Analyzing a Mid-Air Collision Over the Hudson River

On August 8, 2009, a private airplane collided with a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. All three people aboard the airplane, the pilot and two passengers, and all six people aboard the helicopter, the pilot and five passengers, were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board report on the accident identified inherent limitations of the see-and-avoid concept, inadequate regulations, and errors by the pilots and an air traffic controller as causing or contributing to the accident. This paper presents the results of analyzing the accident using the Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) approach to determining accident causation.