National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy stated at a news conference February 14, 2025, that the pilots of the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines CRJ January 29, might not have heard the controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport tell them to pass behind the airliner due to the transmission being stepped on.
Less than 20 seconds before the collision, a radio transmission from the tower was audible on both cockpit voice recorders (CVR), directing the Black Hawk to “pass behind” the CRJ. The transmission was stepped on by a .8-second mic key from the Black Hawk, as the Black Hawk pilot was keying the mic to communicate with air traffic control (ATC), according to NTSB. The pilots of both aircraft were talking to the tower, but were on different VHF frequencies as helicopters use a different frequency than fixed-wing aircraft. So, all aircraft can hear the tower, but the pilots of airplanes can only hear the responses from the pilots of other airplanes, and helicopter pilots can only hear the responses of other helicopter pilots. (See airport diagram for DCA.) There is a regular tower frequency for airplanes and a separate, special tower frequency for helicopters. Very common at busy airports. In essence, the tower is managing two different frequencies at the same time.
The instructor pilot of the Black Hawk helicopter then told the pilot flying that ATC appeared to be asking them to move left toward the east bank of the Potomac River. While NTSB confirmed the Black Hawk was flying too high at a radio altitude of 278 feet, the agency also noted the barometric altimeters in the cockpit may have been showing the crew a different altitude.
“We are seeing conflicting information in the data, which is why we aren’t releasing altitude for the Black Hawk’s entire route,” Homendy said. “We are looking at the possibility [that there] may be bad data. Were they seeing something different in the cockpit that differed from the [flight data recorder] (FDR) data, which was a radio altimeter?”
Another possibility, Homendy said, is that the ADS-B on the Black Hawk was turned off.
The accident occurred over the Potomac River during a routine Army “flight check,” killing all 67 people onboard the two aircraft.