Inside the Tower; Unmanned; Wonder of the World | 60 Minutes Full Episodes [1:55-6:57]

It was a week of chaos at airports across the country. Gridlock in Washington left TSA workers without pay, triggering four hour security lines in some of the nation's busiest airports. Last Sunday, a commercial jet crashed into a fire truck while landing on a runway at New York's LaGuardia airport. Dozens were injured and two pilots were killed. These are investigating, but the air traffic controller on duty said they were dealing with an earlier emergency, and soon after the accident said, I messed up. It is a chilling reminder of just how thin our aviation system is stretched. Last year, American Airlines flight 5342 and an Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River near DC, the deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century. Tonight, you will hear from an air traffic controller who was inside the tower the day of that collision. She tells us why controllers at Washington's busiest airport have been warning of danger for years. It is a story of a system pushed to the breaking point, and the shattered families left to pick up the pieces. In Southern Maryland, seven widows whose husbands were on flight 5342 agreed to share their story together for the first time. The men, all work buddies, met up with friends in Kansas for a week of duck hunting. The women shared these photos with us, and the excitement their husbands felt leading up to the trip. Alex got home from work. He was like, before you say anything, it's already paid for. I was like, when do you leave? There was no asking any more questions. He was so excited to go. It literally looked like Christmas morning in his face, so. Kayla Huffman's husband, Alex, posed with the crew and their trophies. Bridget Johnson was married to Steve for 19 years. Kylie Pitcher's husband, Jessie, owned a plumbing company. Ashley Stovels' husband, Mikey, was a steam fitter. So was Charlie, Heather McDaniel's husband. I met Charlie on the softball field, and he basically, from that day, always said, you know, I knew I was going to marry that girl. Because you were that good of a softball player? Well, that too. Yes. I gave him a run for his money. When the hunting and fun was over, the men headed to the airport. There are Boyd's husband, John, checked in from the plane. John had texted me when he first boarded and said, boarded, bourbon, and hand. And then right before they landed, he said about to land this bird. Jill Claggett was tucked into bed with her young daughters, waiting for her husband, Tommy, when the phone rang. And then I kind of slid out of the bed, not to wake them up. And I turned on the TV, and I remember just seeing the explosion. Fire commands, the accident happened in the river. Families race to the airport as diver searched the icy Potomac. By morning, they were told the rescue mission was over. I literally screamed, what am I going to do? I got to the point where his friends were calling me like five in the morning, and they're like, is he OK? Is he OK? Is he OK? He's gone. And it's no longer a rescue. It's a recovery, which means there's no survivors. None. As the wreckage was pulled from the river, federal investigators began a year-long forensic autopsy of the collision. Video shows the American Airlines jet seen here on the right of your screen pulled up just before it and the Army helicopter collided. There were obvious cracks in the system. There were obvious holes. Emily Hanokka says she saw those holes during her time as an air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan, Washington National Airport, commonly known by its airport code DCA. Her shift in the control tower ended a few hours before the fatal crash. She is speaking for the first time about the stress conditions that she believes set the stage for tragedy. So you had frontline controllers ringing that bell for years and years saying, this is not safe. This cannot continue. Please change this. And that didn't happen. For more than a decade, air traffic controllers warned the Federal Aviation Administration that the tempo of passenger jets and beehive of Army, police, and hospital helicopters near DCA was a recipe for disaster. The NTSB confirms between 2021 and 2024, 85 near mid-air collisions between helicopters and commercial aircraft at DCA were reported to the FAA. And 60 minutes has obtained documents that revealed just one day before last year's fatal crash, two separate passenger jets had to take sudden action to avoid colliding with Army helicopters. The warning signs are all there. Controllers forms local safety councils.