From the outsider point of view, a path towards collision might seem obvious, but things look different from a pilot’s point of view at night. The New York Times built a 3-D model to visualize what the Black Hawk pilots might have seen before the crash with a commercial plane.
The Times analysis also indicates that the pilots’ view of the ground and river below would not have drastically changed to offer a visual cue that their helicopter had temporarily drifted into an unsafe path, above the authorized altitude in this area. Whether the Black Hawk’s instruments gave the pilots any indication that they were flying higher than authorized is unclear.
The maps and animation, just short of a flight simulator game, illustrate why the reasons for the crash aren’t so obvious.
