Atlanta

Georgia state lawmakers, US Senator weigh in on crash over Washington

(Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
(Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

ATLANTA — Several Georgia lawmakers were flying into and out of Washington on Wednesday just before the catastrophic accident that killed more than 60 people in a mid-air collision over the Potomac River.

Channel 2′s Richard Elliot spoke to a lawmaker at the Georgia Capitol who said he used to fly over Washington in a helicopter just like the one involved in the crash.

That lawmaker, State Rep. Floyd Griffin of Milledgeville, said he used to fly the same type of chopper, shuttling VIPs around the U.S. Capitol.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Griffin said that flight corridor is tight and dangerous.

“I saw it this morning when I opened my iPad up,” Griffin told Elliot. “It hit me like a ton of bricks.”

Griffin is a first-term lawmaker, but back in the 1970s and 1980s, he was an army pilot. Before flying VIPs, he flew combat missions over Vietnam.

“I’m kind of glad I didn’t see it last night, because I probably would’ve had a night of very little sleep,” Griffin told Channel 2 Action News.

TRENDING STORIES:

The state representative said it’s very strict flying through that area over Washington.

“You have to be on your p’s and q’s all of the time because it’s so much traffic in that area,” Griffin said.

A delegation of Georgia state lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and House Speaker Jon Burns, was in Washington on Wednesday to see President Donald Trump sign the Laken Riley Act into law.

As soon as they landed, they told Elliot they were getting phone calls from concerned friends.

“A bittersweet day turned into a very sad and tragic day,” Burns said. “The loss of life there is pretty incomprehensible.”

Warnock said his heart “breaks for these victims” of the crash. He too has flown out of Reagan National Airport dozens of times as a sitting U.S. Senator.

He said that even though he’s no longer serving on a committee overseeing transportation, there should still be a full investigation into what went wrong.

“This was a tragedy and leaders in Washington must get to the bottom of this to ensure that it never happens again,” Warnock said.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

0