A Plane Crash, Warning Signs and an Investigation

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal – "A Plane Crash, Warning Signs and an Investigation"

Release Date: January 31, 2025
Hosts: Ryan Knutson and Ben Katz
Co-production: The Wall Street Journal and Gimlet

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1. Introduction to the Tragic Event

The episode opens with Ryan Knutsen and Ben Katz discussing a devastating aviation disaster that occurred at Reagan National Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports. On a seemingly ordinary Wednesday morning, Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, carrying 64 passengers, was diverted from its primary runway to Runway 33 due to air traffic control instructions. However, mere minutes later, the flight collided with a military helicopter, resulting in the loss of 67 lives—the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States since November 2001.

Quote:
Ryan Knutsen [00:05]: "Wednesday started as a pretty normal day at Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation."

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2. The Unique Complexity of Reagan National Airport

Ben Katz elaborates on the unique challenges present at Reagan National Airport, highlighting its proximity to military bases and its role in handling a high volume of both commercial and VIP flights. Unlike major hub airports like Chicago O’Hare, Reagan National deals with a mix of scheduled passenger flights and ad hoc activities, including flights carrying government officials, military personnel, and private VIPs.

Quote:
Ben Katz [03:29]: "If you had to compare it to a hub airport... There's a lot more kind of ad hoc activity at Reagan National."

The airport, originally designed to handle 15 million passengers annually, was accommodating 25 million in 2023, exacerbating congestion and operational complexities.

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3. Air Traffic Control and FAA Challenges

A critical factor leading to the crash was the strained state of air traffic control (ATC) at Reagan National. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), responsible for overseeing U.S. airspace, has been grappling with significant staffing shortages, high turnover rates, and inadequate training programs. These issues have led to increased traffic congestion and a rise in near-miss incidents across the country, particularly in congested airspaces like Washington D.C.

Quote:
Ben Katz [07:00]: "Air traffic controllers, kind of one of the biggest hitch here is that they're difficult to train."

The FAA acknowledged these staffing challenges, noting that they have been working to address them by slowing down traffic to maintain safety levels when controller availability is limited.

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4. The Collision: Timeline and Immediate Aftermath

On the day of the crash, Flight 5342 was instructed to land on an alternate runway at Reagan National. Less than a minute later, an alert was triggered in the air traffic control tower, warning of a potential collision with a military helicopter. The helicopter crew acknowledged the warning and attempted to avoid the jet, but only 15 seconds later, the two aircraft collided.

Quote:
Ben Katz [11:37]: "There's a question mark as to whether the air traffic controller noticed that there was a helicopter that would have crossed paths with this aircraft."

Investigations revealed that the helicopter was operating above its mandated altitude, flying at over 300 feet instead of the allowed 200 feet, which likely contributed to the collision.

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5. Investigation and Ongoing Responses

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) took charge of the investigation, committing to a preliminary report within 30 days. In the interim, the FAA temporarily restricted helicopter traffic over Reagan National Airport to prevent further incidents.

President Trump responded to the tragedy by attributing blame to the FAA's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, a statement met with skepticism from aviation experts who emphasized the need for evidence-based analysis over political narratives.

Quote:
Ben Katz [14:57]: "You need to be able to really assess what happened without kind of a narrative being forced onto it."

Nancy Kerrigan, a prominent figure present at a memorial, expressed heartfelt condolences to the victims and underscored the tragedy's profound impact on the community.

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6. Broader Implications for Aviation Safety

The crash underscores systemic issues within the FAA and air traffic control operations, particularly in congested airspaces. Ben Katz emphasized that while aviation safety remains high overall, the complexities and increased traffic at Reagan National pose significant risks that necessitate thorough examination and prompt corrective measures.

Quote:
Ben Katz [16:04]: "But the bottom line is that aviation safety is still at an incredibly high standard. What happened on Wednesday night was an absolute tragedy."

The episode concludes with a reflection on the necessity of balancing operational demands with stringent safety protocols to prevent future disasters.

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Key Takeaways

• Reagan National Airport's Complexity: Handling a mix of commercial and VIP flights in an increasingly congested airspace.
• FAA Challenges: Staffing shortages, high turnover, and training difficulties contributing to air traffic control strain.
• Collision Dynamics: Miscommunication and altitude discrepancies leading to the tragic collision between Flight 5342 and a military helicopter.
• Investigative Focus: NTSB's methodical approach to uncovering the factual causes, free from political interference.
• Safety Implications: Highlighting the urgent need for FAA reforms and improved air traffic management to ensure aviation safety.

Quote:
Nancy Kerrigan [15:29]: "As part of any investigation, we look at the human, the machine and the environment."

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Conclusion

The Journal's episode provides an in-depth analysis of a catastrophic aviation incident, exploring the multifaceted factors that culminated in the crash. By dissecting the operational challenges at Reagan National Airport and the overarching struggles within the FAA, the podcast sheds light on critical areas needing attention to avert future tragedies. The heartfelt responses from victims' families and public figures underscore the profound human cost of aviation failures, reinforcing the imperative for systemic improvements in air traffic management and safety protocols.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements and non-content segments to focus solely on the informative aspects of the episode.

Transcript

[Ryan Knudsen]

Wednesday started as a pretty normal day at Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation.

[Ben Katz]

You know, that day there'd been probably about 700 flights. That's takeoffs and landings from Reagan National.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's our colleague Ben Katz. He covers aviation.

[Ben Katz]

And then suddenly flight 5342 got a call from air traffic controllers asking if they would instead of coming into the primary Runway at Reagan national inst. Take Runway 33, Washington.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Star one, star three two, circuit 17.

[Ben Katz]

Yeah, we can do three three for boost.

[Ryan Knudsen]

63 42, flight 5342 was arriving from Wichita, Kansas and had 64 people on board.

[Ben Katz]

And less than a minute later, there was a sudden alert inside the air traffic control tower.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The alert said the Wichita flight was at risk of colliding with a military helicopter. Air traffic control alerted the helicopter's crew to the plane.

[Ben Katz]

The helicopter crew acknowledged that they were aware of the aircraft. And then 15 or so seconds later, the two aircraft collided. 67 people have died. The search and rescue teams are still trying to recover all of the bodies.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How unusual is a tragedy of this.

[Ben Katz]

Scale in the United States? Very. We haven't seen an air disaster kind of of this scale in the United States for 15 years. But the scale of the fatalities in this incident on Wednesday evening makes it the deadliest aviation disaster since November 2001.

[Ryan Knudsen]

So you cover the airline industry. Did this accident, did this tragedy surprise you?

[Ben Katz]

It's a really interesting question. I think the scale of it has surprised me, the fact that there was a collision less so.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan KNUDSEN. It's Friday, January 31st. Coming up on the show, the warning signs leading up to this week's deadly crash. Foreign.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts, they said, what the are you talking about? You insane Hollywood. So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to. To just $15 a month. Give it a [e-mail] switch.

[Ryan Knudsen]

$45 up front payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan.

[Ben Katz]

Only taxes and fees.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Extra speeds lower above 40 GB. Details. Reagan National Airport sits directly across the Potomac river from Washington D.C. on a clear night like it was on Wednesday, you can see the glowing white dome of the U.S. capitol Building and the floodlights on the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial during takeoff and landing. What makes this airport and this airspace unique?

[Ben Katz]

So it's unique in multiple ways. You know, if you had to compare it to a hub airport, say in Chicago, which deals with big scheduled passenger planes that are kind of traveling in, the schedules are, you know, known well in advance. There's a lot more kind of ad hoc activity at Reagan National. We're dealing with, you know, a lot of passengers, but also a lot of VIPs, a lot of government officials, a lot of politicians, a lot of military personnel. So it's really quite a busy airport. It's also really close to a military base. And because of that, the congestion around the airport has been kind of a major topical issue that has concerned a lot of people.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Why even are there helicopters that are flying along this route where planes are coming in to land and take off?

[Ben Katz]

It's a really interesting question, and I think kind of as the reporting kind of goes out, we're starting to learn a little bit more about this. But essentially there is a taxi surface that is effectively run by the military. These kind of aircrafts, like the Black hawk, the Sikorsky H60 that was involved in this collision, it's typically used to ferry, you know, VIP guests to, you know, to and around D.C. government officials, generals. In the case of an emergency, if there were ever an attack on D.C. or towards the president, you know, the president may be escorted or evacuated via helicopter, you know, throughout or through these pathways. So there are very legitimate reasons for why these helicopters are operating there. Our understanding at the moment, although, you know, this could still evolve, is that the helicopter involved in Wednesday's collision was doing a training exercise, training to run those paths.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Has the DC Airspace always been this congested and this crowded, or has it been getting worse?

[Ben Katz]

It's definitely been getting worse. You know, what we've seen is a lot of politicians, Senate leaders, you know, who are running to D.C. and back. You know, a lot of government officials have been pushing for their states to be kind of represented, you know, so to speak, in the flight paths to and from Reagan nationals. So there's often a lot of kind of tussling over who gets the direct flight from Reagan National.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Just in the past few years, the Senate authorized an increase in flights at Reagan National Airport by as many as 10 per day. Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas said yesterday that he had successfully lobbied American Airlines to use one of its existing slots to fly a direct route to Wichita, the same route that had the crash On Wednesday, when he pushed for it, he said connecting Wichita to D.C. with a direct flight would help local companies get federal work.

[Ben Katz]

Reagan national itself was built really to handle about 15 million passengers a year. In 2023, it handled 25 million. So you can already see, just by the footfall, you know, how much more this airport is handling just in terms of people and aircraft.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The agency charged with overseeing DC's increasingly crowded airspace is the Federal Aviation Administration.

[Ben Katz]

The FAA has a huge mandate, right? It's managing airspace, it's managing air traffic controllers, but it's also managing regulating Boeing and aircraft manufacturing, the engine makers. You know, the FAA is also constantly under a microscopic lens, right? I mean, the whole world looks to the FAA for guidance.

[Ryan Knudsen]

But in recent years, the FAA has been under pressure. It's faced criticism for its oversight of Boeing. It's seen a lot of turnover in its top leadership, and it's struggled to fully staff air traffic control operations, or atc around the country. The FAA has acknowledged the staffing shortages and has worked for years to address it. The agency also says it slows down traffic to maintain safety when there aren't enough controllers.

[Ben Katz]

So air traffic controllers, kind of one of the biggest hitch here is that they're difficult to train. It takes time, at least a year, to really come to grips with the technology that you use to be an air traffic controller, to understand the radar systems. It's a very in depth, very professionalized job and career. Obviously, the US has been dealing with labor shortages kind of across the board. But then you add to this the long turnaround times in just getting someone new and putting them in an air traffic control tower. There's also. The industry has also been battling with this loss of experience, right? During the pandemic, we saw a lot of people leave the industry. So, you know, it's one thing to be qualified to be an air traffic controller, and it's another thing to have been doing it for 40 years. If you're brand new to the job and you're surrounded by other people who are brand new to the job, you may also be, you know, tired or exhausted because your shifts are longer than they should be, or you haven't had a break in a long time, you know, the stresses of that can really affect you and your ability to properly manage airspace.

[Ryan Knudsen]

At the same time, the FAA has been struggling to staff air traffic control. There's been an uptick in close calls.

[Ben Katz]

We've definitely been keeping track of that increase. You know, cases where big aircraft have nearly collided, whether that's on approach towards an airport, whether that's an aircraft that's been landing while another has been taking off.

[Ryan Knudsen]

In 2023, a study commissioned by the FAA found mounting risks to safety and efficiency in US air traffic. At the time, the agency said it had taken several actions to end serious close calls. Near misses have taken place all over the country, including in D.C. last spring, a pilot flying into Washington, Reagan, reported coming dangerously close to a military helicopter when coming in to land. In a report of that incident, the pilot wrote that there needed to be better separation between plane and helicopter traffic. And then just a day before Wednesday's crash, a jet that was minutes away from landing aborted to avoid a helicopter in its way.

[Ben Katz]

For pilots, this airport is scary. It's a very difficult airport to land at. The congestion is very hard at nighttime especially, there's low visibility because of the lights of the city. That kind of interfere with what pilots can see. The activity of military aircraft around the area, as well as the proximity to, you know, helicopters, both commercial freight and military. You know, it makes it an incredibly complex and congested area to fly into. So this really is kind of the melting pot for where it can potentially go all wrong.

[Ryan Knudsen]

And then on Wednesday, it did. What we know about the cause of the crash after the break, 67 people are presumed dead from Wednesday's crash. Among the dead is a group of young figure skaters, their coaches, and their family members. They were returning from a training camp for up and coming athletes in Wichita, Kansas. At a press conference outside Boston, where a number of the skaters were based, skating legend Nancy Kerrigan fought through tears to honor the people who died. But I just feel for the athletes.

[Nancy Kerrigan]

The skaters, their families, but anyone that was on that plane, not just the.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Skaters, because it's just such a tragic event. In Wichita, a memorial was set up at the airport.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You can see some flowers and notes. And earlier this morning, we did see a woman come by, and she left this note on the table. It offers up some prayers for the families who are affected and praying for the light of God to shine upon them.

[Ryan Knudsen]

What do we know at this point about why this crash might have happened?

[Ben Katz]

We know that the aircraft was rerouted to land at a different Runway, and that happened only less than a minute, maybe, before the collision happened. There's a question mark as to whether the air traffic controller noticed that there was a helicopter that would have crossed paths with this aircraft. And then about 20 seconds before the collision happened, the air traffic controller got an alert on their own system saying that a collision was kind of imminent. They contacted the military aircraft. They said, do you have this CRJ 700 aircraft in your sight? The helicopter crew acknowledged it. They said that they did have the aircraft in sight and that they would take their own avoidance action. The helicopter then proceeded to climb in altitude, reaching kind of first 250ft, then about 300, and then possibly even going a little bit further. And that's when it collided.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Helicopters aren't supposed to fly more than 200ft above the ground along this part of the Potomac river, but when the collision happened, it was flying at over 300ft.

[Ben Katz]

So there really is a big question mark as to why the helicopter, in its final moments, rose to the altitude that the regional jet was coming down to and what led to that collision. At that point, you know, maybe the helicopter crew didn't have great visibility. Maybe they didn't identify the right aircraft. You know, they were flying towards the city. So there were lights in the background that may have disguised the aircraft. But a lot of the investigation, a lot of the questions are really narrowing into those final few seconds before the collision as to what that helicopter was doing kind of outside of its mandated flight level.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Starting today, the FAA temporarily restricted helicopter traffic over Reagan National Airport. What's next in the investigation?

[Ben Katz]

The ntsb, they're the investigating authority that are looking into the crash. They've said that they'll release a preliminary report within 30 days, so we're waiting for that. Whether they'll take the full 30 days or we'll get something sooner, we're not quite sure. Obviously, there's a lot of pressure to get things out as quickly as possible, but the investigators are very cautious. Typically, in an aviation investigation, they are very careful to kind of avoid political interference, you know, make sure that they really drill down to, you know, the factual details of what happened.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The FAA regarded staffing at the tower as adequate at the time of the accident, according to a person familiar with the matter. During a press conference yesterday, President Trump suggested diversity, equity and inclusion policies were to blame for the accident.

[Nancy Kerrigan]

They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program. Then another article. The Federal Aviation Administration. This was before I got to office recently, second term. The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities.

[Ryan Knudsen]

And what do aviation experts think of that assertion?

[Ben Katz]

It's an unusual comment, not necessarily even for the meaning behind the comment and what President Trump was trying to imply, but simply by virtue of the fact that a president was commenting on the possible cause or triggers behind an aviation accident. This is something where we need to be able to drill into the facts. You need to be able to really assess what happened without kind of a narrative being forced onto it.

[Ryan Knudsen]

At a press conference yesterday, NTSB officials were asked about Trump's comments.

[Nancy Kerrigan]

As part of any investigation, we look at the human, the machine and the environment. So we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft, we will look at the helicopter, we will look at the environment in which they were operating in. That is part of that is standard in any part of our investigation. I'll turn it back.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How should airline passengers feel? I mean, would you be comfortable flying into Reagan National Airport after this?

[Ben Katz]

You know, one of the difficult parts about being an aviation reporter is being able to talk about these kind of safety issues without kind of encouraging or, you know, inspiring panic. That is a line to thread because we want to be able to draw attention to issues that are genuine safety issues and concerns. I think there are questions about how DC's airspace is managed, and I'm sure, I mean, they will be reviewed and they will be kind of interrogated. I suspect that some changes will be made. But the bottom line is that aviation safety is still at an incredibly high standard. What happened on Wednesday night was an absolute tragedy. And as we said, it's a tragedy that just hasn't happened in the U.S. for at least 15 years.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's all for today. Friday, January 31st. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Vera Bergen Gruen, Jack Gillum, Gordon Lubold, Allison Sider and Andrew Tangle. The show's made by Kathryn Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphries, Sophie Kodner, Jessica Mendoza, Matt Kwong, Kate Linebaugh, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alessandra Rizzo, Alan Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singh, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Katherine Whalen, Tatiana Zemis and me, Ryan Knudsen, with help from Trina Menino. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by so Wiley. Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Bobby Lord Nathan, Singapok, Griffin Tanner and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact checking by Mary Mathis and Kate Gallagher. Thanks for listening. See you Monday.