What went wrong in deadly American Airlines Flight 5342 disaster

Human error will be to blame for the deadly aviation disaster in Washington, DC, an Australian aviation expert says.

Human error will be to blame for the deadly aviation disaster involving a passenger jet and a military helicopter close to the centre of Washington, DC, an Australian aviation expert says. And there could be multiple people found at fault.

Neil Hansford, who is an aviation consultant and has operated airlines in Australia, Europe and Asia, said there were many things that could have been done to prevent the two aircraft colliding mid-air at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport at about 9pm on Wednesday (1pm Thursday AEDT).

“It’s going to be nothing mechanical. It’s going to be all procedural. It’s all human factor,” Mr Hansford told news.com.au.

He added: “It’s all recorded … you can’t hide this one, it’s not going to go away.”

Mr Hansford said the aircraft – American Airlines Flight 5342 – appeared to do “absolutely nothing wrong” and all eyes are on the air traffic controller, and the Black Hawk helicopter and military.

Flight 5342, which was being operated by PSA Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Airlines Group, was coming in to land at the airport when tragedy struck. There were 64 people on board.

The US Army helicopter had three on board and was on a training flight. The instructor pilot and co-pilot had at least 1500 flight hours between them, which is considered experienced as missions typically only last two hours, according to CNN.

There were no survivors.

The plane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport. Picture: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/AFP

Mr Hansford said a “golden rule” in aviation was broken.

“You don’t cross a flight path/approach path to an airport,” he said. “Aircraft never get to be at 90 degrees to each other.”

He argued that the safest option would have been for the helicopter to have not been there, and said there was need to probe who approved its flight path.

“I sit here actually staggered. I’ve never seen even at 30,000 feet aircraft crossing except when there’s several thousand feet (of altitude between them),” he said.

He added: “The last thing that pilot on that PSA Airlines aircraft would have thought was that he was going to have traffic coming at him from perpendicular.”

Mr Hansford said it was not odd that the air traffic controller had asked the passenger jet to change runways before the landing, which the pilots agreed was safe.

However, he suggested the air traffic controller could have told the helicopter to wait and hover instead of instructing it to pass behind, as heard in audio moments before the crash.

The aircraft could have also been instructed to do a go-around or missed approach (when an aircraft aborts a landing and goes around for another attempt) instead of completing the landing, he said.

The New York Times and CNN have reported one air traffic controller was working two different tower positions at the time, with staffing “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic”.

US President Donald Trump said while the cause of the crash is unknown, he believes the passenger jet was “doing everything right” and appeared to take aim at air traffic control and the helicopter too.

“It was cold (night) but clear, clear as you could be. The American Airlines plane had lights blazing. The helicopter had vision of the plane, perfect vision,” Mr Trump said.

“Helicopters have the ability to stop, go up or down and turn (but) the turn it made was not the correct turn and it did the opposite of what it was told.

“For some reason there weren’t adjustments made. They shouldn’t have been at the same height.”

US President Donald Trump speaks about the mid-air crash at the White House. Picture: Roberto Schmidt / AFP

Newly installed US defence secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned the main focus of the investigation which was why the helicopter was at the same height as the American Airlines jet.

“There was some … sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the (Department of Defence) and Army level,” Mr Hegseth said.

The National Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the crash.

It is mandatory for commercial aircraft to have a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) to be used as a last defence against mid-air collisions, but experts believe the system on Flight 5342 may have been inhibited because of the low altitude.

The UH-60 Black Hawk may not have been equipped with TCAS.

While the helicopter was said not to be carrying any VIPs or senior officials, there has been speculation about the call sign used for the helicopter as heard in the traffic controller audio: PAT 25.

The PAT radio call sign stands for “Priority Air Transport”, according to aviation media outlets.