from a rescue
to a recovery stage."
So I want to
say it was almost
that first night
or maybe early into
the next day that I had
the realization that
they were definitely gone.
So there wasn't a lot of
time to really hold out hope.
Doug decides to travel down to
Washington DC, as does Tim,
the father of
First Officer Sam Lilley.
I did go to Reagan National
that very first night.
I think I got there around
2 or 3 in the morning.
By the time I got to DC,
I had heard already
that there was no survivors.
When a child dies
in a horrific accident,
you don't come to terms with it
within days or weeks.
The first few days, you're in
shock, and you almost don't
believe it.
The next day, the US
military releases the names of
the Black Hawk helicopter crew
on the training mission.
At the controls was
Captain Rebecca Lobach,
alongside Chief Warrant
Officer Two, Andrew Eaves,
and Crew Chief Staff
Sergeant Ryan O'Hara.
Why did two aircraft flown by
professional pilots collide?
The need for answers is urgent,
not only for the sake of
the victims' families,
but to help prevent scenarios
like this from happening
in the future.
And this will not be the only
accident to happen in 2025
involving a US airliner.
One week after the collision
over Washington DC,
investigators recover
the remains of the Black Hawk
helicopter from
the Potomac River.
Each section is secured in
preparation for its journey to
a forensics hangar.
The physical wreckage that's
maybe left behind in
an accident is incredibly
valuable to the investigator.
As you recover it, as you
pull it out of the water,
what you need to be careful
not to do is
introduce new marks
or new damage.
The team also has the wreckage
of the jet, which they lay out
for examination.
One of the key things that
the NTSB looks at in wreckage,
especially in mid-air
collisions, are scratch marks
and rotor blade strikes.
And from that,
they can corroborate
the information they're getting
from the videos, from the ADS-B
recorded radar track,
and from the distribution
of the wreckage.
The investigators also want to
know if either aircraft had any
mechanical issues that may have
contributed to the accident.
And just days into
the forensic investigation,
another US jet is involved in
a landing accident.
[dramatic chord strike]
My name is Hannah Krebs,
and on February 17th, 2025,
I hopped on a flight from
Minnesota to Toronto
to meet some coworkers.
At 12:47 PM,
Delta Connection Flight 4819
departs Minneapolis.
Its destination
is Toronto Pearson Airport,
700 miles to the east.
76 passengers and four crew are
on board the commuter plane.
As the plane makes a routine
approach to land,
temperatures are below
freezing, and the wind is
gusting up to
40 miles per hour.
Once we were descending,
we started getting knocked
around quite a bit by the wind,
but nothing felt really wrong
to me other than, you know,
it was quite
a turbulent descent.
And that continued right up
until we hit the ground.
[indistinct]
[witness] Oh, [bleep].
Oh, [bleep].
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
[witness #2] [indistinct],
airplane just crashed.
I was...
shocked that we survived.
Once we hit the ground, I could
tell that it was way too hard.
Everything started
shifting this way.
Suddenly, before I knew it,
we were upside down.
I could hear the metal scraping
on the ground
as we skidded along,
and we skidded for
what felt like forever.
And then when we stopped,
it all got quiet.
For a millisecond, there was
this collective breath of air
where everyone goes, "OK,
"we're alive.
Everyone's alive.
We're stopped.
What do we do now?"
I don't remember exactly how
I got myself down, but I must
have just unclipped myself
and fell on to what used to be
the ceiling and was
now the floor.
There was no stampeding,
no rush, no nothing.
Everyone just got into
an orderly line and evacuated.
[indistinct]
[John] We just landed.
Our plane crashed.
It's upside down.
[Hannah] When I got to the front
and the flight attendant
stopped the line and told me,
you need to drop that,
leave your backpack,
leave your backpack.
[flight attendant] Just drop it.
Come on.
[Hannah]
The person getting thrown out
in the black parka was me.
Remarkably, all 80 passengers
and crew escape
with their lives.
[tense music plays]
A preliminary investigation by
Canada's Air Transport Board
finds that the hard touchdown
caused the plane's landing gear
to fracture.
Close examination
of the footage
suggests that
as the landing gear collapsed,
it pushed the weight
of the fuselage
onto the right wing.
The wing then sheared off,
and the plane rolled
onto its roof.
Like most passenger jets,
the wings contained fuel tanks,
so when one wing detached,
the risk of explosion
was reduced,
and the passengers survived.
But in Washington, there is
no obvious indication of
a catastrophic
mechanical failure.
So investigators must turn to
the black boxes for answers.
Why were the two aircraft
on flight paths that crossed?
Two weeks after the accident
at Washington National Airport,
investigators hunt for clues to
explain how two planes collided
in one of the world's most
tightly controlled airspaces.
[Graham] Mid-air collisions
are a very
unusual and rare type
of accident.
But when they do occur,
they often happen in busy
airspace, which is found often
around airports where aircraft
are climbing,
descending,
or they're
following particular routes.
[Jeff] Well, I've investigated
several mid-air collisions.
They're very unique accidents.
It has everything to do
with geometry.
One of the worst
mid-air collisions in
US history happened in
September 1978 in San Diego,
when a Boeing 727 operated
by Pacific Southwest Airlines
collided with a small
Cessna plane.
A photographer captured an
image of the jet on fire
as it plummeted
to the ground.
[Graham] In San Diego, the two
aircraft fell to ground in
a built-up area.
Seven people on the ground
lost their lives out of
a total of 144.
[Jeff] The loss of life
was massive.
It was the deadliest accident
in US history
at that time.
It still remains the deadliest
accident in the state of
California with regard
to an aircraft accident.
The San Diego investigation
examined the position of
the two aircraft in relation
to each other.
The investigators spent a lot
of time focusing on what it was
that the crew of the aircraft
would have been able to see.
And unfortunately, because of
the design of the two aircraft
and where they were,
neither aircraft probably saw
each other until
they'd actually collided.
[Jeff]
In this case, the airline crew
lost sight of the Cessna 172
but never told
the air traffic controller.
And those two aircraft came
together and collided about
2,600 feet above the ground,
killing everybody
in both airplanes.
After the accident,
collision avoidance systems
were developed to help aircraft
maintain their distance
from each other.
But they cannot entirely
remove the risk of
a mid-air collision.
Air traffic controllers are key
to keeping planes
apart mid-flight.
Paul Rinaldi is a former
air traffic controller.
When you look at the DCA
event, the number one mission
of an air traffic controller is
to prevent airplanes
from colliding.
We are the stop signs,
the speed limits,
the red lights
and green lights in the sky,
because they're not there.
And on that night,
unfortunately, we failed.
In Washington, analysis of
the voice recordings in
the 2025 mid-air collision
reveals that the first contact
between the passenger plane
and the tower takes place
at 8:43 PM,
when the aircraft is asked to
divert to Runway 33
due to wind conditions.
After a brief discussion,
the crew accepts
the new request.
At this time,
the Black Hawk
helicopter
is north
of the airport,
flying south along
helicopter route four.
The helicopter's path will
take it directly beneath
the approach to Runway 33.
How far did the switch
in runways contribute to
what happened?
So if the airplane would have
continued on route 1,
that wouldn't have gotten into
the path of the helicopter.
They would have
stayed separated.
But because
the airliner
was asked
to land on
Runway 33,
that is
within the path
of helicopter
route four,
thus increasing
the risk of collision.
So at 8:46 PM, air traffic
control first alerts
the helicopter crew to
the passenger plane up ahead,
or CRJ, short for
Canadair Regional Jet.
This footage, filmed on
the night, shows helicopter
PAT 25 close to
Memorial Bridge,
less than a mile north
of the airport.
The helicopter crew asks
the air traffic controller
for visual separation.
Visual separation means that
the pilots are going to
visually separate themselves
by looking at the other target
and keep away from that target.
The onus now is on the pilot,
not the controller, to ensure
that there's no collision.
The use of visual separation
is not uncommon.
But normally the other aircraft
is alerted, too.
Staffing at air traffic control
has also come under scrutiny.
Two separate air traffic
controllers typically supervise
the movements of
commercial aircraft
and military helicopters
at Reagan National Airport.
But on the night of the crash,
a single controller was
handling both helicopter
and commercial traffic.
An internal report for
the Federal Aviation
Administration,
which was leaked
to "The New York Times,"
suggests that staffing levels
were not normal for
the time of day
and volume of traffic.
That controller was doing
an amazing job working to get
airplanes into the airport
and off the airport.
And it's high-intensity work
that he was doing.
That's why that position,
the helicopter position,
is supposed to be separated
from his function.
Audio recordings reveal that
the controller receives
an automated traffic alert
approximately 20 seconds
before the collision.
The controller then asks
the helicopter pilots
if they can see the plane.
Following standard
procedure, the single
air traffic controller
is communicating with
the passenger plane
and Army helicopter on two
separate radio frequencies.
But close analysis of the voice
recordings reveals that
the Army pilots may not have
received the air traffic
controller's instruction to
pass behind the passenger jet.
Whenever you're communicating
with air traffic controller
with another aircraft,
sometimes you can be
what they call, "stepped on."
[Paul] If two pilots are talking
at the same time or if
a controller and a pilot are
talking at the same time,
nothing gets through.
Our communications
and frequencies,
it's antiquated.
But even if the Army pilots
did not hear the message
from air traffic control,
why did the collision happen
when the helicopter crew twice
said it had the passenger plane
in sight?
The nature of the helicopter's
training mission
may provide a clue.
NTSB investigators reveal that
the helicopter crew may have
been wearing night vision
goggles during a continuity of
government evacuation exercise.
[Jeff]
When you wear night vision
goggles, it's like looking
through a couple of
paper towel tubes, right?
Your peripheral vision
is blocked off.
You have to constantly
move your head.
It limits your peripheral
vision, and it's
more difficult and challenging,
in my view, to point out
specific targets that are being
called out by a controller.
It's even more difficult to use
night vision goggles when
you're in an area
with lots of light.
This image replicates how
the city may have appeared
through night vision goggles.
Did the use of this equipment
impair what the helicopter crew
could see?
I think it's a very distinct
possibility that the crew on
the helicopter was looking at
the wrong aircraft.
There is evidence that the
pilots of the passenger plane
saw the helicopter
only at the very last moment.
The flight data recorder
indicated that the nose of
the airplane came up abruptly
and then began to bank to
the left the final one second
before the collision.
In my mind, that tells me
that the airline crew saw
the helicopter just prior
to the collision.
That wasn't enough time
to get out of the way of
the helicopter's flight path.
It's likely the investigation
will look at any potential
failures in communication.
But a preliminary report
published by the NTSB in March
hints at deeper issues.
It makes an urgent
safety recommendation,
which leads the FAA to impose
new restrictions regarding
helicopter traffic around DCA.
Statistically, flying is
the safest form of travel.
How did this catastrophic
collision happen
against the odds?
-[orchestral music plays]
-[whoosh]
Exactly one month before
the deadly mid-air collision
at Washington National Airport,
another aircraft
landing accident,
this time in South Korea,
marks the start of a deadly
12 months for global aviation.
On December 29, 2024,
Jeju Air Flight 2216
takes off at 2:29 AM
from Bangkok, Thailand,
headed for Muan, South Korea,
more than 2,000 miles
to the northeast.
Among the 181 passengers
and crew on board
the Boeing 737
are Park Seung-ho and
Oh In-kyung.
They are traveling home from
vacation to be with their son.
My name is Geun-woo Park,
and I live in
Gwangju, South Korea.
I am currently a student
going to university.
After an uneventful flight,
the plane is cleared to land on
the single runway at
Muan International Airport.
At 8:57 AM, air traffic
control alerts the pilots that
there are birds
in the vicinity.
Just over a minute later,
one of the pilots reports that
their aircraft has been
hit by a bird strike.
They declare a mayday
and announce they are
making a go-around.
This means they have
aborted their landing
and will attempt to land again.
On board the aircraft, Geun-woo
Park's mother witnesses
the bird strike
and texts her son.
[Geun-woo, speaking
foreign language]
The next two messages
Geun-woo sent
are still unread.
Lee Geun-young runs
a restaurant
less than 650 feet
from the runway at Muan.
He is getting ready to open
when he hears a series of
loud bangs from a plane.
[speaking foreign language]
Lee's video reveals how
the plane touches down,
heading for a concrete barrier
at the end of the runway.
[speaking foreign language]
[Geun-woo, speaking
foreign language]
[sirens wailing]
Rescue teams race in to help
from across the region.
The scene they find
is catastrophic.
Both engines are buried
in the earth.
And only the tail section
is recognizable.
Remarkably, two cabin crew
members are still alive in
the wreckage of
the plane's tail.
They are taken to the hospital
with serious injuries.
Geun-woo's parents are
among those who died.
In total, 179 people
lost their lives,
making this South Korea's
deadliest aviation disaster.
This CCTV footage obtained by
Korean broadcaster KBS appears
to show the moment the plane
hits a large flock of birds
as it comes in to land,
followed by the eventual loss
of power to both engines.
If you lose both engines,
you may lose the ability to
drop your landing gear.
And we kind of see that
in the video.
They had to
belly-land the airplane.
I think they did a really
good job belly-landing it.
Many more passengers
might still have survived
if the plane hadn't collided
with a concrete barrier
at the end of the runway.
[Jeff] I think everyone would
have walked away from this
if that giant concrete berm
wasn't in
the airport perimeter.
The airplane just simply would
have slowed down and skidded to
a stop, but instead it hit
that thing and it turned into
a fireball, and it was
just very tragic.
-[sirens wailing]
-[somber music plays]
The South Korea accident had
very different causes to
the one in Washington DC.
But as with
the Washington DC crash,
it occurred
during landing.
This is one of the most
dangerous times for any flight.
[Graham] When we look at
phases of flight,
the takeoff and the landing
phase can account for up to
80% of accidents.
They're a critical part of
the flight where the aircraft
is either
accelerating or decelerating.
They're maneuvering in an area
where there's lots
of other traffic.
[Jeff] Taking off can be
dangerous because you're at
takeoff thrust, your engines are
really working hard.
Landings can be a hazardous
situation because you're at
a slow speed where you're close
to an aerodynamic stall speed.
And anytime you're close to
the ground, you have less time
to handle a potential problem.
[dramatic chord strike]
16 years before
the Korean bird strike,
a domestic American flight
encountered a similar problem.
[tense music plays]
[Sully] That day began literally
like 10,000 other days.
And Flight 1549, like almost
every flight I'd had at that
point for 42 years and 20,000
hours in the air,
was completely
routine and unremarkable
for the first 100 seconds.
And 100 seconds after takeoff,
I saw birds, and then
they were upon us.
I'm Captain Sully Sullenberger.
I was the captain of
US Airways Flight 1549 in the
2009 Hudson River landing.
155 passengers and crew were
aboard Flight 1549 as it took
off from New York's LaGuardia
Airport, bound for Seattle.
First Officer Jeff Skiles was
flying the aircraft.
Less than two minutes
after takeoff, the plane hit
a flock of large birds.
Almost immediately, I began to
hear terrible noises coming
from the engines
I'd never heard
in an airplane
in flight before.
The most sickening pit of
your stomach falling through
the floor feeling
I'd ever heard.
It was a [vocalizing].
The thrust loss was
sudden, complete, both engines
at once.
It felt as if
the forward momentum
of the airplane nearly
stopped in mid-air.
It felt like the bottom was
falling out of our world.
I knew it was a matter of
perhaps 90 seconds or so before
we would lose
electrical power to our
flight control computers.
[Sully] I took
control of the aircraft
from Jeff Skiles,
because as captain,
it was my responsibility
to fly in this
extreme emergency.
At low altitude at about
2,800 feet over New York City,
I knew from experience that
there were only three options
for us.
LaGuardia Airport, from which
we had departed,
the Teterboro Airport across
the river in New Jersey,
and the Hudson River.
[Sully] I knew that
our best choice,
the only place I knew I could
glide far enough to reach,
was our third option.
So I chose door number three,
Hudson River.
I chose the least bad option,
and I was very glad to have it.
I said, "This is the captain,
brace for impact."
And almost immediately through
that hardened cockpit door,
I could hear the flight
attendants begin shouting,
"Brace, brace, brace,
heads down, stay down,
brace, brace, brace."
I was looking primarily
at the river ahead of us,
trying to visually judge
the height at which to begin
the landing, to begin
raising the nose.
If I did it too soon, we'd get
too slow and hit too hard.
If I did it too late,
we would hit the water
nose first and perhaps damage
the airplane further.
[dramatic chord strike]
The landing was hard,
but the deceleration in the
river, while rapid, was uniform.
And once we had
stopped in the river,
it was obvious that
the airplane was intact.
It was stable.
It was floating.
Jeff and I, in that moment,
turned to each other
at the same time
and the same words said,
"Well, that wasn't
as bad as I thought."
All 155 passengers and crew
survived the emergency landing,
now often referred to as,
"The miracle on the Hudson."
In New York, only the quick
thinking of the pilots saved
the Hudson flight.
But in both South Korea
and Washington, the crews had
no time to react.
So what more could be done
to safeguard lives at these
critical phases of a flight?
Could the collision in
Washington have been prevented?
[anticipatory music plays]
Six months after the mid-air
collision over Washington DC,
hearings begin
into the accident.
Thank you for
joining us today.
We're now in session.
This hearing is a critical part
of our ongoing investigation of
the fatal mid-air collision
over the Potomac River near
Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport.
Led by National Transportation
Safety Board Chairwoman
Jennifer Homendy,
the aim is to find out what
went wrong and to prevent it
from happening again.
I'd like to take a moment to
address the families who lost
loved ones in this tragedy.
You have courageously spoken
out and advocated for important
reforms to save lives
and improve aviation safety.
I hope the information that
we uncover during this hearing
will support your efforts.
A key line of inquiry focuses
on the airspace routes
and the volume of traffic
at the airport,
which is one of the busiest
in the United States.
Some of the challenges
associated with the airspace is
the lack of airspace that
we have, so to speak.
Washington National Airport
opened in 1941.
It was never designed to handle
the volume of traffic
seen in the modern era.
[Jeff] Congress wants to have
more nonstop flights
to their constituents
all over the country.
There's been pressure to
increase the amount of airline
flights in and out of Washington
Reagan National Airport.
But the airport really wasn't
designed to handle
that much traffic.
When you start adding low-level
helicopter flights in and out
of this very busy and small
piece of airspace, that's when
the risk goes up
for a collision.
Runway 1 at the airport is
one of the busiest America.
At peak times, there are so
many flights coming in to land
that smaller jets are asked
to divert to Runway 33,
the same runway that
Flight 5342 was heading for.
The area around the airport
also has at least
six helicopter routes.
To prevent collisions in this
cramped airspace,
the helicopter routes are
designed to go under
the flight path of planes
landing at Reagan Airport.
Tim Lilley is a former Army
pilot and has flown the route.
The helicopter routes
around Washington DC
are definitely not
for beginners.
It's a high-workload
environment.
You've got a lot of altitudes
that you need to be on.
The routes have to be
flown precisely.
The route the Black Hawk
helicopter was on, route four,
crossed directly underneath
the approach to Runway 33.
So it's altitude was restricted
to a maximum of 200 feet.
In the view of many experts
and pilots,
the margin between
the landing approach
and the helicopter route
is razor-thin.
[Tim] There's only
75-foot clearance.
The wake turbulence alone
would cause a very disturbing
flight path, it would be like
hitting severe turbulence.
[Jeff] If you have a helicopter
on that route at that time,
while another airliner is
approaching that runway,
then your risk of collision
goes straight up
through the roof.
Analysis of the helicopter's
flight recorder reveals that
it was flying 78 feet above
the limit for route four.
Why?
[Jeff] They don't know whether
or not it was a problem with
the actual sensor that senses
the altitude or from the flight
data recorder that was
recording it.
But it is a possibility that
the Army helicopter crew
may have thought they
were at 200 feet
when in actuality
they were at 278 feet.
The crew of PAT 25 was flying
an older version of
the Black Hawk helicopter
known as a Lima.
[Jeff]
The Lima model has round dials
and more analog instruments.
It's a little harder for pilots
to get situational awareness
looking at the older
instruments
compared to
the new Mike model.
When NTSB experts tested
the altimeters in Black Hawk
helicopters similar to the one
involved in the crash,
they also found the displayed
altitude could be out by
as much as 130 feet.
These helicopters have what
they call instrument error,
in their
barometric altimeters.
So, there are altimeters that
measure the pressure of the air
outside, but if the instrument,
if the sensor, is close to
the rotor blades or close to
a piece of structure, it could
give an erroneous reading
on the altimeter.
But even if the altimeter had
been working perfectly,
some believe it was an accident
waiting to happen.
Humans make errors
every now and then.
So, yes, if you're slightly
higher than 200 feet or if
the airliner is slightly lower,
that's gonna happen.
The system needs to be set up
to allow for those conflicts.
That helicopter route, in
my view, for years was laid out
much too closely to
the final approach course
for Runway 33.
Figures uncovered by
the investigation team reveal
that from 2021 to 2024,
there were more than 15,000
near-miss events around
Reagan National Airport when
a helicopter and a commercial
airliner were less than one
nautical mile from each other.
In the 13 years leading up to
2025, at least one near-miss
per month was close enough to
trigger an urgent collision
warning in the cockpit,
known as a resolution advisory.
The vast majority of
these encounters took place
when approaching the airport.
And two-thirds happened
at night, as was the case
in the 2025 crash.
[Jeff] That should
have been
a giveaway
that there was
a problem here.
And the data was there,
had always been there
for many years before
near-misses were being reported.
But there wasn't a system to
collate all of that data and to
automatically flag an issue.
Even so, the hearings heard
that changes to the route had
been considered prior
to the accident.
The helicopter route
in question in this event,
do you recall anything that
identified route four as being
problematic or conflicting with
regard to your traffic flow
at DCA Airport
Traffic Control Tower?
[Clark] Yes, we had
those discussions.
[Brian] Can you elaborate
on that just a little bit?
It was brought up
with several different options,
either to eliminate a portion
of route four, move route four
over to 295 in Maryland,
and both of those options
we were told we were
unable to do due to
continuity of government
operations or security.
Ultimately, the helicopter
routes remained in place
until the disaster on
January 29th, 2025.
I don't get it.
Every sign was there
that there was
a safety risk and the tower
was telling you that.
But what you did is
you transferred people out
instead of taking ownership
over the fact that everybody in
FAA in the tower was saying
there was a problem.
But you guys are pointing out,
well, our bureaucratic process.
Are you kidding me?
67 people are dead.
How do you explain that?
The near-miss statistics
highlight the seriousness of
the risks that existed in
the busy Washington DC
airspace.
But there are concerns about
the risk of collisions outside
of the nation's capital, too.
As the skies become
more crowded,
what else could be done
to prevent an accident
like the one in Washington DC?
Could new technology
provide the answer?
At Cranfield University
in the UK,
Graham Braithwaite
operates a dedicated
accident investigation
laboratory.
The laboratory contains
evidence from a number of
accidents that we can use
for teaching and for
training investigators.
Studying wreckages like these
is crucial to making the future
of aviation safer.
[Graham] There may be physical
damage or witness marks on that
wreckage that helps us
understand the sequence
of events.
And then from that, we can
look at what we might do in
the future that prevents that
from happening again.
One aircraft in the archive,
a Cessna, is particularly
relevant to the Washington DC
accident.
This Cessna collided with
another light aircraft over
Southern England, resulting in
the death of its pilot.
You can see how the metal has
been torn apart, in this case
by a propeller, as it
slashed through.
So, marks like this give
you an indication that
the two structures have
collided together.
So, as the propellers come
through, these paint transfer
marks can tell you that
there's been that collision.
Investigators concluded that
the pilots did not see
each other until it was
too late to avoid a collision,
similar to
the Washington crash.
Accidents like this have led to
the adoption of Traffic Alert
and Collision
Avoidance Systems, or TCAS.
[Graham] In simple terms, the
way that TCAS works is that
as an aircraft receives a signal
from a transponder on another
aircraft, it will calculate
if there is a collision
likely to happen.
So, if this system detects
another aircraft coming into
the same area of airspace,
then it will give an alert.
In certain situations, TCAS is
also able to instruct pilots on
how to avoid a collision.
The system works best when
both aircraft are equipped.
Where two aircraft are fitted
with TCAS, then those systems
talk to each other and issue
advice such that one aircraft
would climb and the other
aircraft would descend,
and that gives
the greatest chance
of those two aircraft
avoiding a collision.
In Washington DC,
the passenger plane was
equipped with TCAS.
The pilots received a warning
that there was traffic in
the area, but with only
20 seconds left before
the collision, they did not
have enough information to
react in time.
The alert did not provide
an evasive maneuver for
the pilots to take.
It just indicated that there
was another airplane
or aircraft in the area.
TCAS didn't advise
the passenger plane pilots on
how to avoid the collision
because these more detailed
alerts are disabled
at low altitude.
One reason that the system is
designed this way is to reduce
the number of unnecessary
alerts around busy airports.
A nuisance alert is an alert
that TCAS says, "Hey,
you've got traffic close by,"
but of course
you've got traffic.
You've got all kinds of
airplanes landing
and taking off
in this airport.
These so-called nuisance
alerts have been attributed
by some to the age
of the technology.
Current TCAS systems were
developed for use with old
transponders that were much
less advanced than modern ones.
Pilots report that some of
the system's alerts come when
there is no significant risk
of collision.
[Graham] TCAS was the most
incredible innovation.
And there's been many,
many lives saved by collisions
being avoided
by that technology.
Now, it will always have
its limitations, where airspace
becomes so busy that being able
to respond to and react to
warnings becomes difficult.
So, I think as we look to
the future, there needs to be
an enhancement
of that technology.
Recent advances in satellite
technology allow aircraft to be
tracked at a far higher level
of precision than ever before.
Today, many aircraft are
equipped with a tracking
technology called ADS-B.
ADS-B depends upon using
satellites to give us
a very accurate picture of
where an aircraft is in the sky,
but also it offers a solution
that's more affordable
and more portable.
The information that ADS-B
broadcasts to other pilots
and air traffic controllers
provides far more detail about
the aircraft and its movements
than older transponder
technology did.
In Washington,
the passenger plane was using
ADS-B to broadcast
detailed information,
including its precise
position and speed.
The helicopter was also
equipped with an ADS-B system,
but it was switched off
at the time of the accident.
There are times when military
aircraft need to be conspicuous
to be seen by other aircraft.
And clearly there are
other times when they want
to be inconspicuous.
A question for
the investigation will be
whether if the Black Hawk
aircraft had been operating
with its ADS-B function
enabled, would the air traffic
controller have been
better able to see
the potential collision?
As they try to prevent future
accidents, researchers are
harnessing the power of
ADS-B tracking to improve
the reliability of automated
collision alerts.
The FAA now is looking at
something called ACAS-X,
which is like the next level
of TCAS.
It's more accurate,
gives better warnings,
and reduces nuisance alerts.
One of the things that will
help to reduce collision risk
is actually to make sure that
those frontline technologies
that we see, particularly
in commercial aviation,
are available to other
airspace users.
In some cases,
we see a commercial aircraft
that collides with a light
aircraft that just doesn't have
the same level of technology
on board.
But as technology has evolved,
it becomes much more affordable
for those smaller airspace
users to become conspicuous in
the airspace, and that will
make a big difference.
Experts hope that the spread
of new technologies throughout
the aviation world will
eventually make collisions like
the one in Washington
a thing of the past.
But in the near term,
accidents are unlikely to
completely go away.
A recent series of crashes
around populated areas has led
some to ask,
despite the convenience,
is building airports
near cities a good idea?
In America, air travel is still
statistically the safest mode
of transportation.
But the number of commercial
jets is expected to increase
by 30% in the next 20 years.
When accidents do happen,
the risk is not just for those
on board, but also for people
on the ground.
Seven weeks before the hearings
in Washington, another accident
highlights the dangers
of takeoffs and landings
in crowded cities.
[dramatic chord strike]
On June 12, 2025,
Air India Flight 171
is scheduled to make
the 4,000-mile journey
from Ahmedabad in India to
London Gatwick.
On board the Boeing 787
Dreamliner
are 230 passengers
and 12 crew.
[Jeff] It was a hot day,
but it was a clear day.
There wasn't any adverse
thunderstorms or wind
or anything like that.
Everything appears
to be normal.
You can see
the 787 Dreamliner
accelerating down
the runway.
It pitches
up normally,
and it begins
to climb.
But just a few seconds later,
you see it begin to descend.
26 seconds after takeoff,
one of the pilots
issues a mayday.
There are no further
communications
from the aircraft.
[rumbling]
Flight 171 crashed into
a medical college hostel.
-[indistinct yelling]
-[beeping]
The plane was airborne
for 32 seconds,
traveling for less than
two miles before it crashed
into the hostel,
where it broke apart,
scattering wreckage
into several buildings.
19 people on the ground and
241 people aboard the aircraft
are killed.
Many more are injured.
It's the world's deadliest
aviation disaster in a decade.
A single passenger survives,
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh,
a British national, was sitting
next to an emergency exit
and managed to climb out
of the wreckage.
Yesterday I was going to
back to London,
and it happened,
everything, yeah.
How do you feel to have
survived this kind of...?
[Vishwash] I can't explain.
This is the first
Boeing 787 Dreamliner to crash.
Investigators must now
determine what caused
Flight 171 to fall to earth
just seconds after takeoff.
Data recovered from the black
box recorders reveals that
three seconds after the plane
leaves the ground,
it reaches a maximum speed
of 207 miles per hour.
But then, the flow of fuel
to the engines stops.
Based on the information
available in the runway report,
it is clear that fuel to
the engines was cut off.
The preliminary report reveals
that in the cockpit, two fuel
switches transitioned from
the run position to cut off.
Once those switches are moved
to cut off, it shuts the fuel
off completely,
and both engines
will begin to spool down.
Ten seconds after the fuel
switches transitioned to
cut off, they moved back
to the run position.
The engines began to restart,
but with the plane rapidly
losing altitude,
it was too late.
It would be difficult to move
these switches accidentally
because each switch, in order
to move it, you have to pull it
out and move it up or down.
According to the preliminary
report, one of the pilots can
be heard on the cockpit
voice recorder asking
the other why he cut off.
The second pilot replies
that he did not.
But a full transcript of
their conversation in
the cockpit has not yet
been released.
We do not know
which pilot said what
or at what time it
was said.
We do not know if those
switches actually
moved physically.
Is there a possibility of
an electric disruption?
We can't rule that out.
It will take many months before
air accident investigators,
assisted by
Boeing engineers,
will release
a final report to determine
the cause of
the Air India crash.
But it highlights how when
an accident happens over
a heavily populated area like
Ahmedabad, the consequences are
particularly grave.
We've proven that it's possible
to operate some of the busiest
airports in the world in
highly urban environments.
And we've managed to do that
with very few accidents that
have led to loss of life
on the ground.
But we can't be complacent
about that.
[Jeff] Our skies are definitely
gonna be getting more
and more crowded.
So yeah, it's gonna put
a strain on the air traffic
management system.
It's not just the airplanes
that have to change,
it's the infrastructure
that's gonna have to change,
better placement of airports.
It's gonna need to be better
design of the airspace
above the airports.
The geographic footprint of
where these airplanes take off
and land is one of many factors
that have to be considered with
the increase of airline travel.
In Washington, almost
12 months after the accident
there, the NTSB reveals
that their report will
be published in 2026.
Now, one year on, has enough
been done to prevent
air crashes in
the immediate future?
Come on.
Come on.
One year after the events of
January 29, 2025 at
Washington National Airport,
Doug Lane is still coming to
terms with what happened.
[barking]
Harley, it's OK, it's OK.
Today he finds solace in
the park where he and his son
spent time with
Christine and Spencer.
The past year, as you might
expect, has been quite a few
periods of ups and downs.
This place is special to me
for a variety of reasons.
As a family, we would often go
boating together right out of
this little cove here, it's
a place where you can kind of
get out into nature a little
bit and also remember some of
the times that
I now look back on
and cherish.
For Doug, there is
a determination to learn
the lessons of what
happened that night.
[Doug] I will say that one of
the aspects of this journey
that's been a great source
of strength is just
the connections that I've made
with other families that have
been affected by this tragedy.
I think we are all, as a family
group, very focused on
making sure
this entire story is told.
In December 2025,
the US government
admitted to
breaching a duty of care to
the passengers of Flight 5342.
It said that the pilots of
the Black Hawk had failed to
maintain vigilance so as to see
and avoid the passenger plane.
The government also conceded
that the air traffic controller
did not comply with procedures
around visual separation.
But it denied negligence,
and that Washington's busy
airspace was an accident
waiting to happen.
American Airlines and PSA
Airlines deny being at fault.
Those affected by the crash
are campaigning for change.
Among them, Tim Lilley,
the father of Flight 5342's
first officer, Sam Lilley.
My son's death cannot
be just a big mistake.
So, his legacy, we're trying
to make sure that
it's aviation safety.
15,000 close encounters between
jet aircraft and helicopters.
Put that in perspective,
one in 62 times
that an aircraft took off
or landed
at Reagan National, they were
too close to a helicopter.
This was the FAA's day job
to get this right and fix that
problem before it happens.
Aviation regulation is
often written in blood.
In this case, it could have
been written in data,
and then we could have
saved the 67 lives
that were lost that night.
Some believe the accident
highlights the need
for upgrades and investment.
[Paul] There's massive systemic
problems with air traffic
control, with our equipment,
with our staffing,
with our facilities throughout
the entire country.
Some of the old computer
terminals are so delicate that
you can't turn them off.
There is literally
a sticky note
that says "Do not turn off,"
from the tech department,
because if you turn it off,
we're not quite sure
it's gonna turn back on.
Today, helicopter route four
remains closed.
New Senate legislation will
require the greater use of
ADS-B tracking for
military flights.
And the House Subcommittee
on Military and Foreign Affairs
has called on
the US Army to provide
clearer guidelines
and enhance training
in complex airspace.
But many are still concerned
at the volume of traffic
over Washington
National Airport.
[Chester]
The increased volume of
air traffic at National Airport,
I think, has lots of
people concerned.
It's not a big airport.
It's very busy.
Adding more flights,
which is proposed,
is not necessarily a good thing.
There's more noise,
there's more congestion,
there's more chance of
something going wrong.
I don't think the changes that
the FAA has made are enough.
It's a really great first step,
but it takes time for them to
make additional changes.
In my view, though, in terms
of aviation safety,
decreasing the amount of
airline traffic in and out of
DCA Airport would be
a very impactful thing to do
to prevent the risk of
another mid-air collision.
The NTSB report is due to
be released in February 2026.
But many feel that the lessons
of January 29th
are already clear.
[Jeff] In the end, this was
a systemic problem.
This was
a preventable accident.
It never should have happened.
These hazards should have been
identified long before
that led to an accident.
[Doug]
When it comes to the outcome
of the investigation, for us,
it's not just about seeing
the recommendations made.
It's about seeing
the recommendations
implemented, and not 20 years
from now, we would like to see
them implemented
as soon as possible.
I think, for all of us,
you know, we're willing
to forgive.
We just want to know what
happened, know what went wrong,
and know what we can do to make
sure it doesn't happen again.
The events of January 29th will
continue to affect all those
who lost loved ones
on board Flight 5342
and helicopter PAT 25.
Many hope this will be
a wake-up call to ensure that
what happened on an icy winter
night in Washington DC
can never happen again.
[orchestral music plays]
[narrator]
In January 2025,
a collision between
a Black Hawk
military helicopter
and a passenger plane
over Washington DC
shocks America.
-[indistinct radio chatter]
-[pilot] Tower, did you
see that?
67 people lost their lives.
What led to this catastrophe?
That was when I saw
what looked like
a very big Roman candle,
but up in the air.
Now, one year later,
investigators use
forensic analysis to
examine the evidence
and piece together
what happened
in those
final minutes.
[Jeff] The margin
of safety wasn't there.
This accident was preventable.
The collision comes at
the start of a deadly year
for global aviation.
I was shocked that we survived.
What caused America's
most fatal aviation disaster
in more than 20 years?
And as our skies grow
increasingly crowded...
what can be done to safeguard
the lives of passengers?
[orchestral music plays]
Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport
in Arlington, Virginia,
is one of the busiest airports
in the United States.
Built in the early 1940s,
it handles more than
800 takeoffs and landings
every day.
Washington National Ronald
Reagan Airport sits right on
the Potomac River, just less
than a mile from the monuments
of Washington DC.
It's a very popular airport for
the congressmen and senators
here because they can fly
nonstop back to
their constituents
in other states.
Commercial flights coming in to
land follow the course of
the river, a route which
provides a never-ending
spectacle for those
on the ground.
[Ari] If you're in the vicinity
of Washington National Airport
at night, what you will see is
a string of pearls of airplanes
lined up way out into
the distance at regular
intervals coming in to land.
It's almost like a ballet
or a dance, watching them come
in, especially when the weather
is really good and clear
as it was that night.
On the evening of
January 29, 2025...
American Airlines Flight
5342 was getting ready
to travel from Wichita,
Kansas to Washington DC.
The flight was operated
by PSA Airlines, and the route
from Wichita was
relatively new,
opened just 12 months earlier.
Among the 64 passengers
and crew were 28 people
returning from a figure skating
training camp.
My name is Doug Lane.
My wife, Christine Conrad Lane,
and my 16-year-old son,
Spencer Lane, were both
on the flight that day.
Spencer was about nine months
old when we adopted him.
From the moment I met him,
I started to think of him
as my little adventurer because
he was just always looking for
the next thing to get into.
He started later in figure
skating than is traditionally
the case, so he was
about 12 years old.
I don't know that anyone has
ever done what he did in terms
of going from basic learn
to skate in 2022 to winning
sectionals at the intermediate
level in late 2024.
It's very competitive to get
invited to that camp.
And it really just signifies
the fact that you are somebody
who's on the radar
as a prospect for Team USA.
I talked to Christine not long
before they got underway.
She had mentioned to me some of
the other people that were
on the flight, and, um...
and that was that.
So they got underway.
The flight took off from
Wichita at 6:39 PM
on a journey that was due to
take two hours and 45 minutes.
At the controls were
Captain Jonathan Campos
and 28-year-old
First Officer Sam Lilley.
Sam's decision to become
a professional pilot meant
following in
his father's footsteps.
[Tim] My name is Tim Lilley.
I've been a professional pilot
since 1986.
Sam was a great
character, actually.
He was a great kid growing up.
We all loved him.
I was very proud when Sam told
me he wanted to become a pilot,
and I was very proud
when he accomplished it.
At 8:15 PM,
Flight 5342 began its descent
into Washington DC.
As the jet approached
Ronald Reagan National Airport,
it entered an airspace
crisscrossed by a network
of helicopter routes.
The airspace over
Washington DC
is extremely complex,
so there is a large mix of
military helicopters
and commercial airline traffic.
Airliners can't cross over
into the east side of
the Potomac River because that's
where the White House is.
At the same time as Flight
5342 was coming in to land,
US Army Black Hawk helicopter
Call Sign Priority
Air Transport 25
was on a training mission.
It was following
the Potomac River south along
helicopter routes 1 and 4.
-[whirring]
-[suspenseful music plays]
[Jeff] The helicopter had
an instructor pilot,
another pilot that was
receiving instruction,
and a crew chief.
It was a night training mission
to fly around that area
and to also fly using
night vision goggles.
At 8:43 PM,
American Airlines Flight 5342
was 10.5 nautical miles
from Ronald Reagan
National Airport.
It was scheduled to land
at Runway 1.
But at the last moment,
air traffic control asked it to
switch to Runway 33 because
of wind conditions.
The helicopter
is flying south
towards
National Airport
along the Potomac River.
Meanwhile,
you had an airliner
heading north
to land
on Runway 33.
The helicopter crew
was talking to
air traffic controllers
at Washington
Reagan National Airport.
The controller pointed out
traffic to the helicopter
and said that you've got
an airliner that's circling to
land, and the helicopter crew
acknowledged that transmission.
As Flight 5342
continued its descent,
on the ground was
Ari Shulman.
He was in his car on his way
home from church.
I was coming home
unusually late.
I remember that the highway was
very clear and also that
the air was very clear
and that there was,
it was very dark
and there was no moon.
So you could see the planes
really, really well.
And I remember being struck
by how unusually beautiful
and brilliant the planes were.
At 8:47 PM, air traffic
control once again made contact
with the helicopter.
The controller instructed
the Black Hawk
to avoid
the passenger jet.
The airliner was now so low,
it was clearly visible to
eyewitness Ari Shulman.
[Ari] I was driving along
the highway, and at a certain
point, I passed by the airport.
So it was then that I looked
off to my left and saw this
plane coming in to land.
I was very close to it.
It was brightly illuminated.
I could see all of the details.
I could see the wing lights
on the plane.
The two aircraft were just
seconds apart.
What happened next was captured
on an airport
surveillance camera.
[indistinct radio chatter]
That was when I saw
what looked like a very big
Roman candle, but up in the air.
For a few moments,
there is silence.
Until another pilot calls in.
-[pilot speaking]
-[indistinct].
Despite what has happened,
there are still planes
and passengers in the air.
Air traffic control must
determine how to land all
the aircraft safely while also
alerting fire and rescue.
[air traffic control speaking]
The US Coast Guard is among
those contacted.
In charge of the station
at Washington DC
is Lieutenant Commander
Kim Jenish,
who has just finished
for the day.
On January 29th, on that
evening, I was already home
and had just finished dinner
with my husband, settling in for
the evening, and the call
came in at 8:52 PM.
Hearing the words, "A plane has
just crashed into the river,"
felt unreal.
Kim and her colleagues know
they must reach the crash site
as quickly as possible if they
are to rescue any survivors.
On that night,
the priority was to find anyone
in the water and pull them out.
The conditions were quite harsh
between the wind,
the ice conditions,
and the murky waters.
There were parts everywhere,
and in addition to that,
there was a significant amount
of fuel in the water.
And when looking out across
the river, all you could see
was a whole line of emergency
vehicles from everywhere.
I'd never seen
that many emergency vehicles
concentrated in such
a small area.
[suspenseful music plays]
Hundreds of miles away
in Rhode Island is Doug Lane,
whose wife Christine and son
Spencer were on the plane.
They were due to catch
a connecting flight home.
I was kind of tracking
their flight to DCA
just because, you know,
I'm like that and I'd like to
just track and see
what's happening.
And as the time was coming for
the flight to land, I was kind
of refreshing the status
and it just kind of
wasn't really updating.
I tried texting them
and the texts weren't
going through.
And so that was a little odd.
Just as I was killing time,
I actually pulled up CNN.com
and there wasn't even
an article, but there was just
a little like breaking news
ticker across the top that
said, "Small plane crashed
in the Potomac River."
And I immediately flashed back
to talking with Christine about
how when you fly into DCA,
you always have to go
over the Potomac.
And then just my breath was
literally just taken away,
and my heart was kind of just
beating out of my chest
at that point.
Tim Lilley, the father of
First Officer Sam and himself
a pilot, is also concerned
by the news.
[Tim]
When this accident happened,
I was in Teterboro because
I was out on a trip, and I was
gonna have an early morning
show, and I saw on TV
there had been an accident.
And it was in DC,
and I realized it was a CRJ,
and it was flying under
the American Airlines flag,
so I immediately started
texting him.
But, of course, he didn't
text me back, right?
And that's not unusual,
because if he was flying,
he would have turned
his phone off.
Tim is unable to get a hold of
his son, so messages his wife.
Together, they contact
Sam's fiance.
And then my wife put us on
a three-way phone call.
My wife actually asked her
what leg he was flying,
and she said, "Well,
from Wichita to DC," and that
was devastating because
that was the point that
we knew it was probably him.
Tim's worst fears are
confirmed just before 10 PM.
How could a passenger jet
collide with a helicopter
over the nation's capital?
In the freezing waters
of the Potomac River...
rescuers work to find survivors
of Flight 5342
and Army Helicopter
PAT 25.
Restricted by the darkness
and numbed by cold,
the scene is almost
beyond comprehension.
[Lt. Cdr. Jenish]
I had received a third call
from my duty officer,
who was part of the search
and rescue crew.
At that point,
his crew members, who're some of
our youngest members
at the station,
they were starting to pull
victims onto the boat.
And at that point,
the reality of it
really became real.
The helicopter wreckage lies
approximately .7 miles to
the southeast of the airport.
The plane has broken
into pieces,
the bulk of which are located
less than half a mile
from the runway.
[Lt. Cdr. Jenish]
Every emergency first
responder out there went out
with the hope to find
survivors early on.
Unfortunately, into the early
morning, it started to become
clear that we would not
be finding survivors,
but rather the focus would be
on recovering all the victims.
The realization
is gut-wrenching,
but the effort continues.
I had never seen
as much heart, courage,
and dedication
just absolutely put out there.
In such harsh conditions,
that was never a barrier
to people's response.
[dramatic chord strike]
Daylight reveals the true scale
of the collision,
the partially submerged
fuselage of the jet
and the Black Hawk
in the icy river.
No one on board either aircraft
has survived.
67 people lost their lives.
It's the first large-scale
fatal crash involving
a commercial American airliner
for 16 years.
How did it happen?
Investigators from the National
Transportation Safety Board,
NTSB, arrive on the scene.
They are the agency responsible
for investigating
air traffic accidents.
[Graham]
When an aircraft accident
occurs, the priority for
the investigator is to
make sure that evidence
is preserved.
So, they will tend to deploy
quite rapidly to
an accident site.
Their aim is to understand what
happened, why it happened,
and what recommendations may be
made to make sure it doesn't
happen in the future.
One of the team's first
actions is to launch a drone to
record the position of
the two aircraft.
In every case, the NTSB
uses a very detailed forensic
approach to
document the wreckage.
Typically, the majority of
the wreckage is documented
immediately, within a few days
of recovery.
The freezing conditions
stir memories of the last
major fatal crash to happen
at the airport.
On January 13, 1982,
Air Florida Flight 90
crashed into the frozen
Potomac River.
Photojournalist Chester Panzer
witnessed the disaster.
[Chester] The weather
that day was really cold.
It had stopped snowing
when we got to the crash site.
The river had been frozen over
because it had been so cold
for such a long time.
I described the crash site
as what looked like a baseball
going through a plate-glass
window, but you could not
see a plane.
The plane was underwater.
The 737 jet, with 79
passengers and crew,
hit the 14th Street Bridge
moments after takeoff.
Rescuers faced even worse
sub-zero temperatures than
those 40 years later
as they searched for survivors.
We then went a little closer
to the rescue scene where
the helicopter had lifted
a female out of the water with
a rope under her arms.
When the last survivor was
still in the water,
I was convinced
she was gonna drown
because of the helicopter.
The wash was
pushing her underwater.
Only five of the 79 people
on board survived.
Four died on the ground.
The investigation found
that weather played
an important factor
in the crash.
[Graham] In 1982, the aircraft
took off in conditions that were
snowy and icy.
It unfortunately meant that
the wing was contaminated with
snow and ice, and also it seems
that the engine anti-ice system
was not activated, so the power
from the engine
just was not enough for that
aircraft to accelerate
away and climb.
In Washington,
investigators hunt for a vital
piece of equipment that
they hope will help them
unravel the cause of
the latest accident,
the two aircraft's flight data
and voice recorders,
known as black boxes.
[Jeff]
In major airline accidents,
the flight recorders are key
to solving the accident.
The flight data recorder
is recording several
parameters across the whole
aircraft, and you can marry up
the timing of the conversations
and noises with the flight data
recorder, and that really gives
you a much better picture of
exactly what was happening
second-by-second just prior
to the accident.
As the search for the black
boxes gets underway,
the families of the victims
face an agonizing wait
for answers.
Doug Lane, whose wife Christine
and son Spencer were
on the flight, is at home
with his other son.
I'm not sure I actually
remember when I got
confirmation about
the lack of survivors.
I think it was pretty early
in the process.
There was a point, as there
often is, where they say,
"We're moving from a rescue
to a recovery stage."
So I want to
say it was almost
that first night
or maybe early into
the next day that I had
the realization that
they were definitely gone.
So there wasn't a lot of
time to really hold out hope.
Doug decides to travel down to
Washington DC, as does Tim,
the father of
First Officer Sam Lilley.
I did go to Reagan National
that very first night.
I think I got there around
2 or 3 in the morning.
By the time I got to DC,
I had heard already
that there was no survivors.
When a child dies
in a horrific accident,
you don't come to terms with it
within days or weeks.
The first few days, you're in
shock, and you almost don't
believe it.
The next day, the US
military releases the names of
the Black Hawk helicopter crew
on the training mission.
At the controls was
Captain Rebecca Lobach,
alongside Chief Warrant
Officer Two, Andrew Eaves,
and Crew Chief Staff
Sergeant Ryan O'Hara.
Why did two aircraft flown by
professional pilots collide?
The need for answers is urgent,
not only for the sake of
the victims' families,
but to help prevent scenarios
like this from happening
in the future.
And this will not be the only
accident to happen in 2025
involving a US airliner.
One week after the collision
over Washington DC,
investigators recover
the remains of the Black Hawk
helicopter from
the Potomac River.
Each section is secured in
preparation for its journey to
a forensics hangar.
The physical wreckage that's
maybe left behind in
an accident is incredibly
valuable to the investigator.
As you recover it, as you
pull it out of the water,
what you need to be careful
not to do is
introduce new marks
or new damage.
The team also has the wreckage
of the jet, which they lay out
for examination.
One of the key things that
the NTSB looks at in wreckage,
especially in mid-air
collisions, are scratch marks
and rotor blade strikes.
And from that,
they can corroborate
the information they're getting
from the videos, from the ADS-B
recorded radar track,
and from the distribution
of the wreckage.
The investigators also want to
know if either aircraft had any
mechanical issues that may have
contributed to the accident.
And just days into
the forensic investigation,
another US jet is involved in
a landing accident.
[dramatic chord strike]
My name is Hannah Krebs,
and on February 17th, 2025,
I hopped on a flight from
Minnesota to Toronto
to meet some coworkers.
At 12:47 PM,
Delta Connection Flight 4819
departs Minneapolis.
Its destination
is Toronto Pearson Airport,
700 miles to the east.
76 passengers and four crew are
on board the commuter plane.
As the plane makes a routine
approach to land,
temperatures are below
freezing, and the wind is
gusting up to
40 miles per hour.
Once we were descending,
we started getting knocked
around quite a bit by the wind,
but nothing felt really wrong
to me other than, you know,
it was quite
a turbulent descent.
And that continued right up
until we hit the ground.
[indistinct]
[witness] Oh, [bleep].
Oh, [bleep].
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
[witness #2] [indistinct],
airplane just crashed.
I was...
shocked that we survived.
Once we hit the ground, I could
tell that it was way too hard.
Everything started
shifting this way.
Suddenly, before I knew it,
we were upside down.
I could hear the metal scraping
on the ground
as we skidded along,
and we skidded for
what felt like forever.
And then when we stopped,
it all got quiet.
For a millisecond, there was
this collective breath of air
where everyone goes, "OK,
"we're alive.
Everyone's alive.
We're stopped.
What do we do now?"
I don't remember exactly how
I got myself down, but I must
have just unclipped myself
and fell on to what used to be
the ceiling and was
now the floor.
There was no stampeding,
no rush, no nothing.
Everyone just got into
an orderly line and evacuated.
[indistinct]
[John] We just landed.
Our plane crashed.
It's upside down.
[Hannah] When I got to the front
and the flight attendant
stopped the line and told me,
you need to drop that,
leave your backpack,
leave your backpack.
[flight attendant] Just drop it.
Come on.
[Hannah]
The person getting thrown out
in the black parka was me.
Remarkably, all 80 passengers
and crew escape
with their lives.
[tense music plays]
A preliminary investigation by
Canada's Air Transport Board
finds that the hard touchdown
caused the plane's landing gear
to fracture.
Close examination
of the footage
suggests that
as the landing gear collapsed,
it pushed the weight
of the fuselage
onto the right wing.
The wing then sheared off,
and the plane rolled
onto its roof.
Like most passenger jets,
the wings contained fuel tanks,
so when one wing detached,
the risk of explosion
was reduced,
and the passengers survived.
But in Washington, there is
no obvious indication of
a catastrophic
mechanical failure.
So investigators must turn to
the black boxes for answers.
Why were the two aircraft
on flight paths that crossed?
Two weeks after the accident
at Washington National Airport,
investigators hunt for clues to
explain how two planes collided
in one of the world's most
tightly controlled airspaces.
[Graham] Mid-air collisions
are a very
unusual and rare type
of accident.
But when they do occur,
they often happen in busy
airspace, which is found often
around airports where aircraft
are climbing,
descending,
or they're
following particular routes.
[Jeff] Well, I've investigated
several mid-air collisions.
They're very unique accidents.
It has everything to do
with geometry.
One of the worst
mid-air collisions in
US history happened in
September 1978 in San Diego,
when a Boeing 727 operated
by Pacific Southwest Airlines
collided with a small
Cessna plane.
A photographer captured an
image of the jet on fire
as it plummeted
to the ground.
[Graham] In San Diego, the two
aircraft fell to ground in
a built-up area.
Seven people on the ground
lost their lives out of
a total of 144.
[Jeff] The loss of life
was massive.
It was the deadliest accident
in US history
at that time.
It still remains the deadliest
accident in the state of
California with regard
to an aircraft accident.
The San Diego investigation
examined the position of
the two aircraft in relation
to each other.
The investigators spent a lot
of time focusing on what it was
that the crew of the aircraft
would have been able to see.
And unfortunately, because of
the design of the two aircraft
and where they were,
neither aircraft probably saw
each other until
they'd actually collided.
[Jeff]
In this case, the airline crew
lost sight of the Cessna 172
but never told
the air traffic controller.
And those two aircraft came
together and collided about
2,600 feet above the ground,
killing everybody
in both airplanes.
After the accident,
collision avoidance systems
were developed to help aircraft
maintain their distance
from each other.
But they cannot entirely
remove the risk of
a mid-air collision.
Air traffic controllers are key
to keeping planes
apart mid-flight.
Paul Rinaldi is a former
air traffic controller.
When you look at the DCA
event, the number one mission
of an air traffic controller is
to prevent airplanes
from colliding.
We are the stop signs,
the speed limits,
the red lights
and green lights in the sky,
because they're not there.
And on that night,
unfortunately, we failed.
In Washington, analysis of
the voice recordings in
the 2025 mid-air collision
reveals that the first contact
between the passenger plane
and the tower takes place
at 8:43 PM,
when the aircraft is asked to
divert to Runway 33
due to wind conditions.
After a brief discussion,
the crew accepts
the new request.
At this time,
the Black Hawk
helicopter
is north
of the airport,
flying south along
helicopter route four.
The helicopter's path will
take it directly beneath
the approach to Runway 33.
How far did the switch
in runways contribute to
what happened?
So if the airplane would have
continued on route 1,
that wouldn't have gotten into
the path of the helicopter.
They would have
stayed separated.
But because
the airliner
was asked
to land on
Runway 33,
that is
within the path
of helicopter
route four,
thus increasing
the risk of collision.
So at 8:46 PM, air traffic
control first alerts
the helicopter crew to
the passenger plane up ahead,
or CRJ, short for
Canadair Regional Jet.
This footage, filmed on
the night, shows helicopter
PAT 25 close to
Memorial Bridge,
less than a mile north
of the airport.
The helicopter crew asks
the air traffic controller
for visual separation.
Visual separation means that
the pilots are going to
visually separate themselves
by looking at the other target
and keep away from that target.
The onus now is on the pilot,
not the controller, to ensure
that there's no collision.
The use of visual separation
is not uncommon.
But normally the other aircraft
is alerted, too.
Staffing at air traffic control
has also come under scrutiny.
Two separate air traffic
controllers typically supervise
the movements of
commercial aircraft
and military helicopters
at Reagan National Airport.
But on the night of the crash,
a single controller was
handling both helicopter
and commercial traffic.
An internal report for
the Federal Aviation
Administration,
which was leaked
to "The New York Times,"
suggests that staffing levels
were not normal for
the time of day
and volume of traffic.
That controller was doing
an amazing job working to get
airplanes into the airport
and off the airport.
And it's high-intensity work
that he was doing.
That's why that position,
the helicopter position,
is supposed to be separated
from his function.
Audio recordings reveal that
the controller receives
an automated traffic alert
approximately 20 seconds
before the collision.
The controller then asks
the helicopter pilots
if they can see the plane.
Following standard
procedure, the single
air traffic controller
is communicating with
the passenger plane
and Army helicopter on two
separate radio frequencies.
But close analysis of the voice
recordings reveals that
the Army pilots may not have
received the air traffic
controller's instruction to
pass behind the passenger jet.
Whenever you're communicating
with air traffic controller
with another aircraft,
sometimes you can be
what they call, "stepped on."
[Paul] If two pilots are talking
at the same time or if
a controller and a pilot are
talking at the same time,
nothing gets through.
Our communications
and frequencies,
it's antiquated.
But even if the Army pilots
did not hear the message
from air traffic control,
why did the collision happen
when the helicopter crew twice
said it had the passenger plane
in sight?
The nature of the helicopter's
training mission
may provide a clue.
NTSB investigators reveal that
the helicopter crew may have
been wearing night vision
goggles during a continuity of
government evacuation exercise.
[Jeff]
When you wear night vision
goggles, it's like looking
through a couple of
paper towel tubes, right?
Your peripheral vision
is blocked off.
You have to constantly
move your head.
It limits your peripheral
vision, and it's
more difficult and challenging,
in my view, to point out
specific targets that are being
called out by a controller.
It's even more difficult to use
night vision goggles when
you're in an area
with lots of light.
This image replicates how
the city may have appeared
through night vision goggles.
Did the use of this equipment
impair what the helicopter crew
could see?
I think it's a very distinct
possibility that the crew on
the helicopter was looking at
the wrong aircraft.
There is evidence that the
pilots of the passenger plane
saw the helicopter
only at the very last moment.
The flight data recorder
indicated that the nose of
the airplane came up abruptly
and then began to bank to
the left the final one second
before the collision.
In my mind, that tells me
that the airline crew saw
the helicopter just prior
to the collision.
That wasn't enough time
to get out of the way of
the helicopter's flight path.
It's likely the investigation
will look at any potential
failures in communication.
But a preliminary report
published by the NTSB in March
hints at deeper issues.
It makes an urgent
safety recommendation,
which leads the FAA to impose
new restrictions regarding
helicopter traffic around DCA.
Statistically, flying is
the safest form of travel.
How did this catastrophic
collision happen
against the odds?
-[orchestral music plays]
-[whoosh]
Exactly one month before
the deadly mid-air collision
at Washington National Airport,
another aircraft
landing accident,
this time in South Korea,
marks the start of a deadly
12 months for global aviation.
On December 29, 2024,
Jeju Air Flight 2216
takes off at 2:29 AM
from Bangkok, Thailand,
headed for Muan, South Korea,
more than 2,000 miles
to the northeast.
Among the 181 passengers
and crew on board
the Boeing 737
are Park Seung-ho and
Oh In-kyung.
They are traveling home from
vacation to be with their son.
My name is Geun-woo Park,
and I live in
Gwangju, South Korea.
I am currently a student
going to university.
After an uneventful flight,
the plane is cleared to land on
the single runway at
Muan International Airport.
At 8:57 AM, air traffic
control alerts the pilots that
there are birds
in the vicinity.
Just over a minute later,
one of the pilots reports that
their aircraft has been
hit by a bird strike.
They declare a mayday
and announce they are
making a go-around.
This means they have
aborted their landing
and will attempt to land again.
On board the aircraft, Geun-woo
Park's mother witnesses
the bird strike
and texts her son.
[Geun-woo, speaking
foreign language]
The next two messages
Geun-woo sent
are still unread.
Lee Geun-young runs
a restaurant
less than 650 feet
from the runway at Muan.
He is getting ready to open
when he hears a series of
loud bangs from a plane.
[speaking foreign language]
Lee's video reveals how
the plane touches down,
heading for a concrete barrier
at the end of the runway.
[speaking foreign language]
[Geun-woo, speaking
foreign language]
[sirens wailing]
Rescue teams race in to help
from across the region.
The scene they find
is catastrophic.
Both engines are buried
in the earth.
And only the tail section
is recognizable.
Remarkably, two cabin crew
members are still alive in
the wreckage of
the plane's tail.
They are taken to the hospital
with serious injuries.
Geun-woo's parents are
among those who died.
In total, 179 people
lost their lives,
making this South Korea's
deadliest aviation disaster.
This CCTV footage obtained by
Korean broadcaster KBS appears
to show the moment the plane
hits a large flock of birds
as it comes in to land,
followed by the eventual loss
of power to both engines.
If you lose both engines,
you may lose the ability to
drop your landing gear.
And we kind of see that
in the video.
They had to
belly-land the airplane.
I think they did a really
good job belly-landing it.
Many more passengers
might still have survived
if the plane hadn't collided
with a concrete barrier
at the end of the runway.
[Jeff] I think everyone would
have walked away from this
if that giant concrete berm
wasn't in
the airport perimeter.
The airplane just simply would
have slowed down and skidded to
a stop, but instead it hit
that thing and it turned into
a fireball, and it was
just very tragic.
-[sirens wailing]
-[somber music plays]
The South Korea accident had
very different causes to
the one in Washington DC.
But as with
the Washington DC crash,
it occurred
during landing.
This is one of the most
dangerous times for any flight.
[Graham] When we look at
phases of flight,
the takeoff and the landing
phase can account for up to
80% of accidents.
They're a critical part of
the flight where the aircraft
is either
accelerating or decelerating.
They're maneuvering in an area
where there's lots
of other traffic.
[Jeff] Taking off can be
dangerous because you're at
takeoff thrust, your engines are
really working hard.
Landings can be a hazardous
situation because you're at
a slow speed where you're close
to an aerodynamic stall speed.
And anytime you're close to
the ground, you have less time
to handle a potential problem.
[dramatic chord strike]
16 years before
the Korean bird strike,
a domestic American flight
encountered a similar problem.
[tense music plays]
[Sully] That day began literally
like 10,000 other days.
And Flight 1549, like almost
every flight I'd had at that
point for 42 years and 20,000
hours in the air,
was completely
routine and unremarkable
for the first 100 seconds.
And 100 seconds after takeoff,
I saw birds, and then
they were upon us.
I'm Captain Sully Sullenberger.
I was the captain of
US Airways Flight 1549 in the
2009 Hudson River landing.
155 passengers and crew were
aboard Flight 1549 as it took
off from New York's LaGuardia
Airport, bound for Seattle.
First Officer Jeff Skiles was
flying the aircraft.
Less than two minutes
after takeoff, the plane hit
a flock of large birds.
Almost immediately, I began to
hear terrible noises coming
from the engines
I'd never heard
in an airplane
in flight before.
The most sickening pit of
your stomach falling through
the floor feeling
I'd ever heard.
It was a [vocalizing].
The thrust loss was
sudden, complete, both engines
at once.
It felt as if
the forward momentum
of the airplane nearly
stopped in mid-air.
It felt like the bottom was
falling out of our world.
I knew it was a matter of
perhaps 90 seconds or so before
we would lose
electrical power to our
flight control computers.
[Sully] I took
control of the aircraft
from Jeff Skiles,
because as captain,
it was my responsibility
to fly in this
extreme emergency.
At low altitude at about
2,800 feet over New York City,
I knew from experience that
there were only three options
for us.
LaGuardia Airport, from which
we had departed,
the Teterboro Airport across
the river in New Jersey,
and the Hudson River.
[Sully] I knew that
our best choice,
the only place I knew I could
glide far enough to reach,
was our third option.
So I chose door number three,
Hudson River.
I chose the least bad option,
and I was very glad to have it.
I said, "This is the captain,
brace for impact."
And almost immediately through
that hardened cockpit door,
I could hear the flight
attendants begin shouting,
"Brace, brace, brace,
heads down, stay down,
brace, brace, brace."
I was looking primarily
at the river ahead of us,
trying to visually judge
the height at which to begin
the landing, to begin
raising the nose.
If I did it too soon, we'd get
too slow and hit too hard.
If I did it too late,
we would hit the water
nose first and perhaps damage
the airplane further.
[dramatic chord strike]
The landing was hard,
but the deceleration in the
river, while rapid, was uniform.
And once we had
stopped in the river,
it was obvious that
the airplane was intact.
It was stable.
It was floating.
Jeff and I, in that moment,
turned to each other
at the same time
and the same words said,
"Well, that wasn't
as bad as I thought."
All 155 passengers and crew
survived the emergency landing,
now often referred to as,
"The miracle on the Hudson."
In New York, only the quick
thinking of the pilots saved
the Hudson flight.
But in both South Korea
and Washington, the crews had
no time to react.
So what more could be done
to safeguard lives at these
critical phases of a flight?
Could the collision in
Washington have been prevented?
[anticipatory music plays]
Six months after the mid-air
collision over Washington DC,
hearings begin
into the accident.
Thank you for
joining us today.
We're now in session.
This hearing is a critical part
of our ongoing investigation of
the fatal mid-air collision
over the Potomac River near
Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport.
Led by National Transportation
Safety Board Chairwoman
Jennifer Homendy,
the aim is to find out what
went wrong and to prevent it
from happening again.
I'd like to take a moment to
address the families who lost
loved ones in this tragedy.
You have courageously spoken
out and advocated for important
reforms to save lives
and improve aviation safety.
I hope the information that
we uncover during this hearing
will support your efforts.
A key line of inquiry focuses
on the airspace routes
and the volume of traffic
at the airport,
which is one of the busiest
in the United States.
Some of the challenges
associated with the airspace is
the lack of airspace that
we have, so to speak.
Washington National Airport
opened in 1941.
It was never designed to handle
the volume of traffic
seen in the modern era.
[Jeff] Congress wants to have
more nonstop flights
to their constituents
all over the country.
There's been pressure to
increase the amount of airline
flights in and out of Washington
Reagan National Airport.
But the airport really wasn't
designed to handle
that much traffic.
When you start adding low-level
helicopter flights in and out
of this very busy and small
piece of airspace, that's when
the risk goes up
for a collision.
Runway 1 at the airport is
one of the busiest America.
At peak times, there are so
many flights coming in to land
that smaller jets are asked
to divert to Runway 33,
the same runway that
Flight 5342 was heading for.
The area around the airport
also has at least
six helicopter routes.
To prevent collisions in this
cramped airspace,
the helicopter routes are
designed to go under
the flight path of planes
landing at Reagan Airport.
Tim Lilley is a former Army
pilot and has flown the route.
The helicopter routes
around Washington DC
are definitely not
for beginners.
It's a high-workload
environment.
You've got a lot of altitudes
that you need to be on.
The routes have to be
flown precisely.
The route the Black Hawk
helicopter was on, route four,
crossed directly underneath
the approach to Runway 33.
So it's altitude was restricted
to a maximum of 200 feet.
In the view of many experts
and pilots,
the margin between
the landing approach
and the helicopter route
is razor-thin.
[Tim] There's only
75-foot clearance.
The wake turbulence alone
would cause a very disturbing
flight path, it would be like
hitting severe turbulence.
[Jeff] If you have a helicopter
on that route at that time,
while another airliner is
approaching that runway,
then your risk of collision
goes straight up
through the roof.
Analysis of the helicopter's
flight recorder reveals that
it was flying 78 feet above
the limit for route four.
Why?
[Jeff] They don't know whether
or not it was a problem with
the actual sensor that senses
the altitude or from the flight
data recorder that was
recording it.
But it is a possibility that
the Army helicopter crew
may have thought they
were at 200 feet
when in actuality
they were at 278 feet.
The crew of PAT 25 was flying
an older version of
the Black Hawk helicopter
known as a Lima.
[Jeff]
The Lima model has round dials
and more analog instruments.
It's a little harder for pilots
to get situational awareness
looking at the older
instruments
compared to
the new Mike model.
When NTSB experts tested
the altimeters in Black Hawk
helicopters similar to the one
involved in the crash,
they also found the displayed
altitude could be out by
as much as 130 feet.
These helicopters have what
they call instrument error,
in their
barometric altimeters.
So, there are altimeters that
measure the pressure of the air
outside, but if the instrument,
if the sensor, is close to
the rotor blades or close to
a piece of structure, it could
give an erroneous reading
on the altimeter.
But even if the altimeter had
been working perfectly,
some believe it was an accident
waiting to happen.
Humans make errors
every now and then.
So, yes, if you're slightly
higher than 200 feet or if
the airliner is slightly lower,
that's gonna happen.
The system needs to be set up
to allow for those conflicts.
That helicopter route, in
my view, for years was laid out
much too closely to
the final approach course
for Runway 33.
Figures uncovered by
the investigation team reveal
that from 2021 to 2024,
there were more than 15,000
near-miss events around
Reagan National Airport when
a helicopter and a commercial
airliner were less than one
nautical mile from each other.
In the 13 years leading up to
2025, at least one near-miss
per month was close enough to
trigger an urgent collision
warning in the cockpit,
known as a resolution advisory.
The vast majority of
these encounters took place
when approaching the airport.
And two-thirds happened
at night, as was the case
in the 2025 crash.
[Jeff] That should
have been
a giveaway
that there was
a problem here.
And the data was there,
had always been there
for many years before
near-misses were being reported.
But there wasn't a system to
collate all of that data and to
automatically flag an issue.
Even so, the hearings heard
that changes to the route had
been considered prior
to the accident.
The helicopter route
in question in this event,
do you recall anything that
identified route four as being
problematic or conflicting with
regard to your traffic flow
at DCA Airport
Traffic Control Tower?
[Clark] Yes, we had
those discussions.
[Brian] Can you elaborate
on that just a little bit?
It was brought up
with several different options,
either to eliminate a portion
of route four, move route four
over to 295 in Maryland,
and both of those options
we were told we were
unable to do due to
continuity of government
operations or security.
Ultimately, the helicopter
routes remained in place
until the disaster on
January 29th, 2025.
I don't get it.
Every sign was there
that there was
a safety risk and the tower
was telling you that.
But what you did is
you transferred people out
instead of taking ownership
over the fact that everybody in
FAA in the tower was saying
there was a problem.
But you guys are pointing out,
well, our bureaucratic process.
Are you kidding me?
67 people are dead.
How do you explain that?
The near-miss statistics
highlight the seriousness of
the risks that existed in
the busy Washington DC
airspace.
But there are concerns about
the risk of collisions outside
of the nation's capital, too.
As the skies become
more crowded,
what else could be done
to prevent an accident
like the one in Washington DC?
Could new technology
provide the answer?
At Cranfield University
in the UK,
Graham Braithwaite
operates a dedicated
accident investigation
laboratory.
The laboratory contains
evidence from a number of
accidents that we can use
for teaching and for
training investigators.
Studying wreckages like these
is crucial to making the future
of aviation safer.
[Graham] There may be physical
damage or witness marks on that
wreckage that helps us
understand the sequence
of events.
And then from that, we can
look at what we might do in
the future that prevents that
from happening again.
One aircraft in the archive,
a Cessna, is particularly
relevant to the Washington DC
accident.
This Cessna collided with
another light aircraft over
Southern England, resulting in
the death of its pilot.
You can see how the metal has
been torn apart, in this case
by a propeller, as it
slashed through.
So, marks like this give
you an indication that
the two structures have
collided together.
So, as the propellers come
through, these paint transfer
marks can tell you that
there's been that collision.
Investigators concluded that
the pilots did not see
each other until it was
too late to avoid a collision,
similar to
the Washington crash.
Accidents like this have led to
the adoption of Traffic Alert
and Collision
Avoidance Systems, or TCAS.
[Graham] In simple terms, the
way that TCAS works is that
as an aircraft receives a signal
from a transponder on another
aircraft, it will calculate
if there is a collision
likely to happen.
So, if this system detects
another aircraft coming into
the same area of airspace,
then it will give an alert.
In certain situations, TCAS is
also able to instruct pilots on
how to avoid a collision.
The system works best when
both aircraft are equipped.
Where two aircraft are fitted
with TCAS, then those systems
talk to each other and issue
advice such that one aircraft
would climb and the other
aircraft would descend,
and that gives
the greatest chance
of those two aircraft
avoiding a collision.
In Washington DC,
the passenger plane was
equipped with TCAS.
The pilots received a warning
that there was traffic in
the area, but with only
20 seconds left before
the collision, they did not
have enough information to
react in time.
The alert did not provide
an evasive maneuver for
the pilots to take.
It just indicated that there
was another airplane
or aircraft in the area.
TCAS didn't advise
the passenger plane pilots on
how to avoid the collision
because these more detailed
alerts are disabled
at low altitude.
One reason that the system is
designed this way is to reduce
the number of unnecessary
alerts around busy airports.
A nuisance alert is an alert
that TCAS says, "Hey,
you've got traffic close by,"
but of course
you've got traffic.
You've got all kinds of
airplanes landing
and taking off
in this airport.
These so-called nuisance
alerts have been attributed
by some to the age
of the technology.
Current TCAS systems were
developed for use with old
transponders that were much
less advanced than modern ones.
Pilots report that some of
the system's alerts come when
there is no significant risk
of collision.
[Graham] TCAS was the most
incredible innovation.
And there's been many,
many lives saved by collisions
being avoided
by that technology.
Now, it will always have
its limitations, where airspace
becomes so busy that being able
to respond to and react to
warnings becomes difficult.
So, I think as we look to
the future, there needs to be
an enhancement
of that technology.
Recent advances in satellite
technology allow aircraft to be
tracked at a far higher level
of precision than ever before.
Today, many aircraft are
equipped with a tracking
technology called ADS-B.
ADS-B depends upon using
satellites to give us
a very accurate picture of
where an aircraft is in the sky,
but also it offers a solution
that's more affordable
and more portable.
The information that ADS-B
broadcasts to other pilots
and air traffic controllers
provides far more detail about
the aircraft and its movements
than older transponder
technology did.
In Washington,
the passenger plane was using
ADS-B to broadcast
detailed information,
including its precise
position and speed.
The helicopter was also
equipped with an ADS-B system,
but it was switched off
at the time of the accident.
There are times when military
aircraft need to be conspicuous
to be seen by other aircraft.
And clearly there are
other times when they want
to be inconspicuous.
A question for
the investigation will be
whether if the Black Hawk
aircraft had been operating
with its ADS-B function
enabled, would the air traffic
controller have been
better able to see
the potential collision?
As they try to prevent future
accidents, researchers are
harnessing the power of
ADS-B tracking to improve
the reliability of automated
collision alerts.
The FAA now is looking at
something called ACAS-X,
which is like the next level
of TCAS.
It's more accurate,
gives better warnings,
and reduces nuisance alerts.
One of the things that will
help to reduce collision risk
is actually to make sure that
those frontline technologies
that we see, particularly
in commercial aviation,
are available to other
airspace users.
In some cases,
we see a commercial aircraft
that collides with a light
aircraft that just doesn't have
the same level of technology
on board.
But as technology has evolved,
it becomes much more affordable
for those smaller airspace
users to become conspicuous in
the airspace, and that will
make a big difference.
Experts hope that the spread
of new technologies throughout
the aviation world will
eventually make collisions like
the one in Washington
a thing of the past.
But in the near term,
accidents are unlikely to
completely go away.
A recent series of crashes
around populated areas has led
some to ask,
despite the convenience,
is building airports
near cities a good idea?
In America, air travel is still
statistically the safest mode
of transportation.
But the number of commercial
jets is expected to increase
by 30% in the next 20 years.
When accidents do happen,
the risk is not just for those
on board, but also for people
on the ground.
Seven weeks before the hearings
in Washington, another accident
highlights the dangers
of takeoffs and landings
in crowded cities.
[dramatic chord strike]
On June 12, 2025,
Air India Flight 171
is scheduled to make
the 4,000-mile journey
from Ahmedabad in India to
London Gatwick.
On board the Boeing 787
Dreamliner
are 230 passengers
and 12 crew.
[Jeff] It was a hot day,
but it was a clear day.
There wasn't any adverse
thunderstorms or wind
or anything like that.
Everything appears
to be normal.
You can see
the 787 Dreamliner
accelerating down
the runway.
It pitches
up normally,
and it begins
to climb.
But just a few seconds later,
you see it begin to descend.
26 seconds after takeoff,
one of the pilots
issues a mayday.
There are no further
communications
from the aircraft.
[rumbling]
Flight 171 crashed into
a medical college hostel.
-[indistinct yelling]
-[beeping]
The plane was airborne
for 32 seconds,
traveling for less than
two miles before it crashed
into the hostel,
where it broke apart,
scattering wreckage
into several buildings.
19 people on the ground and
241 people aboard the aircraft
are killed.
Many more are injured.
It's the world's deadliest
aviation disaster in a decade.
A single passenger survives,
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh,
a British national, was sitting
next to an emergency exit
and managed to climb out
of the wreckage.
Yesterday I was going to
back to London,
and it happened,
everything, yeah.
How do you feel to have
survived this kind of...?
[Vishwash] I can't explain.
This is the first
Boeing 787 Dreamliner to crash.
Investigators must now
determine what caused
Flight 171 to fall to earth
just seconds after takeoff.
Data recovered from the black
box recorders reveals that
three seconds after the plane
leaves the ground,
it reaches a maximum speed
of 207 miles per hour.
But then, the flow of fuel
to the engines stops.
Based on the information
available in the runway report,
it is clear that fuel to
the engines was cut off.
The preliminary report reveals
that in the cockpit, two fuel
switches transitioned from
the run position to cut off.
Once those switches are moved
to cut off, it shuts the fuel
off completely,
and both engines
will begin to spool down.
Ten seconds after the fuel
switches transitioned to
cut off, they moved back
to the run position.
The engines began to restart,
but with the plane rapidly
losing altitude,
it was too late.
It would be difficult to move
these switches accidentally
because each switch, in order
to move it, you have to pull it
out and move it up or down.
According to the preliminary
report, one of the pilots can
be heard on the cockpit
voice recorder asking
the other why he cut off.
The second pilot replies
that he did not.
But a full transcript of
their conversation in
the cockpit has not yet
been released.
We do not know
which pilot said what
or at what time it
was said.
We do not know if those
switches actually
moved physically.
Is there a possibility of
an electric disruption?
We can't rule that out.
It will take many months before
air accident investigators,
assisted by
Boeing engineers,
will release
a final report to determine
the cause of
the Air India crash.
But it highlights how when
an accident happens over
a heavily populated area like
Ahmedabad, the consequences are
particularly grave.
We've proven that it's possible
to operate some of the busiest
airports in the world in
highly urban environments.
And we've managed to do that
with very few accidents that
have led to loss of life
on the ground.
But we can't be complacent
about that.
[Jeff] Our skies are definitely
gonna be getting more
and more crowded.
So yeah, it's gonna put
a strain on the air traffic
management system.
It's not just the airplanes
that have to change,
it's the infrastructure
that's gonna have to change,
better placement of airports.
It's gonna need to be better
design of the airspace
above the airports.
The geographic footprint of
where these airplanes take off
and land is one of many factors
that have to be considered with
the increase of airline travel.
In Washington, almost
12 months after the accident
there, the NTSB reveals
that their report will
be published in 2026.
Now, one year on, has enough
been done to prevent
air crashes in
the immediate future?
Come on.
Come on.
One year after the events of
January 29, 2025 at
Washington National Airport,
Doug Lane is still coming to
terms with what happened.
[barking]
Harley, it's OK, it's OK.
Today he finds solace in
the park where he and his son
spent time with
Christine and Spencer.
The past year, as you might
expect, has been quite a few
periods of ups and downs.
This place is special to me
for a variety of reasons.
As a family, we would often go
boating together right out of
this little cove here, it's
a place where you can kind of
get out into nature a little
bit and also remember some of
the times that
I now look back on
and cherish.
For Doug, there is
a determination to learn
the lessons of what
happened that night.
[Doug] I will say that one of
the aspects of this journey
that's been a great source
of strength is just
the connections that I've made
with other families that have
been affected by this tragedy.
I think we are all, as a family
group, very focused on
making sure
this entire story is told.
In December 2025,
the US government
admitted to
breaching a duty of care to
the passengers of Flight 5342.
It said that the pilots of
the Black Hawk had failed to
maintain vigilance so as to see
and avoid the passenger plane.
The government also conceded
that the air traffic controller
did not comply with procedures
around visual separation.
But it denied negligence,
and that Washington's busy
airspace was an accident
waiting to happen.
American Airlines and PSA
Airlines deny being at fault.
Those affected by the crash
are campaigning for change.
Among them, Tim Lilley,
the father of Flight 5342's
first officer, Sam Lilley.
My son's death cannot
be just a big mistake.
So, his legacy, we're trying
to make sure that
it's aviation safety.
15,000 close encounters between
jet aircraft and helicopters.
Put that in perspective,
one in 62 times
that an aircraft took off
or landed
at Reagan National, they were
too close to a helicopter.
This was the FAA's day job
to get this right and fix that
problem before it happens.
Aviation regulation is
often written in blood.
In this case, it could have
been written in data,
and then we could have
saved the 67 lives
that were lost that night.
Some believe the accident
highlights the need
for upgrades and investment.
[Paul] There's massive systemic
problems with air traffic
control, with our equipment,
with our staffing,
with our facilities throughout
the entire country.
Some of the old computer
terminals are so delicate that
you can't turn them off.
There is literally
a sticky note
that says "Do not turn off,"
from the tech department,
because if you turn it off,
we're not quite sure
it's gonna turn back on.
Today, helicopter route four
remains closed.
New Senate legislation will
require the greater use of
ADS-B tracking for
military flights.
And the House Subcommittee
on Military and Foreign Affairs
has called on
the US Army to provide
clearer guidelines
and enhance training
in complex airspace.
But many are still concerned
at the volume of traffic
over Washington
National Airport.
[Chester]
The increased volume of
air traffic at National Airport,
I think, has lots of
people concerned.
It's not a big airport.
It's very busy.
Adding more flights,
which is proposed,
is not necessarily a good thing.
There's more noise,
there's more congestion,
there's more chance of
something going wrong.
I don't think the changes that
the FAA has made are enough.
It's a really great first step,
but it takes time for them to
make additional changes.
In my view, though, in terms
of aviation safety,
decreasing the amount of
airline traffic in and out of
DCA Airport would be
a very impactful thing to do
to prevent the risk of
another mid-air collision.
The NTSB report is due to
be released in February 2026.
But many feel that the lessons
of January 29th
are already clear.
[Jeff] In the end, this was
a systemic problem.
This was
a preventable accident.
It never should have happened.
These hazards should have been
identified long before
that led to an accident.
[Doug]
When it comes to the outcome
of the investigation, for us,
it's not just about seeing
the recommendations made.
It's about seeing
the recommendations
implemented, and not 20 years
from now, we would like to see
them implemented
as soon as possible.
I think, for all of us,
you know, we're willing
to forgive.
We just want to know what
happened, know what went wrong,
and know what we can do to make
sure it doesn't happen again.
The events of January 29th will
continue to affect all those
who lost loved ones
on board Flight 5342
and helicopter PAT 25.
Many hope this will be
a wake-up call to ensure that
what happened on an icy winter
night in Washington DC
can never happen again.
[orchestral music plays]