How air safety failures and last-minute mistakes set American Airlines jet, Black Hawk chopper on deadly DC collision course

WASHINGTON — Major air safety failures and last-minute mistakes caused Thursday night’s midair collision over the Potomac River that left 67 people dead, according to expert observers and officials.Late Wednesday night, American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, crashed with an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter just 400 feet above the historic Washington, DC waterway.The Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet — with 60 passengers and four crew on board — exploded in a fireball and broke into three pieces as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, igniting the night sky with what resembled “shooting stars” or “white flares” to eyewitnesses on the ground.It is the deadliest air disaster in the US since 2001, and the first crash of an American airliner in nearly 15 years.The Post can reveal that grave lapses and miscommunications in one of the most crowded and complex patches of sky in the US are likely to blame.An air traffic controller was doing the job of two staffers at the time of the crash — following years of staffing shortages and reports of burnout and high stress among the Federal Aviation Administration employees.

According to radio transmissions from Wednesday night, the controller warned the chopper that it was getting too close the CRJ-700 passenger jet, and the experienced helicopter pilot acknowledged.However, experts believe the helicopter pilot maneuvered to avoid the wrong plane — a jet of the same model that was taking off farther away — and never saw the American Airlines flight until it was too late.The Black Hawk helicopter, which had a crew of three and had taken off from nearby Langley, Virginia, was apparently flying too high — at about 400 feet — when it collided with American Airlines jet, which was rapidly descending after it was cleared for landing, experts said.However, because of the close quarters around Reagan National, there is just 50 feet separating the maximum allowable altitude for heli...