By now, we’ve all heard about the tragic mid-air collision over the Potomac River between an American Eagle Canadair Regional Jet 700 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The challenge right now is determining how it happened and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Let me save you some time—at this point, we don’t know exactly how it happened, nor do we know what will be done about it in the future.
The media and the public are obsessed with finding answers, and understandably so. We want them sooner rather than later because we fear this happening again—honestly, we fear it happening to us.
There are plenty of people already explaining what went wrong, who is at fault, and what should be done to fix it. The problem is that many of us tend to prescribe a cure before diagnosing the disease. It will take time to figure out what went wrong—and possibly even longer to determine what should be done about it.
There’s a reason the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) doesn’t speculate on why an event occurred until the investigation is complete: they don’t know. It’s dangerous to make assumptions without all the facts. In aviation, changes to processes, procedures, and regulations based on false assumptions can make the system even more dangerous than before.
Unfortunately, many of us want an overly simplistic explanation and tend to assign blame based on little to no accurate information. I’ve watched media pundits and members of the general public, speculate, assign blame, and come to conclusions about exactly what happened and who’s at fault. It’s a fool’s exercise. We don’t have all the information needed to make those determinations.
Let me ask you this—if you think you know what happened, can you confidently answer yes to the following questions?
- Have you personally visited the accident site and examined the wreckage?
- Have you listened to the cockpit voice recorders or analyzed the flight data recorders?
- Have you reviewed all air traffic control interactions and communications, including civilian, military, approach control, and tower frequencies?
- Have you assessed the flight crews’ training, reviewed their logbooks, and examined their medical history, fatigue levels, and workload leading up to the accident?
- Have you examined the maintenance logs and assessed the status of the aircraft systems—including the powerplant and avionics? (And if you don’t know what avionics are, you’re already out of the information loop regarding aircraft operations.)
- Have you analyzed the environmental conditions and weather at the time of the incident?
- Have you evaluated crew coordination, decision-making, and reviewed standard operating procedures, as well as the crew’s reactions leading up to the event?
- Have you considered potential aircraft design flaws or manufacturer warnings?
These are the core questions the NTSB will be investigating. I don’t know if I’ve been successful, but in my media interviews, I’ve done my best not to speculate on why the incident occurred, how it happened, or—most importantly—what should be done to prevent it from happening again.
I encourage you to do the same. Don’t diagnose before you prescribe.
(AI used for grammar, spellcheck and some background research).
By Jeffrey C. Price
January 30, 2025
