Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who famously landed a commercial airline on the Hudson River over a decade ago, has weighed in on the disastrous DC plane crash.
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines regional jet was on the final approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., when it collided midair with a military Black Hawk helicopter shortly before 9 p.m. ET, before plunging into the Potomac River claiming the lives of 67 people.
“We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents and not accidents,” Captain Sullenberger told The New York Times in an interview.
While the crash came at an “exceptionally safe” moment in aviation history, it showed “how vigilant we have to be”, he told the newspaper.
Captain Sully, 74, was deemed a hero when he successfully landed a doomed Airbus A320 flight into New York’s Hudson River on 15 January 2009, after the plane struck a flock of Canada geese at an altitude of 2,818 feet, causing both engines to ignite into flames and shut down – all 155 people on board the plane survived.
“Nighttime always makes things different about seeing other aircraft – basically all you can do is see the lights on them,” he continued. “You have to try to figure out: Are they above you or below you? Or how far away? Or which direction are they headed? Everything is harder at night.”
Emergency crews waded through the frigid waters of the Potomac River overnight after officials announced Thursday they were shifting from a rescue to a recovery mission – 40 bodies have been recovered so far.
Preliminary data from the American Eagle flight shows that the plane had been on course with its usual route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington D.C.
The helicopter crew whose BlackHawk struck the passenger jet were “fairly experienced,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Thursday and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the incident had been “preventable”, as it had been a perfectly clear night.
Sully said the aviation industry was largely unchanged since he made the monumental landing in 2009, stating: “Of course, we’ve added technology to it. But a lot of the technology is old.”
The captain insisted however that a descent over water and at night are two factors that most certainly would have made avoiding the helicopter more difficult as there are “fewer ground lights visible over the water than over land at night”, he added.
In Thursday’s press conference, and when questioned by a reporter on whether the plane was aware of the helicopter in the air, Secretary Duffy took a long pause and said: “I would say, the helicopter was aware there was a plane in the area.”
As an investigation continues, and families are being informed of their loved ones who perished in the crash, officials are frantically scrambling to examine the two “black boxes” recovered from the two wreckages.