Plane crash DCA?

[Anonymous]

Why do they allow military aircraft and commercial aircraft in the same space without the ability to communicate directly with each other? If military craft want to use that airspace for routine transportation between bases, shouldn’t they be required to open their communications? Or maybe I misunderstood what I’ve been reading? It’s not like they’re routinely near DCA conducting secret military operations, right? Even if they’re transporting a VIP, what purpose does it serve that outweighs the safety risk? And if it’s that vital, why not take a slightly less direct route and not risk the lives of civilians flying in and out of DCA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People please watch this or one of the other great explanation videos posted before asking any more questions. Most of your questions will be answered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0

Thank you—this is super informative. Thinking of everyone involved.

yes informative. And really drives home the multiple errors.

To me it drives home multiple potential factors but one glaring (and avoidable) rule breach: the helicopter flew at 400 ft in an area that was restricted to 200 ft. The other factors may well have contributed but ultimately this is the one that matters and the rule is already in place. The military helicopter didn't follow the rules.

Maybe the military helicopters often break that rule, maybe they make their own rules... ok, that takes away the helo pilot's (or the crew's) personal responsibility. But from all of these helpful explanations what has become clearer is that there is a system in place to prevent this from happening and the military helicopter was at fault.

A second important question is whether we should improve safety in other ways that people here are mentioning. But I agree with PP that it is crucial to understand the specifics of this accident to prevent future tragedies. And the fact remains, if both aircrafts had followed the rules, this would not have happened.

Re altitude at 350 by airport passing and not 200


This really builds distrust of military exercises in DC.

They never follow the altitude rules and can’t be bothered to.

Then layer in this gross negligence and incompetency or “total brain farts” and here we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't followed whole thread but is anyone discussing possibility this was intentional? It just seems way too much of a coincidence that the helo doesn't see the correct plane after ATC gives explicit description using landmarks and then in the last seconds, fly up 150 feet and veer a bit right to smash directly into the plane. Even if helo had wrong plane in sight, if it didn't make these dramatic movements at the last second, there would have been no collision. It just seems way too coincidental for me.

I wondered that too except that it was the copilot (the instructor) who was on the radio saying they had visual separation. So if the pilot decided to intentionally crash the plane, the copilot and instructor wouldn't have been going along with it just second before the crash.

Good point. But maybe it was the copilot who sabotaged the flight at the last second? All explanations have gaping holes but I can't help but feel something happened during those last seconds on that helo. I just hope we actually learn the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were they flowing 200 feet above the maxixmum altitude. And on top of that not seeing a plane that is descending right in front of them. Seems the helicopter did so many things wrong. Doesn’t really make sense.

Watch the video shared above. It’ll help you understand.

DP, I watched the video and it’s excellent however it does not answer the question WHY the helicopter was 200 feet above the maximum altitude Recommend recommended for that area of the flightpath.

One of the comments on the YouTube was from another pilot who says he overhears the ATC telling helicopters at DCA they’re too high all the time.

Lovely.

At night when DCA is still operating?!?

I was just coming here to mention that comment on the YouTube video. I was a passenger coming into Dca on a flight a couple of years ago scheduled to land at 9:45. All of a sudden we banked up a few minutes away from landing and took a circle around to land again. The pilot apologized and sort of laughingly said we had a helicopter in our way the first time.

I’m going to start going in the entertainment ATC systems to listen in every time I’m departing and landing at DCA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trump forced the faa director to quit.

This airport and ATC standards have been a problem for a long time. It didn’t suddenly fall apart Jan 20. The hiring freeze has nothing to do with current ATC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do these helicopters need to go by this airports landing area? Or any airports landing area if they aren't landing or taking off from there?

No fly zones over downtown cities like DC, NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc.

No fly zones over pentagon in Arlington VA too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:They were so young, and many were traveling with their moms. It’s unimaginable.

I'm a mom and my first thought was I would have wanted to be on that plane with my kids. I can't imagine otherwise.

Such an awful choice because they probably have kids at home too.

I'm PP, and in that case I'd feel different about it. I was thinking of the two sisters (because I have two girls who also do the same sport) but I have no idea if their parents had other children. It just makes me sick.

Np here. My kids are young adults and I still think about this when they fly without me. I hate the thought of not being with them if something scary happened.

In this case, I am choosing to assume for now that nobody on the plane saw this coming and they all died on impact. So they didn’t experience any fear or suffering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I landed at this forum after Googling my question. I apologize if this is not an acceptable means for joining in:

From the helo pilot’s point of view, if you are traveling in a direction nearly head-on with an approaching plane whose path is slowly curving to the plane’s left towards an assigned runway, isn’t a request to "pass behind the plane" dangerously ambiguous relative to whether turning left or right is a safe maneuver? If at the time of the “pass request” the approaching plane is in-sight but is headed slight left of the current path of the helo, then the helo pilot steers his craft to his right. But within a few seconds, the approaching plane’s left-curve path has crossed the old projected path of the helo and is now to the right of the helo’s path, and the helo has tried to avoid the plane’s near head-on path by choosing the wrong path to “pass behind”.

This is a great point. I do feel like ATC lacked urgency and clear direction, given the couple recordings I’ve read.

From what I have read, the tower usually reduces by one ATC at 9:30pm and then a reamining ATC manages both helicopters and planes but on this night, the other ATC left an hour early - at 8:30. It seems maybe the crash happened during this shift turnover when the ATC was still doing his job and taking over for the ATC leaving early that night.

But ATC did communicate with the helicopter a couple times. But it gave the vague direction to “go behind” the plane. But given they were flying straight on, saying go behind assumes the helicopter knew the plane was about to make a hard turn to the runway. That seems obvious- but when given directions to flying planes it seems like protocol would be to use specific direction, not behind. The helicopter and the plane aren’t on the same frequency and couldn’t communicate.

There’s a lot of trust with pilots, each other and ATC.
When they say they see it and further request “visual separation” they are taking responsibility.

3+ terrible mistakes happened here in the helicopter part.

It is terrible that the jet didn’t look down and right, see the dark black hawk and abort landing/pull up.

Terrible that ATC didn’t explicitly order the help to drop altitude and bank left immediately.

And super terrible that the help didn’t understand where a RJ landing on 33 would be coming in from.

I'm not sure the plane pilots could see the helo because they were banking left and the helo crashed from the right. Before they started banking, they could see a helo flying towards them but at much lower altitude. I don't think anyone could have imagined the helo would pretty much aim for the plane the last seconds by going up and right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do these helicopters need to go by this airports landing area? Or any airports landing area if they aren't landing or taking off from there?

No fly zones over downtown cities like DC, NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc.

No fly zones over pentagon in Arlington VA too

Then maybe helicopters aren’t a great transportation option for the military in DC. If there’s an emergency, fine, but to bring someone home faster out of mere convenience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trump forced the faa director to quit.

This airport and ATC standards have been a problem for a long time. It didn’t suddenly fall apart Jan 20. The hiring freeze has nothing to do with current ATC

This may be true but, in this situation, ATC appears to have done everything properly. Who is to blame for ATC standards is not the debate anyone should be having.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I landed at this forum after Googling my question. I apologize if this is not an acceptable means for joining in:

From the helo pilot’s point of view, if you are traveling in a direction nearly head-on with an approaching plane whose path is slowly curving to the plane’s left towards an assigned runway, isn’t a request to "pass behind the plane" dangerously ambiguous relative to whether turning left or right is a safe maneuver? If at the time of the “pass request” the approaching plane is in-sight but is headed slight left of the current path of the helo, then the helo pilot steers his craft to his right. But within a few seconds, the approaching plane’s left-curve path has crossed the old projected path of the helo and is now to the right of the helo’s path, and the helo has tried to avoid the plane’s near head-on path by choosing the wrong path to “pass behind”.

This is a great point. I do feel like ATC lacked urgency and clear direction, given the couple recordings I’ve read.

From what I have read, the tower usually reduces by one ATC at 9:30pm and then a reamining ATC manages both helicopters and planes but on this night, the other ATC left an hour early - at 8:30. It seems maybe the crash happened during this shift turnover when the ATC was still doing his job and taking over for the ATC leaving early that night.

But ATC did communicate with the helicopter a couple times. But it gave the vague direction to “go behind” the plane. But given they were flying straight on, saying go behind assumes the helicopter knew the plane was about to make a hard turn to the runway. That seems obvious- but when given directions to flying planes it seems like protocol would be to use specific direction, not behind. The helicopter and the plane aren’t on the same frequency and couldn’t communicate.

There’s a lot of trust with pilots, each other and ATC.
When they say they see it and further request “visual separation” they are taking responsibility.

3+ terrible mistakes happened here in the helicopter part.

It is terrible that the jet didn’t look down and right, see the dark black hawk and abort landing/pull up.

Terrible that ATC didn’t explicitly order the help to drop altitude and bank left immediately.

And super terrible that the help didn’t understand where a RJ landing on 33 would be coming in from.

The regional jet pilit's line of sight over the nose and underneath is basically non existent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I landed at this forum after Googling my question. I apologize if this is not an acceptable means for joining in:

From the helo pilot’s point of view, if you are traveling in a direction nearly head-on with an approaching plane whose path is slowly curving to the plane’s left towards an assigned runway, isn’t a request to "pass behind the plane" dangerously ambiguous relative to whether turning left or right is a safe maneuver? If at the time of the “pass request” the approaching plane is in-sight but is headed slight left of the current path of the helo, then the helo pilot steers his craft to his right. But within a few seconds, the approaching plane’s left-curve path has crossed the old projected path of the helo and is now to the right of the helo’s path, and the helo has tried to avoid the plane’s near head-on path by choosing the wrong path to “pass behind”.

I cannot follow this at all.

Both planes are flying head on. ATC says “go behind” but the direction the helicopter thought would be behind the plane turns out wasn’t bc the plane turned opposite of what helicopter was anticipated. This make a lot of sense.

You are ignoring the context of the situation. The CJR was landing. That would have been obvious to the helo, given that's the only thing a plane is going to be doing flying at that altitude in that location. The helo's flight path was taking them through the approach to DCA.

"Going behind" obviously means waiting until the CJR crosses your flight path before proceeding. They obviously didn't do that.

There's no reasonable justification for the helo's actions that doesn't involve gross negligence on their part. If, as some claimed, they saw the lights from second airplane (4 miles away), then they ignored the command from ATC, thinking that they could cut in front of the plane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trump forced the faa director to quit.

Anyone blaming this crash on Trump in any way is as stupid as Trump blaming this crash on DEI.

We know enough about the key factors to know they don't involve Trump or DEI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still nothing in the media about the "VIP"
leg of the flight (which is why the helo had a "training" leg at this time and place.

And there may never be. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

It should be in the final report

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People please watch this or one of the other great explanation videos posted before asking any more questions. Most of your questions will be answered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0

Thank you—this is super informative. Thinking of everyone involved.

yes informative. And really drives home the multiple errors.

To me it drives home multiple potential factors but one glaring (and avoidable) rule breach: the helicopter flew at 400 ft in an area that was restricted to 200 ft. The other factors may well have contributed but ultimately this is the one that matters and the rule is already in place. The military helicopter didn't follow the rules.

Maybe the military helicopters often break that rule, maybe they make their own rules... ok, that takes away the helo pilot's (or the crew's) personal responsibility. But from all of these helpful explanations what has become clearer is that there is a system in place to prevent this from happening and the military helicopter was at fault.

A second important question is whether we should improve safety in other ways that people here are mentioning. But I agree with PP that it is crucial to understand the specifics of this accident to prevent future tragedies. And the fact remains, if both aircrafts had followed the rules, this would not have happened.

Re altitude at 350 by airport passing and not 200


This really builds distrust of military exercises in DC.

They never follow the altitude rules and can’t be bothered to.

Then layer in this gross negligence and incompetency or “total brain farts” and here we are.

agreed. If a big change comes out of this tragedy, I hope it's that helicopters have to take a completely different route.