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From 2 Pilots and an Air Traffic Controller Whose Fates Will Be Forever Entwined by Kate KellyDavid A. Fahrenthold and Karoun Demirjian.  The subheading is Documents released in the inquiry into the deadly midair collision over the Potomac River on Jan. 29 reveal new details about three people whose decisions shaped the outcome of the disaster.

The specific causes of the disaster are still under investigation, but enough has been revealed publicly to say that the events were set in motion by the failures of institutions. The Army’s unreliable technology in the aging helicopter may have given the pilots a misleading sense of their altitude. The Federal Aviation Administration’s short staffing meant that a single controller was doing two crucial jobs.

There is another article as well, Army Pilots Might Have Struggled to See Passenger Jet Before D.C. Crash by Karoun Demirjian.  The subheading is Light pollution from Washington and the passenger jet’s dim lights might have contributed to difficulties spotting American Airlines Flight 5342 before the collision on Jan. 29, Army experts said.

At night, light pollution from Washington, the Pentagon and the airport itself is a common problem for pilots. It can be worse when flying with night-vision goggles, as the Army pilots were using on the night of the crash, the aviators said. Further complicating matters were exterior lights on the commercial jet that were dimmer than those on more modern planes. Even the configuration of the Black Hawks can cause sightline problems.

The crash on January 29, 2025 was a tragedy costing 67 lives.  Coming a little more than a week after inauguration, the tragedy was exacerbated by political reporting with Legacy Media trying to make the event about future planned budget cuts rather than examining what had actually happened.  On the right, independent media was exercised over the fact that the helicopter pilot's social media presence had been completely shutdown and there was all sorts of speculation about whether the pilot might have been a DEI hire.  Speculation fueled when it was discovered that the crash was the fault of the helicopter and that the helicopter pilot was a woman.

The independent media was more informative as it included a number of experienced helicopter pilots and even some who were accustomed to flying that stretch of airspace.  

I quit paying attention after a month or so, waiting for the final report to come out.  My working hypothesis was that this was substantially a human error issue.  Clear, fine weather, routine flight patterns, no apparent mechanical failures.  While the vicinity of Reagan to D.C. and various other airports make this a crowded and intensely used airspace, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  

The helicopter pilot was on certification flight.  She seems to have not had much flying time in the prior year.  Her duties seem to have been more political and administrative.  She had some rough patches in her flying records.  The certification flight seemed to reveal some skill shortcomings.  

But nothing definitive.  I am not sure I heard the blackbox tapes.  It seemed to me that this was likely pilot error, possibly exacerbated by something done or not done by the flight instructor.  

It seems that the investigation is done and the report is about to be released.

The NYT seems to be investing heavily (three reporters) in creating a storyline of defused amorphous institutional failure.  Invested enough to take up space for two articles, all pointing away from pilot error.  

The NYT seems committed to blaming institutions but the details they report seem to point ack to pilot error.  It is unclear why there is the discrepancy between the facts they report and the interpretation they want to make.

He called Captain Lobach — his superior in rank — “ma’am” and made sure his crew chief, Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, was comfortable with the temperature in the back seat of the Black Hawk. He appeared to try to soothe Captain Lobach’s embarrassment over a directional mistake by joking that he was “all game” to blow by a town at low altitude but that they would have to make a “blood pact” not to discuss it with anyone later.

She appeared to have recognized the tongue-in-cheek suggestion, replying, “Nope, right.”

But the exam did not go smoothly.

More than an hour before the crash, during a portion of the flight with choppy winds, Mr. Eaves took the flight controls from her, according to the transcript.

At another point, when they were evidently practicing landing and other maneuvers on a rural airfield, she was forced to “go around” one landing area on short notice — a tactic that is often used when an aircraft cannot land safely, aviators told The Times. When Mr. Eaves asked her about the mistake, she blamed the height of her chair, according to the transcript.

She also erroneously turned left when she should have gone right to avoid winds, and turned northward toward Great Falls, Va., when she should have been heading south to return to the Army base, prompting Mr. Eaves to ask her where they were going, according to the transcript.

At one point, the transcript says, she described herself as “dizzy,” but quickly added that it was “not too bad.”

Little missteps might be relatively forgivable on a deserted airfield or at thousands of feet in elevation, where there is less traffic. But once the Black Hawk entered the Washington area’s airspace — known as Class B, the busiest grade — there was very little margin for error when problems emerged.

Traffic in Sight

As they flew along in Reagan National airspace, the pilots, each of whom had a set of altitude readings in front of their seat, voiced a difference in the helicopter’s height. Mr. Eaves told Captain Lobach twice to descend. But they never discussed the discrepancy in the altitude instruments, known as altimeters, and Captain Lobach flew the remainder of the route far too high.

The helicopter ultimately crashed into the jet at roughly 300 feet — higher than the maximum altitude of 200 feet in that part of the route.

“There is a tension within the crucial minutes between them over whether they’re flying at the correct altitude,” Jon-Claud Nix, a former Marine Corps helicopter instructor pilot, said in an interview with The Times after reviewing the transcript.

Mr. Nix, for instance, said that Captain Lobach announced an altitude of 300 feet and that Mr. Eaves replied by saying “roger, got you looking at four,” meaning his altimeter was placing her at 400 feet at roughly the same time.

Instead of discussing a fix to that differential, Mr. Eaves asked Captain Lobach to simply continue descending — which she did, but ultimately not enough.

The reporters seem to identify equipment failure as an issue (a miscalibrated altimeter) but never develop that theory.  Seemingly the pilot was misreading the altimeter.  But again, we will have to wait for the report because the reporters won't report.

The report will come out.  We'll have some answers, perhaps not all.  But in the meantime, the NYT seems to be trying to point blame away from humans and towards unaccountable institutions.  But they really don't work hard to make that argument at all.  There is no clear reason why institutions are to blame for this accident which occurred under normal conditions.

Useful to know what the NYT wants the answer to be but it would be a whole lot more helpful if we simply got the answers that are available.