Pentagon lost contact with Army helo that caused DC jet diversions
Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the head of Army aviation, told the AP in an exclusive interview that the controllers lost contact with the Black Hawk because a temporary control tower antenna was not set up in a location where it would be able to maintain contact with the helicopter as it flew low and rounded the Pentagon to land. He said the antenna was set up during construction of a new control tower and has now been moved to the roof of the Pentagon.
Braman said federal air traffic controllers inside the Washington airport also didn’t have a good fix on the location of the helicopter. The Black Hawk was transmitting data that should have given controllers its precise location, but Braman said FAA officials told him in meetings last week that the data the controllers were getting from multiple feeds and sensors was inconclusive, with some of it deviating by as much as three-quarters of a mile.
Because of the 20-second loss of contact, the Pentagon’s tower did not clear the Black Hawk to land, so the helicopter circled the Pentagon a second time. That’s when air traffic controllers at the airport decided to abort the landing of a second jet, a Republic Airways Embraer E170, because they did not have a confident fix on the Black Hawk’s location, Braman said.