The pilot of the passenger plane that hit a military chopper and crashed in the Potomac River this week may have attempted a last-second move to avoid the collision, a federal agency said at a news conference.
The CRJ was at 325 feet at the time of impact “plus or minus 25 feet,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed at the press conference, Saturday.
The moment the American Airlines passenger plane and Army helicopter collide. Obtained by CNN“At one point, very close to the impact, there was a slight change in pitch, an increase in pitch,” NTSB member Todd Inman said of the nose of the plane.
“That is something we will get you more detail on,” Inman added.
Remnants of the helicopter also spiraled downward following the collision. Obtained by CNNHowever, that maneuver was at the “last second” and was not in time to avoid being hit by the helicopter.
The altitude correction is based on information retrieved from the on-board flight data recorder recovered by rescue teams from the Potomac River on Friday.
“Again, this data is preliminary,” Inman stressed, though official word will be given by the agency in the coming days.
There was a “last-second” maneuver, but the aircraft could not avoid the helicopter. Obtained by CNNThere are discrepancies in some initial data points that authorities say they will resolve over the course of their investigation.
The air traffic control tower’s estimation of the plane’s altitude on impact did not perfectly align with the dataset recovered from the aircraft’s on-board recording device.
The tower had the plane at 200 feet at the time of impact — meaning there is a discrepancy of 100 feet between the measurements of the plane and of the controllers on the ground.
“We need to get more granularity to it,” Inman said of the apparent initial discrepancy.
“And we currently don’t have the readout of the Black Hawk,” Inman added, stating that the data from the helicopter will help resolve the gaps in the investigation’s dataset.
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The NTSB said it is continuing to work out the transcripts of both the plane and helicopter communications, which occurred on different channels.
The agency clarified that the recordings that are circulating on social media are only half of the communications that were sent out by the DC control tower on Wednesday.
The NTSB also confirmed that this training flight would require night vision goggles for the military personnel and that this could have contributed to the accident — though it was not clear.
At the time of the accident, there were “five controllers in the ATC tower-cab at DCA.”
“One was a local controller which was handling not only helicopter but fixed-wing aircraft. The local controller also would be arrivals, departures, closing airspace and use of the runway,” Inman said.
There was also an assist controller to support the local controller — though that person will not appear on any tapes.
All controllers in the tower have been interviewed by the NTSB as part of its investigation.
Inman emphasized that all of the controllers have been emotionally affected by Wednesday’s tragedy.
