January 31, 2025 • 7 mins
Louisville native and retired airline captain of 32 years; long-time aviation industry leader and current CEO of the National Flight Training Alliance in Washington, DC
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. I'm Tony Cruz News Radio eight forty whas
(00:03):
happy to have the pleasure. I'm talking to a young
friend for since nineteen seventy four. Captain Lee Collins is
with us this morning. Lee, Louisville, Nay, Morning, Tony, How
are you good? Retired airline captain thirty two years, longtime
aviation industry leader and current CEO of the National Flight
(00:24):
Training Alliance that happens to be in Washington, d C. Lee,
Thanks for your time this morning. Let's talk. We have
now sixty seven dead three American soldiers, of course in
sixty four on the flight the American Airline Flight fifty
three forty two. Just your initial reaction when you saw
what happened the other.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Day, well, certainly one of great shock. I fly in
and out of that airport on almost weekly basis, know
the airspace, well, so was very concerned as to why
we would have those two aircraft where they were at
that particular time. As you've probably heard, you know, the
helicopters trendsit that Potomac Corridor all day long, day in
(01:04):
and day out, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
It's a well flown track. The commercial airliners doing the
same very tightly controlled and kept away from some of
the other prohibited airspace around Washington, So why they would
both be where they were was a little concerning. Controllers
are pretty quick to nab you when you maybe are
(01:25):
string top to bottom or left to right. In this case,
the altitudes were off, they weren't right, and for whatever reason,
we now know that we had two should have had
two controllers in the tower, we only had one, and
that's probably going to be the focus of not just
the altitude issue, but why somebody wasn't watching closer. So
(01:48):
it's just a concern, is my greatest emotion at this point.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You know, it's interesting that you bring that to the
attention because apparently this is a regular thing that occurs.
I don't know if this is just at Reagan International
or other airports, but if there's not as many flights
or something of that nature. This was just one person
having to deal with the military aircraft in this case,
and obviously the other aircraft that did seem to be
(02:16):
pretty odd.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, you know, unlike some airline accidents, with this one,
we already know what happened. It's pretty clear what happened.
We have a lot of visual evidence. We have the
radar data and other things, so we know what happened.
That the big test is going to be why, and
that's going to take a while to find out. But
the issue of not fully staffed air traffic control facilities
(02:42):
is not just something that happened this time. It's been
happening more and more frequently across the country. It's been
an issue that we've been paying attention to, particularly in Arizona,
South Florida and other places. But you might recall Tony
just what fifteen years or so ago when we had
a fatal crash in Lexington, Kentucky. One of the contributing
(03:03):
factors in that crash was having only one air traffic
controller working in the tower at the time of the accident.
There are reasons that the FAA's procedures call for two
or more or however many, and yet they continually will
run against that. And so I think there's gonna be
particularly a large amount of pretension paid to why this
(03:24):
was the case in this particular instance.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
ABC News found out and they didn't give the source,
but they said that Reagan International is not understaffed, but
perhaps maybe because of the light flight activity. You know,
maybe that's why that happened. I guess we'll have to
find out.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, we will. And then the other factor to the
helicopter being slightly off of its altitude, you know, it
does make a difference at that low altitude right before
that airliner was landing. Even an extra one hundred and
fifty feet, which may be what it was, made all
the difference in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So yeah, in that case, as I understanded, the helicopters,
whether they be military or you know, traffic copters all
around DC, they are only allowed to be go up
what two hundred feet? Is that their levels un level correct?
So with that, there's been reports that it was as
high as three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet.
(04:22):
What do you think that is? Because last night on
CBS News, the weather reporter indicated that the winds were
calm at at that juncture.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I hadn't heard calm. I heard that they were
at about twelve gusting to twenty And it was one
of the reasons the controller had made the last minute
decision to change the airliners landing runway from runway one
to runway three to three to more closely align them
with those gusty winds, If that's true. I hadn't heard
that it was calm. But had it not been calm,
(04:54):
had it been what was originally reported. It's not uncommon
for a pilot to become distracted, particularly who when they're
low level and altitude is an issue. They're looking left
and right, side to side, making sure that they're completely safe.
And in a gusty wind situation, you could gain one
hundred or one hundred and fifty feet pretty quickly before
you could then recover and put the airplane back on
(05:15):
its specified altitude. That would be a contributing factor if
it were the case. And again we will have to
wait and.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
See the Washington Post also, And this to your history,
having flown in and out of Reagan and other airports
there in the DC area, I wanted to ask you
this Tuesday night, twenty four hours before that deadly collision
at Reagan National Airport, a different passenger jet coming in
for a landing was alerted at the airport, alerted the tower.
(05:44):
It had to abord. The reason was a risk of
a possible collision with a helicopter. In a week earlier,
January twenty third, a flight from Charlotte had to pull
out of its approach at National The captain informed passengers
he was tracking a helicopter and needed to abort that landing.
So with such how much traffic there has to be
(06:05):
some kind of standard that comes around this particular area.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I would think, yeah, there are standards, and it's some
of the most highly regulated airspace in this country. We
don't let a lot of people in there, and virtually
all that you get will be commercial traffic and military traffic.
But even so, that small airport is very, very busy,
and there are so many military installations in and around there,
(06:29):
within say a fifteen mile radius, that it is not
uncommon for them to be those what we call conflict
resolutions where somebody will have to make another approach or
have to abandon what they're doing and go back around
simply because someone isn't where they are, or an emergency
occurs where the military for some reason or another has
(06:50):
to move and move through an area immediately, and that
would then negate the ability to bring any commercial traffic through.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh, just appreciate you, brother, it's good to talk to you.
Thanks for your time this morning, sir.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
All right, that's enny. Good care you.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Too, and my mister Michelle. Captain Lee Collins, Louisville native
and retired airline captain of thirty two years and also
the CEO of the National Flight of Training Alliance in Washington,
d C seven twelve. We got it to a break.
Dwight Mitchell's joining us next on Kentuck Anta's Warning News
Good morning. I'm Tony Cruz News Radio eight forty whas
(00:03):
happy to have the pleasure. I'm talking to a young
friend for since nineteen seventy four. Captain Lee Collins is
with us this morning. Lee, Louisville, Nay, Morning, Tony, How
are you good? Retired airline captain thirty two years, longtime
aviation industry leader and current CEO of the National Flight
(00:24):
Training Alliance that happens to be in Washington, d C. Lee,
Thanks for your time this morning. Let's talk. We have
now sixty seven dead three American soldiers, of course in
sixty four on the flight the American Airline Flight fifty
three forty two. Just your initial reaction when you saw
what happened the other.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Day, well, certainly one of great shock. I fly in
and out of that airport on almost weekly basis, know
the airspace, well, so was very concerned as to why
we would have those two aircraft where they were at
that particular time. As you've probably heard, you know, the
helicopters trendsit that Potomac Corridor all day long, day in
(01:04):
and day out, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
It's a well flown track. The commercial airliners doing the
same very tightly controlled and kept away from some of
the other prohibited airspace around Washington, So why they would
both be where they were was a little concerning. Controllers
are pretty quick to nab you when you maybe are
(01:25):
string top to bottom or left to right. In this case,
the altitudes were off, they weren't right, and for whatever reason,
we now know that we had two should have had
two controllers in the tower, we only had one, and
that's probably going to be the focus of not just
the altitude issue, but why somebody wasn't watching closer. So
(01:48):
it's just a concern, is my greatest emotion at this point.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You know, it's interesting that you bring that to the
attention because apparently this is a regular thing that occurs.
I don't know if this is just at Reagan International
or other airports, but if there's not as many flights
or something of that nature. This was just one person
having to deal with the military aircraft in this case,
and obviously the other aircraft that did seem to be
(02:16):
pretty odd.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, you know, unlike some airline accidents, with this one,
we already know what happened. It's pretty clear what happened.
We have a lot of visual evidence. We have the
radar data and other things, so we know what happened.
That the big test is going to be why, and
that's going to take a while to find out. But
the issue of not fully staffed air traffic control facilities
(02:42):
is not just something that happened this time. It's been
happening more and more frequently across the country. It's been
an issue that we've been paying attention to, particularly in Arizona,
South Florida and other places. But you might recall Tony
just what fifteen years or so ago when we had
a fatal crash in Lexington, Kentucky. One of the contributing
(03:03):
factors in that crash was having only one air traffic
controller working in the tower at the time of the accident.
There are reasons that the FAA's procedures call for two
or more or however many, and yet they continually will
run against that. And so I think there's gonna be
particularly a large amount of pretension paid to why this
(03:24):
was the case in this particular instance.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
ABC News found out and they didn't give the source,
but they said that Reagan International is not understaffed, but
perhaps maybe because of the light flight activity. You know,
maybe that's why that happened. I guess we'll have to
find out.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, we will. And then the other factor to the
helicopter being slightly off of its altitude, you know, it
does make a difference at that low altitude right before
that airliner was landing. Even an extra one hundred and
fifty feet, which may be what it was, made all
the difference in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So yeah, in that case, as I understanded, the helicopters,
whether they be military or you know, traffic copters all
around DC, they are only allowed to be go up
what two hundred feet? Is that their levels un level correct?
So with that, there's been reports that it was as
high as three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet.
(04:22):
What do you think that is? Because last night on
CBS News, the weather reporter indicated that the winds were
calm at at that juncture.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, I hadn't heard calm. I heard that they were
at about twelve gusting to twenty And it was one
of the reasons the controller had made the last minute
decision to change the airliners landing runway from runway one
to runway three to three to more closely align them
with those gusty winds, If that's true. I hadn't heard
that it was calm. But had it not been calm,
(04:54):
had it been what was originally reported. It's not uncommon
for a pilot to become distracted, particularly who when they're
low level and altitude is an issue. They're looking left
and right, side to side, making sure that they're completely safe.
And in a gusty wind situation, you could gain one
hundred or one hundred and fifty feet pretty quickly before
you could then recover and put the airplane back on
(05:15):
its specified altitude. That would be a contributing factor if
it were the case. And again we will have to
wait and.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
See the Washington Post also, And this to your history,
having flown in and out of Reagan and other airports
there in the DC area, I wanted to ask you
this Tuesday night, twenty four hours before that deadly collision
at Reagan National Airport, a different passenger jet coming in
for a landing was alerted at the airport, alerted the tower.
(05:44):
It had to abord. The reason was a risk of
a possible collision with a helicopter. In a week earlier,
January twenty third, a flight from Charlotte had to pull
out of its approach at National The captain informed passengers
he was tracking a helicopter and needed to abort that landing.
So with such how much traffic there has to be
(06:05):
some kind of standard that comes around this particular area.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I would think, yeah, there are standards, and it's some
of the most highly regulated airspace in this country. We
don't let a lot of people in there, and virtually
all that you get will be commercial traffic and military traffic.
But even so, that small airport is very, very busy,
and there are so many military installations in and around there,
(06:29):
within say a fifteen mile radius, that it is not
uncommon for them to be those what we call conflict
resolutions where somebody will have to make another approach or
have to abandon what they're doing and go back around
simply because someone isn't where they are, or an emergency
occurs where the military for some reason or another has
(06:50):
to move and move through an area immediately, and that
would then negate the ability to bring any commercial traffic through.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh, just appreciate you, brother, it's good to talk to you.
Thanks for your time this morning, sir.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
All right, that's enny. Good care you.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Too, and my mister Michelle. Captain Lee Collins, Louisville native
and retired airline captain of thirty two years and also
the CEO of the National Flight of Training Alliance in Washington,
d C seven twelve. We got it to a break.
Dwight Mitchell's joining us next on Kentuck Anta's Warning News
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