By Luke Wagner (’27)

This story builds on the article I wrote last year about the Alaska Airlines door blowout: Preventing Aviation Disasters: The Importance of Human Thinking.

On January 29, 2025, in Washington, DC there was a tragic crash between a commercial airliner and a Blackhawk helicopter. 67 people were killed. Two days later in Philadelphia, an air ambulance crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all six passengers.  

The Washington D.C. crash was the worst commercial aviation disaster in North America since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The evidence will be examined closely by investigators in the weeks and months ahead, as they try to determine how this horrible accident happened.

Below is a screenshot I took during the accident on the Flightradar website. It depicts the area around the airport, which is one of the most crowded airspaces in North America. The yellow circles represent the most tracked flight in the aftermath of the crash, which is a helicopter repeatedly circling the crash site on the Potomac River, attempting to locate survivors. 

There had been previous near misses at the airport. According to Wikipedia, there were 3 close calls at this airport between 2023 and January 2025. In March 2023, a small Embraer crossed the path of a United Airlines flight cleared for takeoff. In April 2024, a Southwest flight crossed the runway ahead of a JetBlue flight that had started its takeoff. Just one month later in May 2024, an American Airlines flight had to stop takeoff as a private jet landed on their runway.

Three near-misses in three years seem like a pattern. What could be the reason? Although the formal investigation will take months, there are clues that things are not well run. According to the FAA, on the day of the recent fatal crash, the air traffic controllers (ATCs) were short-staffed, with the ATC on the job during the accident doing his own work while completing the duties of a colleague who had been allowed to go home early. Even if it turns out that this understaffing did not cause the crash, understaffing for a job that saves lives every day cannot be tolerated.. Overworking ATCs could cause them to be more tired and less sharp, allowing for more mistakes. 

Another possible factor that contributed to the crash was that the accident happened at night. According to media reports, thirty seconds before the crash, the ATC asked the helicopter if they had the airliner in sight. The helicopter pilot answered yes. Then, 25 seconds before the crash, the ATC told the helicopter to pass behind the airliner. The helicopter did not reply. Soon after, the terrible crash happened.  

Why did the helicopter fly straight into the passenger jet? The media has said that the airport is a busy one, with numerous planes taking off and approaching at any given time, so perhaps the helicopter pilot mistook one plane for another. Another possible factor was that the crew in the military helicopter were wearing night vision goggles, which can become “washed out” by too many lights, possibly rendering them unable to see as well, possibly causing the crew to not see the airplane. 

Airplane crashes are extremely rare, due to a lot of redundancy and failsafes, so when something like this happens, answers are needed. 

Author Malcolm Gladwell uses the “Swiss cheese analogy” to explain how accidents still occur despite numerous safety systems. He says each system has holes in it – like slices of Swiss cheese – and accidents happen when the holes in each system line up at the same time.

There will be, without a doubt, big talks and possibly regulatory changes in light of this accident. I hope that the true cause will be uncovered soon so changes can be made to make sure something like this never happens again. 

If this article has made you more interested in aviation, keep reading to learn about the Flightradar website – what it is, how to use it, and real life applications such as following worldwide aviation events in real-time. 

Flightradar 

Flightradar is a useful tool for finding and viewing airplanes and airports. To start, you tap on a plane icon on the map, which presents you with important information about a specific flightAs an example, let’s take this flight from Auckland to Vancouver. 

Looking at this photo, we first see the route (AKL-YVR). Below that is the timezone for each airport, followed by the scheduled time of takeoff and landing, and then the actual time. In this example, the flight took off about an hour late and arrived about a half hour late. The orange dot next to the 12:56 shows that this flight arrived behind schedule. A longer delay would have been denoted by a red dot, whereas a green dot would denote a flight arriving ahead of schedule – as seen in the photo below.

As you scroll down, more information about the airplane pops up. As this plane has landed, the altitude is shown as 0ft. Also shown is the speed (in knots), which is low in this case as the airplane is taxiing. The popup may also show the specific model and registration, country of registration, wind speed, and temperature. 

Note also the gradient line on the map above that goes from purple to light green. The colour of that line shows the altitude of the plane at a given point. Purple is around 30,000 feet. The line changes to blue and then green, to show the plane descending. When the plane lands, the line goes from yellow to white. 

This brings us to the real-world applications of this program. During the California wildfires, every helicopter and airplane could be viewed on the map. By clicking on one, you could see their flight path. On the left below is the route flown by one of the helicopters. You can see that it has done circles around the hills and a certain lake. The colour of the flightpath shows that the helicopter lost altitude as it approached the lake on each circle. You can tell that this specific helicopter was picking up water to spray on the fire because of the orange protrusion on the belly. This is just one example of how useful Flightradar can be. 

The picture below on the right is the water bomber that was recently in the news after being hit by a drone. This airplane is from Canada, and it was deployed to help with the wildfires as it is one of the only water bombers that can carry salt water. The flight path coincides with where the fire was at that point in time, and we can see that on each loop the airplane flew out to the ocean to scoop water, then back to the edge of the fire to drop water. 

When you know how/where to look, flightradar can be an invaluable tool for finding out current news, sometimes even before the news networks start reporting on it. Below are some more pictures of firefighting aircraft combating the California wildfire.

Check out Flightradar24 here: https://www.flightradar24.com/39.04,-76.65/8