Ex-pilot cites incomplete helicopter crew as cause of US plane crash

The military pilots of the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger plane in the skies above Washington, D.C., might not have seen the American Airlines airliner because they were flying with a limited crew. Such a version was put forward on January 31 by retired former U.S. Army pilot Darin Gob, who previously flew such helicopters.

He noted that usually four people fly in the cockpit of a helicopter for safe control of the machine. However, on the day of the accident, the crew consisted of only three people.

"Usually there are two crew chiefs in the back, both looking around at a 90-degree viewing angle relative to the two pilots in the front, and each of them are a pair of eyes that can see much more, in some cases even more than the pilots," he noted in a conversation with Fox News Channel.

He also speculated that the helicopter was trying to avoid a collision because it deviated from the required altitude at some point.

"If they went too high, there is a possibility that on that trajectory they could have collided with the aircraft," Gob said, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

Interrupted flight: Russian figure skaters were among the dead in the plane crash in the USA

Yevgeniya Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board, the names of the other passengers are being investigated

Earlier in the day, the hero of the "miracle on the Hudson" Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, speaking about the possible cause of the plane crash in Washington noted that at night the signal lights on air vehicles over water are seen worse. This could have impaired the pilots' perception of space, making them unable to understand how far away the airplane was from them and in what direction it was traveling.

On the night of January 30, an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. After the crash, they fell into the Potomac River. There were 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the plane. According to the latest data, more than 40 bodies of the victims were extracted from the river.

US President Donald Trump reported the absence of survivors in the airplane crash in Washington. He called the crash terrible and said the tragedy could have been avoided if the control tower had told the helicopter crew to change course.

CNN reported the day before that one of the flight recorders (black boxes) of the crashed passenger plane had been recovered from the Potomac River.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there were Russian citizens on board the plane that crashed in Washington, and Russian figure skaters were on board. Tatyana Tarasova, an honored USSR figure skating coach, called the news from Washington "terrible." On January 31, Peskov added that the United States and Russia had been in contact through diplomatic channels after the plane crash.