It seems you cannot crash a plane anywhere near New York City without there being a video about it.  This past weekend’s mid air collision between a helicopter and a fixed-wing airplane was no exception.  A video has emerged about the fatal accident that killed nine people.  For details of the crash, please refer to the original post HERE.

In the video, we can’t really tell the helicopter was climbing at the time, but we do see the airplane come into the frame from behind and to the right of the helicopter and it appears the pilot was initiating an evasive right bank that was too late.  The video was taken by an Italian tourist on a tour boat and was originally aired on NBC.

In other news related to the crash, an air traffic controller and his supervisor at Teterboro Airport’s (TEB) air traffic control (ATC) were placed on administrative leave after it was learned that the air traffic controller was making a personal phone call during his on-duty hours and his supervisor was outside of the ATC facility for unknown reasons.  According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), both persons were supposed to be on station and alert.  The FAA does point out, though, that this appears to have no bearing on the accident for now as the controller had already handed off the aircraft (the Piper airplane) to another controller before the accident.

It appears that the Piper approached the helicopter from a blind spot (for the helicopter’s pilot).  Consequently, the helicopter could have been initially hidden from the Piper’s view.  I think the Piper had the best chance of spotting the helicopter here, but the pilot may have been distracted by the sights around the Hudson, aircraft duties, or even other planes that needed an eye kept on.  Sometimes aircraft sneak up on you really fast.

When I was doing my flight training in Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University here in Daytona Beach, Florida, we knew we were flying in relatively congested airspace.  The flight school itself had quite a lot of aircraft and there were many flight schools around with large fleets.  In addition to this, Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) is surrounded by a lot of smaller municipal and county airports.  One particular eastern departure out of DAB takes you very close to the traffic pattern of New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (EVB).  On one of my private pilot’s license training flights (back when I had 30 flight hours or so in 1994) we were just coming out of the designated departure flight path when an aircraft departing EVB caught the eye of my instructor seated on the right side of the plane.  From my perspective on the left side of the plane, I could not see the twin-engine Piper that was coming directly towards us (I was flying an Aerospatiale-Socata TB-9 Tampico at the moment).  My instructor took control of the airplane and initiated evasive maneuvers at about the same time the Piper twin did the same.  A few months later, another university Tampico had a mid-air collision with another plane (can’t remember the type) when they both approached on each other’s blind spots as they were both on final approach to the same runway at EVB.  Three on the Tampico were killed while I’m pretty sure the pilot of the other plane managed to survive.  It was not the last mid air collision around this area.

There is only so much of the air around you that you can see at any given time (unless you were flying Wonder Woman’s invisible plane, which doesn’t exist) and in busy airspace like over the Hudson River, mid air collisions are bound to eventually happen.

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Related Posts:

• Mid air collision over the Hudson River.
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