Airline Pilots in the DC Plane Crash Acted as Expected, Experts Say

Just after 8:43 p.m. on Jan. 29, an air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, posed a question to the pilots of American Airlines Flight 5342: Could they land at a different runway?

There was nothing unusual about the request or the pilots’ assent to it. But the decision to switch runways was fateful, bringing the plane closer to the Army Black Hawk helicopter that it would collide with in a crash that killed 67 people.

Exactly what happened is still being pieced together. The National Transportation Safety Board is recovering and examining wreckage from the icy Potomac River. The safety agency is expected to publish a preliminary report in the coming weeks, but a more thorough accounting probably won’t arrive for a year or two.

But, based on the details that have emerged so far, the pilots in the American regional jet appear to have acted as expected, according to aviation safety experts and half a dozen airline pilots who have flown to and from Reagan airport. There appeared to be little that they could have done differently, these experts told The New York Times.

“There wasn’t anything to do. It was a normal day at Reagan,” said Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline pilot and an assistant professor at the Center for Aviation Studies at Ohio State University, who said that he has piloted aircraft into Reagan National more than a hundred times.

Investigators are likely to focus on understanding why the helicopter entered the plane’s flight path and whether the air traffic controller handling both aircraft that night could have or should have done more to keep them apart.

The airport is among the country’s most congested and demanding for airline pilots. To fly there, pilots need extra training typically reserved for airports near mountainous terrain. That’s because departing or arriving planes must assiduously avoid the skies above the White House, Capitol, National Mall and vice president’s residence, which are heavily guarded, particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Dulles International Airport, a large airport with hundreds of domestic and international flights a day, is about 25 miles away, filling the region’s skies with even more planes.

Of course, there are no mountains in Washington. But the limits on where planes can be effectively makes flying to and from there as challenging as flying in, say, Alaska, said one senior airline pilot, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Sam Lilley, one of the pilots of the American flight that night, understood the demands of operating in the area, according to his father, Tim Lilley, who is also an airplane pilot and earlier in his career flew Black Hawk helicopters for the Army. Mr. Lilley said that he and his son had discussed the challenges of the Washington airspace. Sam Lilley was proud that he flew there regularly.

“You feel accomplished when you’ve conquered that challenge and that’s the way we both looked at it,” Mr. Lilley said.

Sam Lilley, who was 28, was a first officer at PSA Airlines, an American Airlines subsidiary, which he joined more than two years ago, his father said. He had hoped to amass enough hours in smaller jets to graduate to flying much larger planes to international destinations. Mr. Lilley, who was engaged to be married this fall, had already used his corporate perks to visit Japan, Ireland and Iceland, and wanted to continue traveling the world, his father said.

On the night of the crash, Mr. Lilley and his co-pilot, Capt. Jonathan Campos, had departed Wichita, Kan., on a small regional jet carrying 60 passengers and two other crew members. Around 8:15 p.m., they began descending toward Reagan airport from 37,000 feet, the N.T.S.B. said over the weekend, citing black box data. That data also includes audio from the cockpit, and the N.T.S.B. said the times it provided were preliminary.

About 25 minutes later, the pilots were cleared for a standard approach to the airport’s Runway 1. A few minutes after that, they were asked — and agreed — to switch to Runway 33.

That runway is short, making it less suitable for larger jets, which require longer stopping distances. But it is considered long enough for regional jets like the CRJ700, made by the Canadian company Bombardier, that the pilots were flying. Pilots and safety experts said that diverting smaller planes to Runway 33 can allow air traffic controllers to better space out aircraft at busy times. Pilots can decline such a request, but after a brief discussion, Mr. Lilley and Mr. Campos agreed to the change.

Around 8:46 p.m., a radio transmission could be heard in which air traffic control informed the helicopter of the presence of an airplane just south of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge at about 1,200 feet, circling to Runway 33, according to the N.T.S.B.

Almost two minutes later, after the plane dropped below 500 feet elevation, the controller can be heard asking the helicopter pilots if they had the plane in sight. The airplane pilots could hear those communications from air traffic control, but not the responses from the helicopter because the two aircraft were transmitting on different frequencies. The controller was communicating on both.

At that point, the airplane would have been moments from landing, and the pilots would have been sharply focused on reaching the ground safely, experts and other pilots said. One of the pilots would have been flying and guiding the aircraft toward the runway, while the other would have played a supporting role, including monitoring plane systems. The landing gear would have been deployed.

“Normally, one pilot is looking straight ahead outside and the other pilot is focusing inside,” said Robert E. Joslin, a professor at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University and a top former adviser and test pilot for the Federal Aviation Administration. “They need to focus on landing.”

Neither pilot would have been expected to be scanning the area for other aircraft. Even if they had, the helicopter could easily have blended into the city lights behind it or it may have been out of view altogether, experts said.

But right after the airplane descended below 500 feet, the pilots received an automated message: “Traffic, traffic.” That alert is not uncommon, but it would have caught their attention, the experts said. The message is intended as a warning that there is another aircraft nearby. Such alerts so close to an airport would be disconcerting, but would not require immediate action beyond trying to identify the source.

The warning was produced by the Traffic Collision Avoidance System, known as TCAS, which is widely credited for substantially reducing midair collisions over the last four decades or so, experts said.

At low altitudes, one of the system’s most important features would have been suppressed — a feature that instructs pilots on how to separate two aircraft that are dangerously close by telling one to climb and the other to descend. That’s because at lower altitudes, an incorrect warning instructing pilots to make quick changes can be risky. Even if that feature had been on, it would have worked only if the helicopter were also equipped with TCAS, which it most likely would not have been.

And while the traffic alert might have concerned Mr. Lilley and Mr. Campos, they might also have quickly been put somewhat at ease. Seconds later, another transmission came through: Air traffic control was instructing the helicopter to pass behind the “CRJ,” according to the N.T.S.B., using a nickname for the type of plane the pilots were flying.

It is not clear, and may never be clear, what the airline pilots were thinking at that moment. But experts said it might have provided the pilots, who were focused on landing the plane, some reassurance that air traffic control appeared to be helping to resolve the cause of the traffic alert.

About 16 seconds later, just before 8:48 p.m., the airline pilots can be heard verbally reacting to something, according to the N.T.S.B. In that moment, the plane’s nose began to pull up. Then, crashing sounds could be heard, and the recording ended.