The army was one of the 28 government agencies authorized to fly helicopters near Ronald Reagan National Airport before its Black Hawk helicopter collided with a American Airlines passenger plane last week, killing 67.

This constant helicopter traffic near such an airport is one of the many aspects now under review by researchers. As the remains of both planes recover, the authorities are also analyzing why the helicopter may have been flying above a 200 -foot flight restriction.

More details are being clarified, including that there was no rule on what extent the interior or on the water could be the helicopter.

This is what researchers have found, including a new interview with a key army aviation official:

The unit stretches thin

The 12th Aviation Battalion based in Davison Army Air Field in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, has a classified mission to guarantee the continuity of the government by taking certain officials to a safe place in case of an attack. It also has the task of transporting high -ranking government and military officials to the bases throughout the region.

The battalion stretches thin, both for airplanes and personnel. It also flies older black hawks.

Of the approximately 100 older UH-60L Falcon variants that remain in the army fleet of 2,000 black hawks, eight are assigned to the battalion. After the accident, there are seven. In addition, the unit has six newer UH-60m models known as “gold tops”.

NTSB: probably used night vision glasses

The crew probably wore night vision glasses at the time of the accident, said the president of the National Transport Security Board, Jennifer Homendy, to journalists in Capitol Hill on Thursday. Homendy said that the researchers who listen to the recovered cabin voice recorder do not listen to the crew say that they are flying “without help”, which they would have indicated if they had no glasses on.

In an interview on Thursday with The Associated Press, Brig. General Matthew Braman, Army Aviation Director and former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot said the teams train to fly at night with or without glasses. If using them is the call of the pilot in command, but if they are used, the three crew members will have them on.

“The army policy says that, as a team, everyone will be gogned or all will advise,” Braman said.

Night vision glasses can make the perception of depth and determine the closing distance to a more difficult object as lights appear as bright flowers that can be difficult to distinguish. The teams train to handle those challenges, Braman said, and are taught to verify the distance, such as looking briefly from under the glasses.

Did a key altitude tracker go out?

After the NTSB informative session on Thursday, Texas Republican senator, Ted Cruz, said the researchers told them that Black Hawk had turned off ADS-B. ADS-B, abbreviation for the transfer of dependent automatic surveillance, provides a more precise and real-time monitor seconds. In a training mission, “there was no convincing national security reason” so that ADS-B was off, Cruz said.

A person familiar with that informative session said the researchers did not confirm whether it was on or off. While military airplanes can deactivate ADS-B to protect sensitive missions, it is supposed to be extinguished only for limited circumstances. The person spoke about anonymity to provide additional details about the private information session.

Corridor ‘Route 4’ used by 28 agencies

Braman said that the 12th Army Battalion is part of one of the 28 agencies that use helicopter routes at low altitude around the Reagan National Airport. That includes the Department of Defense, individual military services, application of the Law of Local, State and Federal Law, Emergency Medical Services, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and others.

“There are a lot of users,” Braman said.

In the days after the accident, the FAA has largely closed the airspace to the traffic of military helicopters, which the army is trying when finding alternative routes.

Colorado’s Republican representative Gabe Evans, is a former Black Hawk pilot. As more data comes out in the course of the investigation, it can be used to adjust air traffic routes, but the military will still need to train, he said.

“We must find the balance between being an airspace (priority of air trips) and an air travel center, while making public safety the number 1 priority,” Evans said.

In addition, while any helicopter that travels on Route 4, which runs along the Potomac River in front of the airport, must adhere to the 200 feet altitude roof, there was no similar limitation for latitude.

The first unofficial online reports had speculated that Black Hawk was too inside or possibly too much about the water. But there is no guidance of the FAA in a side limit, such as “does not pass by land” or “do not fly over the center of the river”, something that can change as regulators continue to investigate the causes of the crash.

What could explain the altitude of 300 feet?

The collision probably occurred to about 325 feet on the ground, according to the data collected from the passenger jet. The black hawk was supposed to fly no more than 200 feet on the ground, which has raised many questions about why it may have been above its limits.

Part of this information is provided by a barometric altimeter, which provides the crew information based on air pressure readings. In the oldest Black Hawks, the equipment verifies that the barometric altimeter works before each flight manually turning a knob to establish the altimeter at the current pressure transmitted by the airfield they are taking off. If the reading in the altimeter varies from the reading of the aerodrome in more than 70 feet, the helicopter has no compliance and should not fly, Braman said.

The barometric altimeter is only one of the two systems in the cabin that would give the crew the consciousness of how high they were flying. The second, the radar altimeter, is based on the helicopter that sends a radiofrequency signal of an antenna to the ground and would have provided the crew with additional real -time information to its height. As the researchers go through the data recorder data of the cabin, they can determine if the barometric altimeter settled correctly, Braman said.

The majority of army helicopters, and particularly the oldest variants of UH-60L, are not equipped with a modern traffic collision avoidance system, known as TCAS, because it is not so effective to the low altitudes in which the Army helicopters normally operate, Braman said.

Even if the Black Falcon had stayed at its required altitude, “it would never be allowed a plane to land above a 200 feet helicopter,” Braman said, and there should have been additional distrust actions taken

Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak reported from New York.

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Topics Aviation