(The Hill) — Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger said that “a lot” of the technology at Reagan Washington National Airport “is old” after two planes collided near the airport in Arlington, Va., late Wednesday.
According to a Virginia history-centric website, the late 1930s marked the start of National Airport’s construction. It opened for business in the early 1940s.
“It hasn’t changed much since then,” Sullenberger, a retired pilot and aviation expert, told The New York Times on Wednesday. “Of course, we’ve added technology to it. But a lot of the technology is old.”
On Wednesday night, an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight collided in midair near National Airport. Officials have said that they do not anticipate survivors of the Washington metro area crash, and at least 28 bodies had been recovered as of 8 a.m. local time.
“We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents and not accidents,” Sullenburger said, according to the Times.
President Donald Trump said the crash “should have been prevented.”
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport,” the president posted on Truth Social. “The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time.”
“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane,” he continued. “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!!”
The Hill has reached out to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority for comment.
