Plane crash DCA?

[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.

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.

Please share your alternate theory that does not "strain credulity."

This is the most likely scenario. They were wearing the goggles and the ambient lights from the surrounding city camouflaged the closer plane.

I'm having more trouble believing as you do that one or all of them saw the plane and hit it anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been confirmed that the helicopter crew was wearing night vision goggles.

This is likely to play a role in what they did and did not see. Night vision goggles can greatly reduce your overall vision. I also question whether it is possible to properly read your radar with them on.

One aspect of the investigation should look into why a helicopter training flight was cleared to use night vision goggles in an area with so much air traffic. The seems like an accident waiting to happen.

Confirmed by whom? All I heard in the release was the goggles were on board but they couldn’t confirm if they were in use.

What does goggles have to do with flying st the wrong required altitude?

It doesn't. It's just multiple "holes of the swiss cheese" lining up to create an unlikely disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been confirmed that the helicopter crew was wearing night vision goggles.

This is likely to play a role in what they did and did not see. Night vision goggles can greatly reduce your overall vision. I also question whether it is possible to properly read your radar with them on.

One aspect of the investigation should look into why a helicopter training flight was cleared to use night vision goggles in an area with so much air traffic. The seems like an accident waiting to happen.

Confirmed by whom? All I heard in the release was the goggles were on board but they couldn’t confirm if they were in use.

Hmm, this is odd. Hegseth stated it in is statement this morning, and earlier Washington Post had it listed in their "what we know" page on the crash (in fact I think it said that the training flight was specifically to train for flying with night vision goggles on), but it has since been removed from that page.

Odd that this would be reported for several hours and then suddenly change without an announcement of why (like maybe the pilots did not have the goggles on when they recovered them). Perhaps simply the result of info being reported as it's available but this could be a critical issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the orange fruitcake was back live to be seen signing useless papers and spewing more crap. He’ll have to take those back like all the other lies he signed this week. He doesn’t care about the victims. He knows the world is watching and press is his only concern. I guess he’ll be back later today and he can take questions while he eats dinner.

Wait till you find out what the papers were.

I refuse to listen to his orange lips speak.

Well he doesn’t say much here.

[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.

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.

Please share your alternate theory that does not "strain credulity."

This is the most likely scenario. They were wearing the goggles and the ambient lights from the surrounding city camouflaged the closer plane.

I'm having more trouble believing as you do that one or all of them saw the plane and hit it anyway.

PP here and you misunderstand me. My point is that is that it strains credulity that it would *just* be confirmation bias, if there were three people in the helicopter. Because with each additional person you increase the likelihood someone looks at the radar and says "no there's another plane" or similar.

I agree that there must be an additional factor, like all three of them wearing night vision goggles, that would explain how three people could have somehow missed the closer plane on both the radar AND visually out the window of the helicopter.

I think the explanation that it was only confirmation bias is highly unlikely because of the number of people involved. There must be a reason none of the three of them saw the other plane which (if you look at flight paths) was bearing directly towards them for close to a full minute prior to collisions (both the plane and the helicopter veer west right before collision, the plane because it's the path to get to the runway, the helicopter for unknown reasons -- they had been told to go behind the plane which would have sent them east).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the orange fruitcake was back live to be seen signing useless papers and spewing more crap. He’ll have to take those back like all the other lies he signed this week. He doesn’t care about the victims. He knows the world is watching and press is his only concern. I guess he’ll be back later today and he can take questions while he eats dinner.

Wait till you find out what the papers were.

I refuse to listen to his orange lips speak.

Well he doesn’t say much here.

Because he's clueless about what he's signing so he can't say much about it. Big sharpie, write my name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Jonathan Koziol, a retired Army chief warrant officer with more than 30 years of flight experience, told reporters that the flight was a nighttime qualification flight with an instructor pilot evaluating an experienced pilot on the flight routes that their unit routinely flies day and night around the Potomac River…

Koziol confirmed that the instructor pilot had more than 1,000 flight hours and that the pilot being evaluated had more than 500 hours. The evaluated pilot was in command of the flight, but if an emergency was to occur the instructor would have taken control of the helicopter.

Koziol said the maximum altitude for this route is 200 feet; the helicopter appeared to be flying at about 350 feet, according to sources.

Part of the unit’s responsibility is to fly VIPs around the D.C. area, and that includes getting them out of the area if "something really bad happens," he said, "so they do need to be able to understand the environment, the air traffic, the routes, to ensure the safe travel of our senior leaders throughout our government

Koziol is chief of staff for Army aviation.

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/live-updates/dc-crash-live-updates-trump-says-confluence-of-bad-decisions-that-were-made-118247845

Hesgeth also stated that the helo flight is continuity related (which T didn’t understand when asked at his presser 🤦‍♀️)


Now I understand why they would have the training flights on that route

I dunno, the whole “we need to practice to get the *important* people out so we’re going to put civilians at risk” thing doesn’t sit well with me.

Also makes me question why we have everyone centralized in DC in the first place. Makes more sense to spread everyone out, and if we need a central location to meet, have it out in the middle of nowhere so we don’t even need to get people out.

Especially with technology nowadays, in-person is really obsolete.

I wasn’t validating the reason, but that has been one of the giant WTFs to me- why would they ever have that as a training route? Now I understand the reason but I agree with your points. They do already have a number of places far from DC.

[Anonymous]

Interesting comment from someone claiming to be a USCG helicopter pilot who has flown this route:

Common question: what about Night Vision Goggles (NVGs)? - I’m in the USCG, but I assume this Army crew likely had NVGs. But goggles are not a panacea… they don’t show color, they dramatically limit your peripheral view, and in bright, urban environments, they can get oversaturated aka washed out. Flying through DC, it can change minute by minute as to whether you are better off “aided” (goggles down in front of your eyes) or “unaided” (goggles flipped up out of the way on your helmet). Sometimes it even varies depending on which side of the aircraft you’re on. Just because they had goggles doesn’t mean they were more likely to see the airliner. The airliner has a lot of bright lights on already, and the same goggles that help them avoid trees and power lines could also have reduced their peripheral vision at key moments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The AA pilot's father identified him. Photos. He was White.

So what. He didn’t fly at the wrong altitude by double and kamikazi a passenger jet.

Right. But Drump is vague about whose DEI hires are at fault.

[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.

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

And the radar.

Do they do this training exercise not only at night during rush hour at DCA, but with NO RADAR on?

Someone pls confirm.

[Anonymous]

Trump mentioned DEI so that people would be talking about that instead of the Jan 20 removal of the FAA head, and his proposed fed cuts, it’s embarrassing that people think there’s anything to it beyond him wanting a scapegoat and to change the conversation. The fact that he immediately appointed a new head speaks to how he didn’t want that to be the focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it real bizarre that musk forced the head of the FAA to resign. Apparently he didn’t like the regulations and fines being suggested for Space-X misbehavior. It’s just so weird to me how we are subject to this fool’s desires.

I also read that several air traffic controllers had their job offers rescinded by the new administration. They have been reinstated now of course.

I don't think the word to describe this is "bizarre." I think the word is criminal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

And the radar.

Do they do this training exercise not only at night during rush hour at DCA, but with NO RADAR on?

Someone pls confirm.

You really want some ignorant armchair detective to spin up a faux theory about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting comment from someone claiming to be a USCG helicopter pilot who has flown this route:

Common question: what about Night Vision Goggles (NVGs)? - I’m in the USCG, but I assume this Army crew likely had NVGs. But goggles are not a panacea… they don’t show color, they dramatically limit your peripheral view, and in bright, urban environments, they can get oversaturated aka washed out. Flying through DC, it can change minute by minute as to whether you are better off “aided” (goggles down in front of your eyes) or “unaided” (goggles flipped up out of the way on your helmet). Sometimes it even varies depending on which side of the aircraft you’re on. Just because they had goggles doesn’t mean they were more likely to see the airliner. The airliner has a lot of bright lights on already, and the same goggles that help them avoid trees and power lines could also have reduced their peripheral vision at key moments.

This is interesting but also begs more questions than it answers.

This seems like an insane way to train people to do what sounds like a complicated and potentially dangerous maneuver. I understand you need to be trained to evacuate people from DC at night even with commercial jet traffic. And that you might include night vision goggles in that training because you need to both avoid power lines/trees as well as other aircraft. But should that training really occur in a place with actual commercial flights in the area? Can't they use simulators and then some kind of staged training course IRL (using aircraft NOT carrying innocent civilians).

It feels like they rolled the dice with civilian planes at DCA as a way to train pilots to evacuate VIPs. Does that sit right with anyone? Not with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it real bizarre that musk forced the head of the FAA to resign. Apparently he didn’t like the regulations and fines being suggested for Space-X misbehavior. It’s just so weird to me how we are subject to this fool’s desires.

I also read that several air traffic controllers had their job offers rescinded by the new administration. They have been reinstated now of course.

I don't think the word to describe this is "bizarre." I think the word is criminal.

Didn't he also cut the aviation safety committee?