Golly Gee, We Still Don't Know Much More About What Caused The Accident!

Yesterday I posted about indications that very powerful influences were able to insert themselves into the Army's press releases about the Reagan National collision January 29, especially that the family was able to override Army policy and delay release of the pilot's name an additional two days, as well as to include a family-written eulogy of the pilot in the Army's own press release, despite the strong likelihood that that pilot played a major role in the collision. It's hard to avoid thinking similar influences have been delaying the release of other key information about the crash.

As of Janary 31, over a week ago,

The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the flight “black box” from the downed Black Hawk helicopter, that appears to be undamaged, board member Todd Inman said.

Yesterday, the NTSB has recovered a flight data recorder “in good condition” from the accident, he said, though it will not be releasing information from that device immediately. The cockpit voice recorder that was recovered, in contrast, had “water intrusion,” a problem that investigators are now dealing with, but they have “a very high level of confidence” that they will get information from that device, Inman said.

Regarding the helicopter voice recorder itself, another version of what the NTSB said was,

The Sikorsky has a combined black box, which was retrieved and is at NTSB headquarters; they will begin its evaluation to determine when/how to take action; they saw no exterior damage, indicating it was compromised; they have a high level of confidence in full extraction.

So, how long does it take to extract the voice recorder data if there's been water incursion? Should we maybe have had some info by now? The answers are vague:

It most likely take a day, or a couple days depending on the environment it was found in. For example I’ve heard that if the crash is at sea they will bring the box in, using the same surrounding water it was submerged in. But these days the actual downloading of the audio is no more than downloading of digital audio files. What takes a long time is releasing it to the public. It first will need to be analyzed by “experts” and the cause of the crash determined and possibly attempted to be rectified. Making sure the last of kin are all ok with releasing the recordings. Respect for the dead. Logistical things surrounding the black box recording. That’s what takes a long time.

On February 3, a week ago, the NTSB gave what appers to have been the last detailed public press conference on the crash. It gave an extensive timeline of the regional jet's cockpit voice recorder, as well as a report that the altitude of the jet, based on the jet's flight data recorder and ADS-B data, was 325 feet, which gave a strong impression that the helicopter was well above its 200 foot authorized altitude. However, the NTSB spokesman claimed

the NTSB cannot yet give any information on the altitude of the helicopter (call sign Priority Air Transport 25 or PAT25). But he called the helicopter recorders “the third prong” of information that needs to be confirmed to understand the conflicting altitude information being seen in preliminary data. Whenever those data points are finalized, NTSB will feel “very comfortable” in saying exactly what altitude this collision occurred at.

Meanwhile, the last semi-public statements from the NTSB, as far as I can determine, were on Thursday, February 6, when it briefed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the accident. It apparently provided no update on the helicopter voice recorder in that briefing, but the main subject was the question of whether the helicopter’s ADS-B advanced surveillance technology was installed or activated, which would have solved the pesky problem of its altitude, as we saw just above. As of this past Saturday, it's all still just a big puzzle:

Investigators have revealed that the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 over the Potomac River was flying with its automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system turned off. The turned-off ADS-B is possibly another contributing factor to a crash that was the deadliest in U.S. aviation since 2001.

. . . What it all means, with respect to the Potomac collision, is that had the Black Hawk’s ADS-B been turned on, American Airlines Flight 5342 would have been more likely to have been aware of the Black Hawk’s location, reducing the likelihood of a collision.

Of course, the investigation is still ongoing, and it is unlikely to conclude that the turned-off ADS-B was solely responsible for the collision. But the disclosure raises questions and further suggests that the tragedy could have been avoided.

There are other questions about errors that were made just before the collision.

Michael Pearson, who was a FAA air traffic control specialist for over 26 years, is a lawyer in the lawsuit against the FAA regarding alleged racial discrimination in the agency’s hiring practices. Pearson told Just the News on Tuesday that ATC didn’t follow proper procedure, which led to the crash. He said there was a conflict alert on the radar, giving the ATC “27 seconds to do something.”

“When a [conflict alert] goes off, you take immediate action,” he said.

While the media largely appears to holding the crew of the Army helicopter to blame for the crash, Pearson believes that the ATC is primarily at fault. Pearson says that the controller "didn't tell the jet that the helicopter was in sight,” despite being “required to, and didn’t give safety advisories” when the conflict alert went off. Also, the “helicopter route was horrible,” and “the controller didn't apply the rules properly.”

So the NTSB needs data from the helicopter's flight data recorder to say for sure what its altitude was at the time of the collision. Although it's released a detailed timeline of the jet's flight data and voice recorder, it just can''t seem to get the same data from the helicopter, even though it's had the black boxes for well over a week. And if it had the helo's ADS-B data, well, that would have helped, too, but for some reason, the helo's ADS-B just wasn't turned on, so I guess maybe we'll never quite know. Nor will we even know why the helo's ADS-B was turned off, when the jet had it on. One of history's great mysteries, huh? And what a tragedy for the pilot!

"Not only did she deserve what she achieved, but she was overqualified most of the time for what she was able to accomplish," said Capt. Bilal Kordab, who recruited Lobach to the North Carolina National Guard. "Nothing was just handed to her."

. . . [Close friend Lt Smantha] Brown said she was confident, despite the political rhetoric swirling around her friend's death, that Lobach would be remembered for one thing – that she heartily deserved her success.

"Rebecca earned her place in that aircraft," she said. "She was outstanding, and she deserved to be there."

Here's another incongruity: the Lobach family somehow prevailed on the Army to violate its policy and withhold her name for an additional two days so they could scrub her social media, and indeed, they requested privacy. But somehow, the family publicist has been releasing photo after photo of a gleeful Rebecca, as well as interviews with all her friends, to legacy media, which it eagerly prints, and indeed, the family publicist has used Rebecca's death to remind everyone in York, PA of what a great humanitarian her Uncle Jeff is. He's even gonna have a gala at the country club next month!

Except Rebecca's last flight was a check ride, which she unquestionably failed. As I asked yesterday, why does everyone she knew keep insisting she earned everything she got? It's almost as if there are nagging doubts.

Something's hinky.