U.S. government admits role in causing helicopter-plane collision that killed 67 in Washington

A piece of wreckage is lifted from the water onto a salvage vessel, near the site in the Potomac River of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the actions of an air traffic controller and army helicopter pilot played a role in causing a collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.

It was the deadliest plane crash on American soil in more than two decades.

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 visual separation procedures 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.

And the government denied that any air traffic controllers or officials at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration or army were negligent.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter collided with 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.

Attorney says loss of life was needless

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.”

An American spokesman declined to comment on the filing, but in the airline’s motion to dismiss, American 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.

The lawsuit had accused the airlines of not doing enough to mitigate the risks of flying so close to helicopters around Washington, D.C., and not adequately training their pilots to handle it.

Investigators highlight contributing factors

The U.S. 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 metres) than the 200-foot (61-metre) 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.

The government admitted in its filing that the United States “was on notice of certain near-miss events between its army-operated Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft traffic transiting in and around helicopter routes 1 and 4” around Washington.

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 metres) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder.

Swift admission

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.

Retired pilot Richard J. Levy, an aviation litigation expert witness, said the government’s admission of some responsibility less than a year after the crash is unusual, especially considering the amount of money that could be involved in the case.

“They would not have done that if there was a doubt in their mind about anything the controller did or that the Army did,” said Levy.

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By Josh Funk

Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report.