The president of the USA, Donald Trump, attributed the clash between an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk helicopter last week to an “obsolete” air traffic system.
President Donald Trump blamed the “obsolete” computer system used by United States air traffic controlle for the deadly collision last week between a passenger plane and an army helicopter, and promised to replace it.
Trump said during an event that “many mistakes” occurred on January 29 when an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, collided with an army helicopter while the plane was about to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, and died at 67 people aboard the two aircraft.
Immediately after the tragedy, Trump blamed the diversity hiring programs for the accident. But on Thursday, he responsible for the computer system used by air traffic controls in the country.
“It's amazing that Trump said during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast at the United States Capitol. “And I think that will be used for good. I think what is going to happen is that we are all going to sit and make a large computerized system for our control towers. Totally new, not rebuilt, obsolete. ”
Trump said the United States spent billions of dollars trying to “renew an old and broken system” instead of investing in a new one. He mentioned that in his own private Jet, he uses a system from another country when he lands because his pilot says that the existing system is obsolete.
Federal officials have been expressing their concern for overload and lack of personnel of the air traffic control, especially after a series of clashes between airplanes in US airports.
Among the reasons that have adduced to explain the shortage of personnel are the little competitive wages, the long shifts, the intensive training and the mandatory retirements.
Trump said that if the nation had a newer system, the alarms would have sounded when the Black Hawk helicopter, which was in a training exercise, reached the same altitude as the plane.
However, a report by the Armed Forces after the accident indicated that the controller received an alert that the plane and the helicopter were converging when they were still about 1.6 kilometers away. The controller responded by asking the helicopter if he had the plane in sight and directed the helicopter to pass behind the plane. The helicopter replied that he did have the plane in sight.
Airport airport traffic control system data suggests that the helicopter was above its 61 meter flight roof. The screen that the controller was looking that night showed that, according to the radar and other data, the helicopter was 91 meters, said the NTSB, and pointed out that the figure would have been rounded at the 30 meters closest.
To obtain more precise information, researchers need to be able to examine the remains of Black Hawk still submerged to verify the data. The helicopter is not expected to be recovered until the end of this week.
This accident was the deadliest in the United States since November 12, 2001, when a Jet crashed in a neighborhood in New York City just after takeoff, with a balance of 260 people dead on board and five on land.