Helicopter may have shown wrong altitude prior to crash near DC

Ryan Beene, Bloomberg News on Feb 14, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The crew of a U.S. Army helicopter may have had faulty altitude readings and not heard a key instruction from air-traffic controllers moments before colliding with an American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet near Washington in late January, potentially critical factors in the worst U.S. civil aviation disaster in decades.

The Black Hawk helicopter’s cockpit voice recorder did not register an instruction from air traffic controllers to “pass behind” the American CRJ-700 prior to the collision, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters at a press conference on Friday.

NTSB investigators are also probing whether the helicopter’s instruments were displaying incorrect altitude readings prior to the crash.

“We are looking at the possibility of there may be bad data,” she said. “We’re looking at the possibility of were they seeing something different” than what the helicopter’s altitude was as measured on the flight data recorder.

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