The audio is out there, being pretty familiar with air accidents and radio call outs:
ATC wasn’t clear, they just said “go behind that plane”, yet if you listen to literally any of the other ATC callouts in the surrounding 10m they’re all proper with heading and altitude like “AAL111 go to 3000’ and hold heading 270”, yet with the helo he just says “go behind them”
The helicopter doesn’t change heading at all and just basically plows into the passenger jet (from what I can see on the ATC map anyway), so I think either they misjudged their speed vs the jet they hit or mistook it for another jet
Either way: ATC should have been more clear, heli pilot should have asked for clarification before proceeding without any change or even slowed when the uncertain command came through
Given the relative speeds, I think it’s more likely the plane plowed into the helicopter than the other way around. The minimum speed of the jet (a CRJ 700) is about 145 knots indicated air speed, the max is about 470 knots. The Black Hawk has a minimum speed of zero, and a maximum of about 180 knots. The two might have been moving at a similar speed, but if one was moving faster and crashed into the slower-moving aircraft, it was almost certainly the jet that crashed into the helicopter.
The audio is out there, being pretty familiar with air accidents and radio call outs:
ATC wasn’t clear, they just said “go behind that plane”, yet if you listen to literally any of the other ATC callouts in the surrounding 10m they’re all proper with heading and altitude like “AAL111 go to 3000’ and hold heading 270”, yet with the helo he just says “go behind them”
The helicopter doesn’t change heading at all and just basically plows into the passenger jet (from what I can see on the ATC map anyway), so I think either they misjudged their speed vs the jet they hit or mistook it for another jet
Either way: ATC should have been more clear, heli pilot should have asked for clarification before proceeding without any change or even slowed when the uncertain command came through
Given the relative speeds, I think it’s more likely the plane plowed into the helicopter than the other way around. The minimum speed of the jet (a CRJ 700) is about 145 knots indicated air speed, the max is about 470 knots. The Black Hawk has a minimum speed of zero, and a maximum of about 180 knots. The two might have been moving at a similar speed, but if one was moving faster and crashed into the slower-moving aircraft, it was almost certainly the jet that crashed into the helicopter.