When the news hits close to home.
A crane removes airplane wreckage from the Potomac River (Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
Thanks to the nature of my day job, I’ve covered quite a few commercial aviation accidents during the past decade. It’s easy to get caught up in the fast-paced news cycle and in some ways unintentionally neglect the human element of these tragedies.
The effort of producing content on these disasters, along with post-accident investigations, can stave off thoughts – at least temporarily – about how people are impacted, both in terms of the victims and their loved ones.
But that was far from the case last Wednesday when PSA flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River.
I grew up on the Maryland side of the Washington, D.C., area and started my aviation career at Reagan National. The so-called “little airport by the river,” as one former airport manager called it, was almost my second home.
Over the years, I’ve taken hundreds of flights to and from DCA, including several landings on Runway 33. During high school, I spent my weekends volunteering at the airport’s information desks, racking up somewhere near 1,000 hours.
Your author posing with a Boeing 787-9 that landed at DCA in 2015 for a demo. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Ryan Ewing)
During that time, I met some of my closest friends and mentors, and even participated in the airport’s emergency exercises.
To this day, that always-abrupt landing on any of DCA’s runways and the unique design of the terminals feel like home to me, even if I don’t live in D.C. anymore. Never could I have imagined a major tragedy occurring there, at least in this day and age.
Until it did.
I first found out about the accident soon after it occurred, thanks to some early reports in a local Facebook group. My mind didn’t go to the worst possible scenario initially, not until the night went on and more details were released.
Maybe I didn’t want to believe it. But after very little sleep, Thursday’s early morning press conference solidified my worst fear: Crews were switching from a rescue to a recovery operation with all 67 presumed casualties.
It took me quite awhile to put all my thoughts on paper, while also trying to inform our readers of the latest developments in the accident investigation. So many friends have reached out and shared their connections to either those on board or the crash itself, some of which hit eerily close to home.
With all that said, I wanted to share some reflections post-accident that should be top of mind to anyone following this investigation even remotely closely:
Again, with any accident like this, it is easy to be immersed in the news cycle and subsequently theorize about what happened. Let’s not forget that lives have forever been changed.
For me, the personal proximity of the D.C. accident changed my thought process. I’ve lost sleep, not from working through the night, but from wondering how the family and friends of victims must feel.
Of course, this also isn’t easy for the scores of first responders and airport employees on the scene. To them, including many close friends who were on-site that night, thank you.
First responders along with airline and airport employees train for these types of accidents regularly. I can only imagine what it feels like to have one happen right in your backyard.
The post-accident investigation will take a long time to complete, and that is a very good thing – though the wait won’t be easy for those affected. Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board are extremely meticulous and will continue to work day and night to extract every possible detail.
In today’s world of fast-paced social media reporting and the desire for instant gratification, it is important to remember that 67 lives were lost here. The NTSB isn’t going to half-heartedly release information without a thorough vetting process.
Speculation and the early assignment of blame here – and this extends from the top down – do nothing except erode the hard work of investigators. Let’s be patient while keeping an open mind to the NTSB’s findings.
Like it or not, politics will undoubtedly play a role in this investigation and after the fact, no matter what the NTSB finds. After all, Reagan National is Congress’ main gateway from Washington to members’ districts.
This has led to a gradual increase in traffic at the airport over the years, despite calls from its operator and the Federal Aviation Administration to not add flights. In fact, more service is set to be added to the airport in the coming weeks after Congress approved five more daily round-trip flights in 2024.
So strap in: Politicians often have a rather cumbersome way of responding to commercial aviation accidents. We saw this after the Colgan Air crash in 2009.
I like to consider myself an aviation guy first, which lets me be an even better content creator second. Years working at different air carriers and airports have made me better at telling the industry’s stories, even if they aren’t always rosy.
A safety streak was broken last week: the first deadly accident involving a U.S. airline since 2009 and the deadliest in nearly a quarter of a century. Accidents like these typically fade out of the news cycle after a week or so, but the feelings will remain strong for members of the tight-knit aviation communities and, of course, the victims’ loved ones.
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