The radio altimeter on board the Black Hawk at the time of the deadly midair collision read 278 feet, Homendy said. That altimeter uses a radio beam to show the helicopter’s altitude above ...

“Seventeen seconds before impact, a radio transmission from the tower ... that's what the Black Hawk crew was seeing on the barometric altimeters in the cockpit,” she said.

WASHINGTON — The crew of the Army helicopter that collided with an American Airlines jet may have had a malfunctioning altimeter that ... both aircraft recorded a radio transmission from the ...