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The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people in the deadliest crash on American soil in more than two decades.
The official response to the first lawsuit filed by a family of one of the victims said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated procedures that night. The filing also said the failure of the Army helicopter pilots “to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the airline jet makes the government liable.
But the filing suggested that others, including the pilots of the jet, also played a role. The lawsuit also blamed American Airlines and its regional partner, PSA Airlines, for the crash, but those airlines have filed motions to dismiss.
Investigators say the rescue mission remains the key priority after a passenger jet collided with a military helicopter in Washington, but hopes of finding survivors in the freezing Potomac River are fading fast.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet on Jan. 29 while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia, just across the river from the nation’s capital, officials said.
The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
Robert Clifford, one of the attorneys for the family of victim Casey Crafton, said the government admitted “the Army’s responsibility for the needless loss of life” and the FAA’s failure to follow air traffic control procedures while “rightfully” acknowledging others — American Airlines and PSA Airlines — also contributed to the deaths.
The families of the victims “remain deeply saddened and anchored in the grief caused by this tragic loss of life,” he said.
The government’s lawyers said in the filing that “the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident.”
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will release its report on the cause of the crash early next year, but investigators have already highlighted a number of factors that contributed, including the helicopter flying 24 metres higher than the 61-metre limit on a route that allowed only scant separation between planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway and helicopters passing below.
The NTSB also said that the FAA failed to recognize the dangers around the busy airport even after 85 near misses in the three years before the crash.
