Plane crash DCA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reporter: Do you have a plan to go visit the site?

Trump: I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water?

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1885073436399329576

Dumb question. Maybe take a helo ride over it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

You seem to not understand that it’s human nature to want to know who was piloting the helicopter that collided with my friend’s aircraft.

It’s a basic fact that will get out, so I can wait.

The more we wait, the more they seem to be hiding things.

Human nature also wants to know the why and what happened here.

CoNsPiRaCy tHeOrIeS!

Chill TF out.

+1 PP's post is a long way of saying they DGAF about the families, which tracks with what their cult leader has told them to think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

You seem to not understand that it’s human nature to want to know who was piloting the helicopter that collided with my friend’s aircraft.

It’s a basic fact that will get out, so I can wait.

The more we wait, the more they seem to be hiding things.

Human nature also wants to know the why and what happened here.

None of what you said means you get to know before the families do or that they should find out their loved one died on the news.

The families know

The family of the FO on the jet found out on reddit, shortly after the crash. With the speed of the internet, most families found out long before anyone officially notified them.

If you have a family member flying into that airport, from that destination, you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

Give me a break. Even bankers know to double check their numbers and have a healthy sense of paranoia to check around.

Piloting a huge black hawk a quarter mile from a busy active airport at night at the wrong altitude is WAY BEYOND confidence biases and confirmation biases.

They’ll disclose the investigation, the background of the pilot in control, and the helo black box recording.

So what is your presumption then? He saw the plane and just decided to hit it anyway? As unlikely as it seems that he did not see the plane, it's even MORE unlikely that he saw it and chose to do nothing to avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

Right? Instead of jumping upon this as an opportunity to self-promote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

Did both the trainee pilot and the evaluator pilot miss the plane?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

You seem to not understand that it’s human nature to want to know who was piloting the helicopter that collided with my friend’s aircraft.

It’s a basic fact that will get out, so I can wait.

The more we wait, the more they seem to be hiding things.

It has not yet been 24 hours. There has been no formal identification of any victim list with the exception of families who chose to speak publicly.

Your post is the hallmark of crazy conspiracy thinking.

Human nature also wants to know the why and what happened here.

It has not even been 24 hours!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

You seem to not understand that it’s human nature to want to know who was piloting the helicopter that collided with my friend’s aircraft.

It’s a basic fact that will get out, so I can wait.

The more we wait, the more they seem to be hiding things.

Human nature also wants to know the why and what happened here.

None of what you said means you get to know before the families do or that they should find out their loved one died on the news.

The families know

The family of the FO on the jet found out on reddit, shortly after the crash. With the speed of the internet, most families found out long before anyone officially notified them.

If you have a family member flying into that airport, from that destination, you know.

+1. There is only one nonstop flight per day on that route on any airline. So if you flew Wichita to DC yesterday without a connection, you were on that plane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just heard the pilot of the helicopter was a woman. Trump, Hegseth and MAGA are getting ready to ramp up their “I Told You So” tour.

You heard from Fox or maybe one of the MAGA nuts?

It is clearly a male voice from the radio.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r90Xw3tQC0I

Man, the male helo pilot (or copilot) said at both ATC warnings that yes, they have visual separation and then went and crashed into the underside of the jet.

W T F.

They could have been watch another plane. It is in the video. Though he could have stopped. Helicopter can hover.

No. Look at the radar. If the helicopter pilot was looking at another plane, he was staring out the side window of the helicopter.

The plane he crashed into is directly in front of him. Even accounting for the fact the plane is descending in altitude and the dark, there is no plausible way the helicopter pilot though they were talking about one of the other planes. There was only one other plane in the vicinity and it's to the side and behind the helicopter.

Also the ATC identifies the aircraft by call sign, which presumably should have shown up on helicopter radar as well.

Dude, they have navigational tools and fly off those most of all! They know an approaching aircraft’s altitude, speed, angle.

If pilot was “looking out since wrong side window” at a different jet farther away, that’s malpractice, malfeasance, negligence and pure idiocy.

They look at both the navs and outside visuals.

Guess which one is most accurate? To the point that in a white out or black out situation they only use it? The Navs!

Something dumb happened here.

And if it’s a cascade of substandard DEI admittances and promotions, so be it.

We need to know.

If it turns out she was piloting, it was the man who radioed they saw the plane. So, it can't entirely be her fault. I mean if you're headed straight for a plane, aren't the other two people on board going to start shouting? If this is going to be some DEI thing, I think we have to be honest that likely all of them are at fault, and perhaps whoever ordered them to be flying then.

Don’t let yourself be manipulated so easily.

NO ONE was focused on the race or gender of the pilots before Trump out that in your head.

Um, Pete Buttigeig spent 4 years focusing on race of people in the aviation industry, and specifically complaining there were too many white people.

Google it.

Here, I’ll help you out for starters:

https://abc7.com/pete-buttigieg-aviation-industry-compton-airline-issues/12033844/

No one considered this topic to be relevant to the crash, until Trump raised it. When asked for his evidence, all he came up with was “common sense.”

- except if you simply google Buttigeig’s public statements for the last 4 years, he constantly spoke about:

Diversity.

How about we maybe focus now on safety instead? Is that too much to ask??


(And safety is the topic here)

He most definitely stressed safety as well! Did you just Google his name and diversity or did you also Google his name and safety? You get what you look for. If you're only looking for diversity that's all you're gonna find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

Did both the trainee pilot and the evaluator pilot miss the plane?

Who even knows if they were really training, or if that is just code for they were "chillin' on the way back from dropping some VIP at Langley." We just don't know.

But again, let's play your question out. Do you honestly think one or both of them DID see the plane, but said/did nothing? Seems very unlikely. People generally like staying alive if possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They released the name of the crew chief, who was in the back of the helicopter- but why haven’t they released the name of the pilot and co pilot?

Perhaps they haven't been able to get in touch with next of kin yet? They need to do that, before releasing names.

A lot of posters here don't understand that the 67 people who died have families that deserve compassion and that takes precedence over their hateful politicizing of this horrific tragedy. If only there was some national leader who was in charge of offering wisdom and empathy during crises like this.

You seem to not understand that it’s human nature to want to know who was piloting the helicopter that collided with my friend’s aircraft.

It’s a basic fact that will get out, so I can wait.

The more we wait, the more they seem to be hiding things.

Human nature also wants to know the why and what happened here.

+1

While rare, deaths from air travel invoke high-profile, lengthy, expensive NTSB investigations.

The public (and press) have intense interest in the outcome of these fact-finding missions.

Some may not like that, but openness is crucial to trust and democracy.

It’s ok to be invasive into people’s privacy while they go through major trauma and spread baseless gossip because…something something…democracy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

Give me a break. Even bankers know to double check their numbers and have a healthy sense of paranoia to check around.

Piloting a huge black hawk a quarter mile from a busy active airport at night at the wrong altitude is WAY BEYOND confidence biases and confirmation biases.

They’ll disclose the investigation, the background of the pilot in control, and the helo black box recording.

Uh, yes. They will do an RCA on this as occurs in all disasters in both aviation and medicine, with the intention to minimize areas of potential error going forward which are….wait for it, generally systematic and human, no matter how WAY BEYOND you think this event was. This is how wrong limbs get cut off in the OR, this is how the Air Florida flight crashed into the bridge in 1982, this is how 3 mile island happened. Swiss cheese holes, bad timing, and bad luck. And human error. That’s why these events are studied, to reduce the last one.

Not sure what argument you’re trying to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

Give me a break. Even bankers know to double check their numbers and have a healthy sense of paranoia to check around.

Piloting a huge black hawk a quarter mile from a busy active airport at night at the wrong altitude is WAY BEYOND confidence biases and confirmation biases.

They’ll disclose the investigation, the background of the pilot in control, and the helo black box recording.

Uh, yes. They will do an RCA on this as occurs in all disasters in both aviation and medicine, with the intention to minimize areas of potential error going forward which are….wait for it, generally systematic and human, no matter how WAY BEYOND you think this event was. This is how wrong limbs get cut off in the OR, this is how the Air Florida flight crashed into the bridge in 1982, this is how 3 mile island happened. Swiss cheese holes, bad timing, and bad luck. And human error. That’s why these events are studied, to reduce the last one.

Not sure what argument you’re trying to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

This might make sense if there was one pilot on the helicopter. There were two plus a crew chief. You're telling me that three people collectively assumed the CRJ they were told was there by air traffic control was the one *behind* the jet they were about to run into, and not one of them at any point looked at the radar or just out the front of the helicopter and said 'whoa actually there's a plane right in front of us'?

It strains credulity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.

I see what you are saying. But the Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane.

It’s confirmation bias. When your brain thinks you’ve seen “the thing” it stops looking for other things, even if your eyes are on the sky/screen/whathaveyou.

We teach our residents “what do you look for after you see a fracture?” (on X-ray or CT, whatever). The answer is “the second fracture”.

I’ve seen people miss some crazy sh!t bc their eyes and brain are looking at what they think the pathology is, and they’re completely blind to the other issue that’s literally right there.

We take a lot of our error reduction education from the aviation industry, or at least try to. Pilots are better than we are at acknowledging the propensity for human error (probably bc a lot of us doctors are @ssholes).

We cleared our incoming space last night for a mass casualty event in prep for what we hoped were survivors. Awful when no one came.

I’m also an MD. I’m really sorry, the conversion from rescue to recovery is tragic. And I agree - the human senses have their limits, and pilots are more objective than most when it comes to admitting those limitations. Our eyes are not digital cameras. What they see are influenced by what we saw beforehand, what is currently on our minds, what other people are telling us, and what we are or are not focused on. The gorilla suit social experiment is a classic example.

Aviation has got to be the most complicated profession I can think of that involves a technical knowledge base, extrapolation from multiple instruments readings and your own senses, and physical manipulation of controls. All while hundreds of people’s lives are at stake.

William Langewiesche has written haunting longform articles about airplane crashes that are worth a read. He is a former pilot and writes eloquently on human fallibility.