Jack of Harts

Sixty seven lives were lost when the Black Hawk hit the passenger plane at Washington National Airport. Most information we have points to it being an accident. But an accident made possible by serious things that were done wrong. The Black Hawk was flying above the approved ceiling for helicopter flights. And a single traffic controller was doing the job of two. Earlier in the day there had been two of them. But one was authorized to go home, and the other had to pick up the slack. Would that problem have been noticed if two were on the job? I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answer to that. But I don’t like that the norms were not followed. The norms are there to keep things safe. And things were not safe by any means.