The helicopter route has since been closed, but NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said she doesn’t believe “anyone did the math until the NTSB did the math” to determine how close planes and helicopters were getting until after the crash.
There are technical aspects, like how the Black Hawks report incorrect altitudes while flying fast over the river, but this strikes me as the largest cause: nobody valued the controllers pleas sufficiently to do proper management of heli routes around the airspace.
And by nobody, that’s probably the FAA who had the responsibility of doing it.
Yep, this sounds like the main issue.
There are technical aspects, like how the Black Hawks report incorrect altitudes while flying fast over the river, but this strikes me as the largest cause: nobody valued the controllers pleas sufficiently to do proper management of heli routes around the airspace.
And by nobody, that’s probably the FAA who had the responsibility of doing it.
What could possibly go wrong, after all? They surely were making a big todo over nothing.