A Runway Switch, a Vague Alert: What Pilots Heard Before Fatal D.C. Crash
Just after 8:43 p.m. on Jan. 29, an air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, posed a question to the pilots of American Airlines Flight 5342: Could they land at a different runway? There was nothing unusual about the request or the pilots’ assent to it. But the decision to switch runways…