Army report on Washington crash protects brass after 67 deaths
By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit ·
The Army admits systemic failures caused a midair collision that killed 67 people, but its refusal to assign individual blame is a bureaucratic shield against real accountability.
The U.S. Army has a favorite word for when it kills people: "systemic." By blaming the "system," the people who actually run it never have to answer for the blood on their hands. A new report on the midair collision that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., is a masterclass in this kind of evasion. The Army admits the disaster happened because of "multiple systemic failures." But it refuses to name a single person responsible for those failures. It is a cowardly move designed to protect the brass while the families of the dead are left with a 50-page document and no one to hold accountable.
A checklist of negligence
The facts of the crash are a horror story of institutional blindness. As reported by CNN and The Washington Post, a Black Hawk helicopter collided with American Airlines Flight 5342. Both aircraft plummeted into the Potomac River. The Army's own investigation, led by Lt. Gen. Michael C. McCurry, found a staggering list of failures.
The Black Hawk's ADS-B Out system, which broadcasts its location, was inoperable. The NTSB found the helicopter was flying nearly 100 feet higher than its instruments indicated. Pilots were wearing night-vision goggles that limited their field of vision. The flight route provided only 75 feet of vertical separation between the helicopter and planes landing on a secondary runway.
It is a pattern I know from home. During the Flint water crisis, government agencies ignored systemic flaws to save a buck, leaving a city poisoned. In both cases, the people at the top treated safety as a suggestion rather than a requirement. The Army has since reconfigured 3,585 affected helicopters, but that is a reactive fix for a proactive failure.
The shield of systemic failure
Lt. Gen. McCurry wrote that "breakdowns across all layers of conflict management caused this accident." That sounds professional. It also sounds like a legal shield. When you call a failure "systemic," you turn a series of human decisions into a weather event. You make it seem like the crash just happened to the Army, rather than being caused by the Army.
Tim Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the jet, sees through the jargon. He stated that recommendations for change are "not a substitute for accountability." He is right. The Army owes the public a full accounting of who allowed these risks to persist. Instead, the report offers suggestions but no disciplinary actions.
This is the same mechanism that drove the Boeing 737 MAX groundings. Corporate and regulatory capture allows known safety flaws to persist in the name of profit and efficiency, killing passengers who have no choice but to trust the system. This mirrors the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That disaster grew from systemic failure and cost-cutting, followed by a corporate refusal to accept full accountability. In every one of these cases, the people in the mahogany offices survive while the workers and passengers pay the price.
A regulator with no teeth
The failure extends beyond the military to the Federal Aviation Administration. ABC News and Politico report that the NTSB faulted the FAA for failing to implement roughly one-third of its safety recommendations. The FAA is tasked with keeping the skies safe, yet it operates with a "culture of coziness" toward the industry it regulates.
The NTSB can find the cause of a crash, but it has no legal authority to enforce its recommendations. It is a watchdog without teeth. Meanwhile, the FAA's dual mandate to both encourage and regulate aerospace travel creates a conflict that compromises safety.
The Families of Flight 5342 group has pointed out that collision avoidance technology is proven. They are calling for ADS-B systems in all aircraft. Yet, the U.S. House and Senate have passed different bills, and a compromise is still pending. The political will to save lives is always slower than the speed of a falling plane.
The Army and the FAA are playing a game of bureaucratic hot potato. The Army blames the "system," the FAA ignores the NTSB, and Congress stalls on legislation. This is how power protects itself. They will likely pass a stripped-down safety bill that mandates basic technology but strips out any real enforcement or leadership liability. They will implement the technical fixes and call it "progress" while the commanders who ignored the warnings keep their stars. Justice would require the relief of duty for the officers who allowed blind helicopters into busy airspace and a mandate for the FAA to implement every NTSB safety recommendation. Until someone is fired or prosecuted, "systemic failure" is just another word for a cover-up.
Sources
- The Washington Post: Army report cites systemic flaws that led to fatal DCA midair collision
- ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos: Army finds systemic failures behind DC midair collision and calls for safety fixes
- Politico: Army probe results in sweeping recommendations after Washington air disaster
- CNN: Army investigation into deadly midair collision made public after months of pressure from victim’s families