Helicopter in DC plane crash was flying twice as high as it should have, lacked new tech as FAA nixes all chopper traffic near collision site

The military helicopter that collided with an American Airlines flight over Washington, DC, was flying nearly twice as high as it should have been — but the Black Hawk was not equipped with a new technology that would have alerted air traffic control to its dangerously deviated path, The Post can reveal.It comes as questions plague the Pentagon over why the Army would allow its pilots to train in an area home to the most densely trafficked air path convergences in the country — and as the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited most helicopter traffic in the area as the deadly midair collision continues to be investigated.The Black Hawk chopper was flying more than 300 feet above the Potomac River Wednesday night when it smashed into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport-bound Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kan., as the plane was landing, killing 67 people aboard both aircraft.

Aviation guidelines require helicopters on that route to stay below 200 feet.President Trump on Friday blasted critics for casting blame on his administration’s recent firing of aviation officials since taking office, pointing out that the issue clearly rested with the Army helicopter’s fatal deviation from the required altitude.“The Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot.It was far above the 200-foot limit,” an exasperated Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”The collision may have been avoided if the Army had outfitted the Black Hawk with an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast device, a relatively new technology that allows air traffic control operators to see an aircraft’s altitude, Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Friday’s episode of his podcast, “The Verdict.”“The Black Hawk helicopter had a transponder, so it was appearing on radar.

It did not have technology called ADS-B, which is technology that pings the location of an aircraft, and it does so using GPS rather than radar,” the Texa...