By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A preliminary report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board recommends a partial ban on military helicopters into Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. in wake of the deadly crash with a commercial airline jet in January.
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves, the chair of the House Transportation Committee, says a total ban of military helicopters into the Washington airport is out of the question.
“We can’t shut down those corridors. We need those corridors for the military to use,” Graves tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “Actually, what they’re training for is evacuation of government buildings in case there is a problem or something like that.”
The recommendation is from a NTSB preliminary report into the deadly crash of an Army Black Hawk helicopter with an American Airlines jet in January. The NTSB recommends helicopter traffic be restricted when two specific runways are being used at the D.C. airport.
Graves, a Republican, says military helicopters need to be able to fly in an out of Reagan National.
“But obviously they need to stay within their lanes and they also need to stay at the assigned altitude,” Graves says. “This was a colossal culmination of many mistakes that just happened and culminated at exactly the wrong time and it resulted in an extraordinary tragedy for a lot of families.”
The NTSB says the helicopter pilots were undergoing an annual test and might have been wearing night-vision goggles when the crash occurred.
Graves says an outright ban on military helicopter traffic in Washington, D.C. wouldn’t be possible, because the military trains for times when it might have to respond to emergencies at the nation’s capital.
“I’m not in favor of shutting down those corridors, but they have to stay at their assigned altitude and that was obviously one of the problems in this case,” according to Graves.
The crash January 29th killed everyone onboard the helicopter and the plane. The crash left 67 dead, including 28 members of the figure skating community who had left a competition in Wichita.
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