An aviation expert revealed one mystery from the deadly midair collision that likely will never be solved.
A Bombardier CRJ700 passenger jet operated by American Airlines collided in midair with a Blackhawk helicopter flown by U.S. Army soldiers Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., and aviation journalist Geoffrey Thomas told CNN International that investigators will soon have much more evidence from the tragedy but may never learn some details.
"The black box from the Blackhawk should give the NTSB an enormous amount of data about the exact altitude of the aircraft, the exact course of the aircraft," Thomas said. "Of course, it also hopefully [could] give us the cockpit conversation between the pilots. The only thing it would not give us would be the Blackhawk said that he had the CRJ in sight. Now did he see the CRJ or did he see another aircraft? That's the part we're not going to ever understand. We will assume that he got them mixed up possibly, but there probably will never be a confirmation of exactly which aircraft he did sight."
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However, that's not to say that investigators won't be able to estimate where the helicopter was in relation to the passenger jet to help determine what exactly led to the crash.
"I suppose what the NTSB may do is look at exactly where the position of the helicopter was at that particular moment that he said, 'Yes, I have it in sight,'" Thomas said, "and then look at the actual angle and the course, the precise course at that particular moment and then look out and then then from there, they would be able to possibly visualize and work out, through geometry, etc., exactly what he could or could not see at that particular moment and therefore possibly check off, yes, he did make a mistake or did not."