American Airlines And Feds Cut Secret Deal Over Who Pays For DCA Midair Crash That Killed 67

American Airlines and the federal government have reached an agreement over how to split liability over last year’s flight 5342 tragedy. American Eagle 5342 from Wichita to Washington’s National airport was making a nighttime approach to National’s runway 33. It collided over the Potomac River with an Army UH-60L Black Hawk (‘PAT25’) which had been conducting a night vision goggle evaluation flight. All 60 passengers, four airline crewmembers and three helicopter crewmembers died. American’s wholly-owned regional carrier PSA operated the aircraft. PAT25 had accepted “pilot-applied visual separation” meaning its crew assumed responsibility for seeing and remaining clear of Flight 5342. However, The controller’s initial description of the CRJ as “circling” to runway 33 was degraded in radio transmission; the helicopter crew heard that it was “for runway 33” but not that it was circling. The instructor pilot reported the traffic in sight without positively identifying Flight 5342. With five approaching aircraft appearing as points of light, the NTSB concluded he likely identified the wrong aircraft. Approximately 20 seconds before impact, the controller instructed PAT25 to “pass behind” the CRJ. A helicopter crewmember keyed the microphone for 0.8 seconds while the controller was transmitting, blocking the critical “pass behind” words. Six seconds before impact, the Black Hawk instructor told the flying pilot to turn left, apparently still believing the regional jet was part of the runway 1 traffic flow rather than crossing immediately ahead. The helicopter was at an altitude of 278 feet which was above Route 4’s published 200-foot maximum. System errors likely caused the pilots’ altimeters to indicate about 100 feet lower than the true altitude. The NTSB assigned causal responsibility to the Army for failing to educate pilots about that problem. This happened regularly, with 260 of 523 sampled Route 4 transits exceeding published altitude at some point. The NTSB identified army training and the helicopter crew’s ineffective visual separation as the probable cause of the crash, while also assigning substantial responsibility to the FAA and tower operation. American Airlines was not to blame here. The cockpit crew saw the helicopter only about one second before impact. TCAS gave a traffic advisory approximately 19 seconds earlier, but resolution advisories were inhibited at low altitude. Nonetheless, American is being sued for its scheduling practices (too many flights packed together), accepting the runway change, and procedures for flying at the airport. As expected, the estates of most of those involved have filed lawsuits: Estate Lawsuits Status Passengers 56 of 60 cases filed Airline pilots One of two filed, against the U.S. only Flight attendants One proposed pre-filing settlement with the U.S. The government has admitted it owed and breached a duty. It sadmitted PAT25’s failure to see and avoid the regional jet was the proximate cause of the crash, and that an air traffic controller violated an FAA visual separation rule by failing to advise the regional jet that visual separation was being applied, but denied that air traffic control negligence caused the accident (and alleged that the PSA pilots also failed to maintain vigilance). American (and its subsidiary PSA) argued that if they paid a plaintiff more than its own percentage of responsibility, the government should reimburse the excess, and that they should receive a credit or offset for amounts the government separately paid plaintiffs. They sought full reimbursement for liability, damages, costs and expenses, because federal negligence was the “primary, direct, and overwhelming” cause and that any airline negligence was only “passive, secondary, and minimal.” At a minimum they sought partial indemnity. The government reached an agreement with American settling these claims. We just don’t get to know what that agreement was. Topics on this page