WASHINGTON: The airspace around Washington, D.C., is congested and complex \u2014 a combination aviation experts have long worried could lead to catastrophe.
\nThose fears materialized Wednesday night when an American Airlines plane collided with a military helicopter, taking the lives of 67 people, including three soldiers and more than a dozen figure skaters.
\nEven in peak flying conditions, experts said, the airspace around Reagan Washington National Airport can challenge the most experienced pilots, who must navigate hundreds of other commercial planes, military aircraft and restricted areas around sensitive sites.
\n\u201cThis was a disaster waiting to happen,\u201d said Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines captain and chief executive officer of Aero Consulting Experts. \u201cThose of us who have been around a long time have been yelling into a vacuum that something like this would happen because our systems are stretched to extremes.\u201d
\nThere was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas. Investigators have already begun examining every aspect of the crash, including questions about why the Army Black Hawk helicopter was 100 feet above its permitted altitude and whether the air traffic control tower was properly staffed. A Federal Aviation Administration report obtained by The Associated Press described staffing levels as \u201cnot normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n
As authorities piece together the nation\u2019s deadliest US airline crash since 2001, the tragedy has raised new concerns about the specific dangers at Reagan National, which has seen a series of near-misses in recent years. Experts and some lawmakers said they are concerned that the airspace is about to get more congested in the wake of Congress\u2019 decision last year to ease restrictions that had limited the airport to nonstop flights within 1,250 miles (2,012 kilometers) of Washington, with few exceptions.
\nLawmakers enabled airlines to launch new routes to destinations like Seattle and San Francisco. The plan fueled intense debate about congestion versus convenience, with some legislators heralding new flights to their home states while others warned of potential tragedy. The flight that crashed Wednesday was not part of the expansion. It was added by American Airlines in January of last year amid a push by Kansas lawmakers for more service between Reagan National and Wichita.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The airspace around Washington, D.C., is congested and complex \u2014 a combination aviation experts have long worried could lead to catastrophe. Those fears materialized Wednesday night when an American Airlines plane collided with a military helicopter, taking the lives of 67 people, including three soldiers and more than a dozen figure skaters. Even in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76382,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76374\/revisions\/76382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}