U.S. admits liability in D.C. plane crash lawsuit from victim’s family

The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.

The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of the victims’ families said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated procedures about when to rely on pilots to maintain visual separation that night. Plus, the filing said, the Army helicopter pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the airline jet makes the government liable.

But the filing suggested that others, including the pilots of the jet and the airlines, may also have played a role. The lawsuit also blamed American Airlines and its regional partner, PSA Airlines, for roles in the crash, but those airlines have filed motions to dismiss.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C., officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.

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Robert Clifford, one of the attorneys for the family of victim Casey Crafton, said the government admitted “the Army’s responsibility for the needless loss of life” and the FAA’s failure to follow air traffic control procedures while “rightfully” acknowledging others –- American Airlines and PSA Airlines -– also contributed to the deaths.

The families of the victims “remain deeply saddened and anchored in the grief caused by this tragic loss of life,” he said.

The government’s lawyers said in the filing that “the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident.”

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An American spokesman declined to comment on the filing, but in the airlines motion to dismiss, the airline said “plaintiffs’ proper legal recourse is not against American. It is against the United States government … The Court should therefore dismiss American from this lawsuit.” The airline said that since the crash it has focused on supporting the families of the victims.

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The National Transportation Safety Board will release its report on the cause of the crash early next year, but investigators have already highlighted a number of factors that contributed, including the helicopter flying 78 feet higher (24 meters) than the 200-foot (61-meter) limit on a route that allowed only scant separation between planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway and helicopters passing below. Plus, the NTSB said, the FAA failed to recognize the dangers around the busy airport even after 85 near misses in the three years before the crash.

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Before the collision, the controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. FAA officials acknowledged at the NTSB’s investigative hearings that the controllers at Reagan had become overly reliant on the use of visual separation. That’s a practice the agency has since ended.

Witnesses told the NTSB that they have serious questions about how well the helicopter crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot.

Investigators have said the helicopter pilots might not have realized how high they were because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder.

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U.S. Senate passes bill closing loophole for military aircraft tracking

The Army helicopter was also not broadcasting its location prior to the crash.

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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a bipartisan bill that would require all military and civilian aircraft use ADS-B technology — or Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast technology — to broadcast their locations.

The bill, which now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, closes a loophole for military aircraft to avoid using the system in the annual defence policy bill passed by Congress earlier Wednesday. The Senate chose not to amend the defence bill to address the aircraft issue because doing so would have sent it back to the House for another vote just as lawmakers were preparing to break for the holidays.

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Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who introduced the bill, said January’s “tragedy could have been avoided” if the Army Black Hawk had been using its ADS-B system before the crash, and that his legislation should save lives.

Cruz said he’s optimistic the bill could reach U.S. President Donald Trump’s desk as soon as next month. He said it makes sense to take this step now to force the military to operate under the same rules as airliners do around Washington, D.C.

The NTSB has been recommending for decades to require all aircraft have locator systems that can both send out a signal with their location but also receive location data from other planes and helicopters. Part of the holdup has been concerns about the potential cost burden on the average Cessna owner and privacy concerns because the system would allow their planes to be tracked.

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The Army helicopter involved in the January crash was flying with its ADS-B system turned off because the military was concerned about observers being able to pinpoint its location during a training mission.

The crash victims included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches who had just attended a competition in Wichita, Kansas, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.