Flight 445 investigation begins
An update of the investigation into the Bering Air flight 445 crash was provided during a press conference in Washington D.C. on Tuesday morning, which included Alaska’s congressional delegation joined by Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board Jennifer Homendy, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau.
Homendy said the NTSB investigation of the crash began over the weekend with weighing the personal effects of the passengers to determine the weight and balance of the plane.
The full examination of the plane has begun in Nome; Homendy said this could take two or three days and is being completed by a team made up of the NTSB, FAA and Textron, the company that manufactures Cessna planes.
Plane electronics were pulled from the wreckage and were sent to the NTSB lab for further investigation.
Homendy, who traveled to Alaska last week to look into the Bering Air accident, said she’s been asked a lot how safe it is to fly given all the crashes she’s been investigating recently.
“Let me assure you that aviation is the safest mode of transportation in the U.S. I can go into fatalities, but I can tell you the number of fatalities on our roads alone are where the greatest risk is,” Homendy said.
The topic turned to actionable changes. Murkowski said on the way to the press conference she checked how many aviation weather observing systems, or AWOS, in the state are functioning today. Out of 150, 51 were down.
“We cannot normalize the fact that we are accepting a half of a safety system,” Murkowski said, pledging to address weather reporting, she mentioned the Visual Weather Observation System or VWOS, which is similar to the already in use AWOS system but less expensive, according to Murkowski.
Secretary Duffy jumped in, agreeing accurate weather reporting should be bolstered along with communication.
“These are simple things that, by the way, if this was in some other state in the Lower-48, no one would tolerate this,” Duffy said.
Congressman Begich emphasized the need for redundancies in camera and connectivity systems.
Sullivan touted the work of Alaska’s air traffic controllers and said the FAA could bring on more of them.
All three congressional delegates for Alaska offered condolences to the families and communities affected by the crash and pledged to work with federal partners to ensure the safety of Alaska’s skies.
With reporting from Laura Robertson
View the entire press conference HERE.https://www.youtube.com/live/6nEfm7Vfdu0