Summary and Key Points: The tragic January 29 air collision between a U.S. Army Sikorsky BlackHawk helicopter and American Airlines Flight 5342 has brought attention to critical deficiencies in Army aviation training.
-Whistleblowers claim the accident highlights the long-standing issue of declining pilot proficiency due to chronic equipment shortages and severe cutbacks in required flight hours.
-A 2024 Army safety report revealed a 300-hour drop in average flight time per pilot over the last decade, leading to deteriorating skills and a rise in accidents.
-These deficiencies are not isolated, as other service branches like the Navy face similar issues, further raising safety concerns.
U.S. Army’s Declining Flight Hours Spark Concerns Over Pilot Safety
In the wake of a tragic January 29 air-to-air collision between a United States Army Sikorsky BlackHawk helicopter and American Airlines Flight 5342 over Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport, whistleblowers have come forward to say they are surprised a mishap of these proportions did not happen sooner.
All passengers and crew died in this incident, with a total of 67 fatalities.
Military pilots go so long without flying that they say they are losing their flying skills altogether. More people will die in a similar manner, they state, unless the US Army acts to address “chronic equipment shortages and dial back on ‘dangerous’ cutbacks in what are the number of required flying hours.”
A 2024 Army safety report said the average flight time has declined by an estimated 300 hours per pilot over the last 10 years. The report said this “may” have contributed to a rise in accidents.
In some instances, say both current active-duty and retired military personnel, pilot recruits can go up to an entire year without making a single flight.
This grounding is due to shortages of both aircraft and instructor pilots. Some aircraft used in training programs are so old that they are flown until they are “falling out of the sky.”
Army Aviation Is the Problem Child
The air-to-air collision in January has precipitated numerous persons coming forward to say that the US Army has more problems than the other service branches with pilot proficiency. And the problem is not new—it has been around for some time.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that in 2023, army pilots were failing to meet their goal of nine hours of flight time a month to remain proficient in specific aircraft in “almost all cases.”
One of the few retired US Army personnel to come forward was Elizabeth McCormick, a former Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot who spoke not to any US outlet but the London Daily Telegraph. She assessed that reduced training time in the service is “the number one contributing factor” to in-flight accidents.
“People are scared,” she told the London daily. “Things have to be instinctual and muscle memory. It doesn’t take long for these skills to degrade.”
The rate of army aircraft crashes has reportedly increased four times over the past two years. This makes 2024 the most lethal year for aviation fatalities in a decade, according to official US Army statistics.
Other Service Branches
In 2024, the US Navy also suffered the most “Class A” mishaps at sea, the most serious category, in a decade. This, according to data, provided the service. In addition, there were 10 accidents while afloat, almost twice the average of 5.3 per year in the last decade.
An active-duty navy pilot who declined to be identified told the London publication that training in his service is sometimes sporadic. There are interruptions in the training regime for as long as a month between flights.
The second AH-64 Apache rolls onto the taxiway and to the takeoff pad.
The Idaho Army National Guard’s Orchard Combat Training Center was host to elements of the Republic of Singapore Air Force during July. Based in Arizona, The Singapore contingent operates eight AH-64 Apache Helicopters as part of the Peace Vanguard Task Force.
The Apache is an attack helicopter with a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor for target acquisition and night vision systems. It is armed with a 30 mm M230 chain gun. It also features four hardpoints mounted on stub-wing pylons for carrying armament, typically a mixture of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rocket pods. The Apache’s first flight took place in 1975 and was formally introduced into the U.S. Army in 1986.
Modernized Apache Helicopter. Image Credit: Boeing.
This disrupts the training schedule to the degree that the calendar time required for pilots to accumulate adequate flying hours to join the fleet has doubled.
According to the same sources, even after four years of operational training, some pilots have not qualified for the F/A-18 fighter aircraft.
“It’s hard for a student to have proficiency when they’re flying zero hours some months,” the pilot said. “If you’re not flying with proficiency, you are dangerous.”
Echoes of the words of the actor Val Kilmer in the first Top Gun film: “You guys are dangerous.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
