The grieving father of the 28-year-old American Airlines pilot is calling for stricter regulations in the wake of the devastating midair collision near Washington, D.C.
Sam Lilley was the first officer on American Airlines Flight 5342 when a US Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter collided with the plane, causing the two aircraft to plunge into the Potomac River during the plane’s descent into Ronald Reagan International Airport on Jan. 29.
All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed, making it the country’s deadliest air disaster since 2001.
“[Sam] was doing great in his career,” Timothy Lilley, a former Army helicopter pilot, told Fox News Digital. “He was doing great in his personal life, he was set to be married.”
Timothy Lilley served 20 years in the Army flying Black Hawk helicopters – the same aircraft that collided with the plane his son was flying – before piloting medical helicopters and later joining a regional airline.
In the wake of his son’s death, Timothy is leveraging his experience to call on lawmakers and military officials to enact change, promising that part of Sam’s legacy will be aviation safety.
Now he is asking the military to cease flight operations at civilian airports, revamp training for pilots and require aircraft to have an operational Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) while inside Class B airspace.
Currently, military aircraft are not required to be equipped with TCAS when flying in Class B airspace, which comprises the largest civilian airports within the country, according to Lilley.
“It’s been said, and it is true, that most aviation regulations are written in blood,” Lilley said. “That means that something terrible has to happen for us to make a change.”
Lilley is planning to testify in front of Congress and said that high-level Army officials have been receptive to his suggestions, paving the way for a future of safer skies.
Lilley believes that Sam’s passion for flying grew from watching him as a pilot.
After earning a degree in marketing and logistics from Georgia Southern University, Sam shifted to aviation. He started flight training in 2019, got his commercial license the following year and became a flight instructor. Two years before the crash, he began flying for American Airlines’ regional airline, PSA.
“If he stayed at PSA long enough, he was going to end up at American Airlines,” Lilley said. “He wanted to be an international captain and fly the 777s to Europe and Asia.”
Sam was also engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Lydia, and the two were planning on starting a family. The day before his death, Sam’s mother went wedding venue shopping for the couple, with the ceremony scheduled for the fall.
However, Sam’s dreams were halted when the aircraft and helicopter collided, plunging into the icy Potomac on Jan. 29.
Timothy Lilley was in New York City for work at the time of the crash, initially seeing reports of the incident on the news.
Follow the NYP’s coverage of the deadly DC plane collision
“I realized there had been a plane crash, which, of course, sparked my interest,” Lilley said. “But the chance of it being Sam was one and a million.”
When Lilley realized the plane was owned by PSA, he reached out to Sam but never heard back, confirming the unthinkable.
Lilley traveled to the site of the tragedy and began piecing together what had caused Sam’s plane to crash, but many of his questions remain unanswered.
Investigators are working to retrieve data from the helicopter’s black box, which sustained water damage during recovery efforts. Audio recordings from Sam’s aircraft confirmed that the pilots attempted to evade impact.
“The crew had a verbal reaction,” Brice Banning, NTSB investigator in charge, said.
The data recorder within the aircraft shows “the airplane beginning to increase its pitch,” according to Banning. “Sounds of impact were audible about one second later, followed by the end of the recording.”
A complete National Transportation Safety Board investigation could take up to a year, but authorities are hoping to have a preliminary report within 30 days. Investigators are also looking into the possibility that the airport’s control tower was not fully staffed at the time of the crash.
Until the investigation concludes, victims’ families can only speculate about the collision that killed their loved ones. Lilley, as a former Black Hawk pilot who flew the same Potomac route “hundreds of times,” believes he can offer a unique perspective.
“There are hundreds of things that could have gone wrong in there,” Lilley said. “Maybe both pilots had their heads down looking at the radio at once, maybe they thought a different aircraft was that one, maybe they saw lights on the ground and thought it was the aircraft, maybe they were doing an emergency procedure training, and they were distracted by that. I don’t know what happened in that cockpit.”
Despite the tragedy, Lilley is finding peace among the families of the other victims and by honoring his son.
Lilley told Fox News Digital that his local Georgia community has rallied around their family, with his company sending a private jet to transport Sam’s loved ones to the site of the crash.
“There were 67 people who lost their lives, and there were families there that had new widows and new orphans and who lost two children and Olympic hopefuls and high-caliber lawyers,” Lilley said. “Every single person involved in this accident, I’d want to be friends with – both in the Black Hawk and in the [airplane].”
He is also looking for ways to honor his son, including pushing for aviation safety and getting a tattoo in remembrance of Sam.
PSA airlines has posthumously awarded Sam with the title of honorary captain, saying in a statement that “the title reflects not only his technical expertise but also the profound impact he had on our airline family.”
American Airlines did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
“It’s a tragedy, these lives ended way before any of us were ready for it,” Lilley told Fox News Digital.
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