Lessons Learned

On January 29th, 2025, PSA Airlines/American Eagle Flight 5342 collided with a U. S. Army Black Hawk helicopter while on final approach to Washington, D. C.'s Ronald Reagan National Airport, resulting in a loss of 67 lives and bringing to an end an unparalleled streak in disaster-free U. S. commercial aircraft operations.

Immediately the National Transportation Safety Board conducted an investigation. To find the cause? Yes. To determine fault? Of course. But also, to prevent such an incident from ever happening again.

Every disaster is unique in the information it conveys. But it's the action you take with that information that determines where you go.

Two of the most famous transportation disasters of the 20th century were the R. M. S. Titanic, which sank after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912, and the LZ-129, better known as the airship Hindenburg, which exploded and burned attempting to land at New Jersey's Lakehurst Naval Air Station in 1937. The actions taken from each could not be more disparate.

In the case of the Titanic, it was determined that the shipping lanes were too far north, passing through ice floe territory, and were moved farther south. In addition, the International Ice Patrol was formed in 1914 to better assist ships in trans-Atlantic travel.

In the case of the Hindenburg, it was the end of trans-Atlantic travel by lighter-than-air craft.

The former led to life-saving improvements, the latter to complete oblivion.

On June 7th, 1971, Allegheny Airlines Flight 485 was making its way through coastal fog on final approach to Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport when it struck the tops of two Momauguin cottages and crashed. Of the 31 persons on board, 28 lost their lives.

The NTSB dutifully conducted an inquiry into the incident, with its final report faulting the plane's captain for continuing below "decision height," ignoring his First Officer's protests that the craft was too low.

Naturally, residents around the airport, who have no desire for any commercial air service at Tweed, were quick to jump on the finding of "pilot error," bolstering their claims that Tweed is "an accident waiting to happen," in the hopes that the City of New Haven would not only never allow any commercial air service at Tweed again, but would close the airport down altogether.

BUT...

The NTSB's study also pointed out that while the airport had a Visual Approach Slope Indicator, it was seriously lacking an Instrument Landing System, which would have safely guided Flight 485 to the runway.

Subsequently, the airport added an Instrument Landing System, Runway 2-20 was extended from 4,771 feet to 5,600 feet, and the City of New Haven continued to welcome commercial air service. Sadly, all this was accomplished only after years of litigation between New Haven and East Haven.

It's just too bad that it took an air crash costing 28 people their lives to make that happen. Unfortunately, the airport has had a long history of playing "catchup" due to City Hall occupants focusing on "downtown renewal" or other urban projects while other cities' mayors (and the state of Connecticut with Bradley,) forged ahead in improving their airports.

However, a significant change occurred when the management of Tweed went from the city to Avports, a private management firm which has committed $100 million to improve Tweed's efficiency, including an on-site crash/fire/rescue station. In addition, trees growing in the area just off Tweed's main runway have been cut down or trimmed to bring the minimum visibility for landing from one mile down to half a mile, thus reducing the risk of a crash, or diversion to another airport. And safety overrun areas are in place at each end of Runway 2-20 should an aircraft overshoot.

Other projects include extending Runway 2-20 again from its current 5,600 feet to nearly 6,600 feet to better accommodate commercial aircraft takeoffs and landings, and a new 84,000-square-foot passenger terminal with improved parking and traffic flow.

Allegheny Flight 485 should never have happened, but what was learned from it led to much-needed improvements to make Tweed safer.