Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter crash kills pilot and trooper during shooter response

It was just 6 months ago, *** flight that was supposed to land here at Ronald Reagan National Airport from Wichita, Kansas crashed over the Potomac River, killing 67 people, with many questions still unanswered. We’re discovering near misses are still happening across the country, and the situations are unnerving. The sight hard to forget the moment American Airlines Flight 5342 and *** US Black Hawk helicopter collided midair over the Potomac River, which makes recent near misses harder to understand. It was chaos. There was screaming. 8 to 12th drop of free fall. Last Friday, *** midair scare between *** Southwest airplane and *** decommissioned fighter jet after taking off from Burbank, California. Minutes after takeoff, the commercial airline was forced to drop hundreds of feet to avoid the jet, leaving 2 people injured. Earlier this month, *** military plane interrupted the landing of *** flight from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota. The airline’s pilot apologizing for the aggressive maneuver to avoid *** collision over the intercom. I don’t know why they didn’t give up. The Air Force base does have radar and nobody said there’s also *** pilots are encouraged but not required to report near misses in the aviation safety reporting system. Our Hurst television data team pulled those reports, analyzing them specifically for near miss events between. *** commercial airplane and other piloted aircraft during landing or takeoff. Essentially the same scenario as the DC collision. We found that in the 3 months right after the deadly crash, 26 near misses were reported around the country. Of those, just over 40% involved the helicopter. Some of the pilots specifically mentioning the frightening tragedy over the Potomac River. One pilot writing quote, this event has many disturbing similarities to the recent midair collision in DCA. With pilots continuing to sound the alarm on near misses in the air. Family members of the deceased are now banding together, holding meetings and calling for accountability. One of the things that uh myself and uh several other cousins, uh. took away from these family briefings was that *** lot of change needed to happen uh to ensure safer skies for all of us, and that no other families had to ever go through something like this again. Since the tragedy, families of the victims have visited DC 3 times advocating for change. Helicopter flight paths around the airport have been changed as well. Currently the FAA is investigating other airports around the country to determine if there are other areas with congested airspace where there needs to be changed to avoid another tragedy. Reporting in Washington DC, I’m national investigative correspondent John Carinelli.