DC plane crash victim’s father says ‘culture of complacency’ allowed fatal accident to happen

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DC plane crash victim’s father says ‘culture of complacency’ allowed accident to happen

Tim Lilley, the father of American Airlines co-pilot Sam Lilley, speaks outside a Senate hearing on the midair collision near Reagan National Airport.

The father of the American Airlines co-pilot who died in a midair collision near Reagan National Airport in January told FOX Business Thursday a “culture of complacency” allowed the disaster to happen. 

Tim Lilley spoke about his son, First Officer Sam Lilley, ahead of a Senate hearing on the Jan. 29 collision involving an Army helicopter. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told lawmakers the families and friends of the 67 victims “are here today,” and “I can only imagine what they’re going through.” 

“My son was an outstanding young man whose career and his life was just taking off, and we were not ready to lose him, and we never would be. And there’s 66 other families that are going through this same thing. This accident was so preventable,” Lilley told FOX Business. 

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“And I’m hoping today that some of this is going to come out. You know, we really need to work on this culture of complacency that allowed this accident to happen.” 

During the hearing, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said a preliminary report from the NTSB “provides alarming statistics in using existing FAA data on the risks at DCA to aviation safety. 

Tim Lilley, inset, said the Jan. 29 midair collision near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., was “so preventable.” (FOX Business/AP/Ben Curtis)

“That data includes — and NTSB provides these numbers — in a 13-year period, not a single month went by without at least one ‘close call’ between a helicopter and a commercial jet operating at DCA [Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport]. Between Oct. 21 and Dec. 24, there were 85 incidents where the lateral separation between a commercial jet and a helicopter was less than 1,500 feet, and the vertical separation was less than 200 feet,” he said. “And during that same [13-year] timeframe, there were more than 15,000 ‘close proximity events’ between a helicopter and a commercial airplane.” 

Lilley added that, since the disaster, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has “really been a champion to change things and change them not at the pace of government, but more like at the pace of business, which is something that we’re just championing. We love that.” 

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He also said “the worst day of my life was the 29th of January” and “the second-worst day of my life was the day after. 

“If you’ve ever had to sit in on an NTSB brief, and you’re full of orphans and widows and families that have lost their sons, and the first guy who gets up and briefs is the fire chief, and he tells you it was a gruesome scene, there was body parts spread across the ice — this is something that no family should ever have to go through,” Lilley said. 

“And what we’re trying to do here, we’re just going to make sure that no family ever has to go through that same scenario.”  

In this photo shared by Tim Lilley, Sam Lilley, the co-pilot who died on the fatal American Airlines Flight 5342, smiles from the cockpit of an airplane. (Tim Lilley)

Homendy opened her testimony Thursday by saying “it’s important that we remember today that those who died at DCA and in other accidents we investigate aren’t numbers. … These are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, cousins, best friends who won’t be there with their loved ones for Easter egg hunts, Passover Seders, the end of Ramadan, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation, all of life’s celebrations.

“Their families and friends, whether in person or online, are here today. I can only imagine what they’re going through, and I want to take a moment to again express our deepest sympathies to each of them,” she said. “Please know that we keep you in our hearts as we diligently work to determine how this tragedy happened. So, no one, no one experiences the deeply significant loss you must feel today.” 

Dailey Crafton, the brother of victim Casey Crafton, told FOX Business, “I think for myself, and I think most of the families, we’re looking for accountability for what happened from whatever agency needs to have accountability.

“We’re devastated. It’s a big gaping hole in our lives, and it comes in waves,” he added. “Some days are all right. Some days you can, like, you barely don’t even want to get out of bed, and you know you can’t stop thinking about it and feeling just anxious and stressed out and everything. So, it’s a roller coaster.” 

Salvage crews pulling up a part of the Army Black Hawk helicopter involved in the midair collision Feb. 6 . (AP/Jose Luis Magana)

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Maxim Naumov, a figure skater whose parents, former Olympians Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, died in the midair collision, told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday the last message he heard from his mother was to “let me know that they’re switching flights and that if I could pick them up.”  

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.