DC plane crash had one deadly cause: official Washingtons willful blindness

Though the National Transportation Safety Board has just begun investigating the mid-air collision over DC last Wednesday that killed 67 people, we already know the cause: wishful thinking.Elected officials demand the impossible when it suits them.In this case, the problem wasn’t too little faith in supposedly sclerotic, inept government agencies, but too much.The Washington elite put blind faith in the idea that things would all work out, somehow, even though they were putting themselves in mortal danger.Unlike the United States’ last major plane crash, which killed 50 in upstate New York 16 years ago, this one can’t be blamed on the airline.American Airlines Flight 5342 took off from Wichita, Kan., at 5:22 p.m.

and, by 8:48 p.m., had seven minutes left to its estimated arrival time when it began to descend on a clear path to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.Then, a helicopter — a US Army Black Hawk, with three service members aboard — crashed into it.The NTSB’s job is to figure out how and why this disaster happened, and that’s the reason why American aviation is so safe: Historically, we learn everything possible from a crash and adapt, so that it doesn’t happen again.Obvious questions: First, did the Army mismanage its training mission? The military crew was flying out of its approved range, twice as high as allowed.It was outfitted with night-vision goggles — which restrict sight.As The Wall Street Journal has reported, airline pilots flying into Reagan have warned about the relentless proximity of choppers.“I cannot imagine what business is so pressing that these helicopters are allowed to cross the path of airliners carrying hundreds of people,” one pilot wondered in 2013.“Why does the tower allow such nonsense by the military in such a critical area?” another asked.Yes, pilots need to train, but civilian airline passengers and crew should not be unwittingly dragooned into that training.Military risk is differen...