Plane crash DCA?

[Anonymous]

In situations like this where a helicopter route goes right next to a commercial airport and pilots on helo and airliners lack direct communications, is there something like “right of way” established between them? Who should yield to whom?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Came out last night that the sidestep to 33 was because ATC had put multiple jets on final for 1 too close. The whole event started long before, with at least one plane refusing to switch to 33. Still primarily the helicopter fault but having 1 tower ATC was a large contributing factor. Many of us in the aviation community have felt this is the exact scenario the multiple near collisions over the last 24 months would bring.

Runway 33 is perfect for regional jets.

200 seaters can’t use it.

Not a big deal. Usually.

That's fine but that wasn't the original flight plan - the tower ATC had multiple landings spaced too closely and needed one of them to move from the pattern (landing on 1) to landing on 33. This is normal, but it shouldn't be normal - there should be enough ATC capacity so that the tower doesn't get behind the queue. Like everything else by itself it's fine, but it's another hole in the swiss cheese that led to this disaster. Just like having see and avoid. Just like night vision goggles. Just like conflicting traffic patterns. None of these on their own was the only cause. They all had to line up together and they did tonight. The public has no idea how close things have been.

I strongly disagree with the "all had to line up together" argument. There is one issue that is one major violation of protocol that trumps everything: the altitude of the helicopter.

You can discuss that there should be a better procedure in place and many would agree with you. But here is one that was in place and was violated. Everything else is a contributing factor.

Disobeying the command from ATC to wait until the plane passed in front of them was probably the bigger failure.

Ok. I stand corrected. Two major violations on the part of military helicopter.

Reduced staffing of the ATC tower.

Conflicting air traffic patterns that regularly require deconflicting were the norm.

Reduced staffing of the ATC tower.

The staff did exactly what it was supposed to do, so reduced or not, that is not the problem. Red herring.

Conflicting air traffic patterns that regularly require deconflicting were the norm.

For future improved safety, good point. For this situation: red herring. ATC was on top of the situation and gave instructions to avoid collision. Helicopter confirmed.

It's all part of the swiss cheese model. All the failures need to line up.

So now ATC needs to assume the army pilots can look at their radar for their closest jets or at which runway is which? And describe everything in poetic detail? Teach the pilot you have model? All realtime- not trust the pilots to understand basic stuff like runway number, required altitude, active airport, middle of the river vs East bank?

No that’s not the Swiss Cheese model where every stakeholder is simultaneously failing.

This was helicopter pilot team not following altitude protocol and not double checking radars or two runway lines.

ATC did not fail

CRJ did not fail.

No thanks. Pilot DQ. Get a neuropsych.

I've seen this "look at their radar" comment a few times, from someone who obviously has never sat in a cockpit. The pilot flying is looking OUTSIDE, not staring at their on-board radar scopes. This isn't flight simulator - the radar systems are not the same at ATC and while yes there is a conflict alert this isn't something you can scan easily with might vision. Fault here will go to the helo pilot but this is absolutely swiss cheese - if ATC hadn't screwed up the incoming traffic he wouldn't have had to have anyone do a circling approach to 33 that always conflicts with Route 1.

Not to mention, if the BH didn't ALSO have TCAS, the plane's TCAS wouldn't have picked it up. Both aircraft have to have it.

The "look at the radar" point is not about TCAS. It's that even without TCAS, the second pilot on the helicopter could have confirmed location of the plane they were supposed to be maintaining visual separation from on the radar.

All of this is related to the suggestion by a number of aviation experts that the helicopter thought ATC was referring to a plane further south and did not see the RJ approaching runway 33. Given the location of the helicopter, the time of day, and the limitations of eyesight in this specific situation (night, urban area with a lot of ground light), it seems reasonable to expect a co-pilot to be able to check radar and confirm the location of the plane they have already told ATC *twice* they will take responsibility for maintaining visual separation from.

TCAS is beside the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In situations like this where a helicopter route goes right next to a commercial airport and pilots on helo and airliners lack direct communications, is there something like “right of way” established between them? Who should yield to whom?

A helo is far more maneuverable.

[Anonymous]

Regarding the theory that the Helo pilot confused the CRJ for another approaching CRJ and the ATC should have been more specific. Didn’t the pilot or at least one person in the helo have experience with flying that route? I live under the flight path near the river, and there’s a steady flow of flights, spaced about 3 minutes apart. Shouldn’t the pilot have known that if they see a plane kind of far off and they receive a warning from the ATC, this warning must refer one nearby?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Trump isn’t to blame, Biden isn’t to blame. Neither is ATC. They followed protocol, even if short staffed, they still did exactly what they should have done. I don’t see how the finger can be pointed anywhere other than directly at the helicopter at this point.

Put aside blame, Trump’s reaction to this crash has been immoral and unconscionable. There are nearly 70 dead Americans, including 3 soldiers (he doesn’t even seem to realize what Commander-in-Chief actually means, he just thinks it sounds cool I guess) and his impulse is to place blame on everyone else and somehow imply that if only we could hire white men all the time, none of this would have happened.

He is a soulless monster, and an incredibly stupid person.

+1 His immediate response was to deflect blame from himself.

This is also interesting because no one serious was blaming him. Sure, there have been people saying it's his fault for the "fork in the road" email and the hiring freeze. And I disagree with both those actions. But neither of them caused this accident and no one serious thinks they did. ATC was not going to hire and train enough controllers in one week to make up the shortfall that was leading to the staffing issues on that particular day. That's a longstanding systemic problem Trump didn't cause. And while that fork in the road email has cause a lot of federal workers undue stress, ATCs already work full time in person and always have -- I doubt ATCs viewed that email as being relevant to their jobs beyond maybe offering someone who had been thinking of quitting anyway and offramp for doing so that would be financially advantageous.

So it wasn't Trump's fault and no one serious was saying it was his fault and yet his first instinct was to run out and blame all his usual scape goats (Dems, Obama, Biden, DEI, this amorphous army of unqualified non-white, disabled, women he and his supporters seem to think are destroying the country) instead of doing the easy and obvious thing and just saying "this is a terrible incident and we will investigate it fully, in the mean time please pray for the families of those involved and for the first responders how are participating in the search and rescue operation.

He was reactionary but he was reacting to NOTHING. He just walks around in a state of permanent grievance for no reason which is why he's such an a$$hole, but the demons he's fighting are probably things his parents said to him 70 years ago. They don't actually reflect current reality.

IDA. He was born damaged. Some people just are. He did also apparently inherit a will of iron and a need to dominate. Result is the socio/psychopath we see blathering on about his personal grievances, but offering no genuine support or empathy to the 67 families blindsided by this tragedy.

Yep

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In situations like this where a helicopter route goes right next to a commercial airport and pilots on helo and airliners lack direct communications, is there something like “right of way” established between them? Who should yield to whom?

Helicopter yields to the plane. Helicopter is more mobile and can change course. Also in this situation, the helicopter had specifically requested and received permission to be in charge of maintaining separation from the plane. If you are in charge of maitaining visual separation, you have to assume that the plane will continue on its trajectory and that you have to maneuver around them.

This is why everyone is saying that it seems fairly evident the helicopter screwed up.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:One of the problems is that the FAA makes most of the flights land from the South even when winds are from the south. They think they can increase capacity because of the two runways there, but it gets so busy that it is dangerous. So many people asked the FAA why they insist on landing from the south most of the time and this is what the FAA put out:

https://www.flyreagan.com/sites/flyreagan.com/files/legacyfiles/2019_09_18_-_operational_advantages_of_a_north_configuration_at_dca_dlh.pdf

The poorer people live south of DCA and complain less than North Arlington and Bethesda. That's why.

I doubt the above is true. I've spent a lot of time watching DCA planes, and they routinely shift which way the planes "enter" the runway area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:One of the problems is that the FAA makes most of the flights land from the South even when winds are from the south. They think they can increase capacity because of the two runways there, but it gets so busy that it is dangerous. So many people asked the FAA why they insist on landing from the south most of the time and this is what the FAA put out:

https://www.flyreagan.com/sites/flyreagan.com/files/legacyfiles/2019_09_18_-_operational_advantages_of_a_north_configuration_at_dca_dlh.pdf

The poorer people live south of DCA and complain less than North Arlington and Bethesda. That's why.

I doubt the above is true. I've spent a lot of time watching DCA planes, and they routinely shift which way the planes "enter" the runway area.

This is done based on wind direction and other weather factors.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Came out last night that the sidestep to 33 was because ATC had put multiple jets on final for 1 too close. The whole event started long before, with at least one plane refusing to switch to 33. Still primarily the helicopter fault but having 1 tower ATC was a large contributing factor. Many of us in the aviation community have felt this is the exact scenario the multiple near collisions over the last 24 months would bring.

Runway 33 is perfect for regional jets.

200 seaters can’t use it.

Not a big deal. Usually.

That's fine but that wasn't the original flight plan - the tower ATC had multiple landings spaced too closely and needed one of them to move from the pattern (landing on 1) to landing on 33. This is normal, but it shouldn't be normal - there should be enough ATC capacity so that the tower doesn't get behind the queue. Like everything else by itself it's fine, but it's another hole in the swiss cheese that led to this disaster. Just like having see and avoid. Just like night vision goggles. Just like conflicting traffic patterns. None of these on their own was the only cause. They all had to line up together and they did tonight. The public has no idea how close things have been.

I strongly disagree with the "all had to line up together" argument. There is one issue that is one major violation of protocol that trumps everything: the altitude of the helicopter.

You can discuss that there should be a better procedure in place and many would agree with you. But here is one that was in place and was violated. Everything else is a contributing factor.

Disobeying the command from ATC to wait until the plane passed in front of them was probably the bigger failure.

Ok. I stand corrected. Two major violations on the part of military helicopter.

Reduced staffing of the ATC tower.

Conflicting air traffic patterns that regularly require deconflicting were the norm.

Reduced staffing of the ATC tower.

The staff did exactly what it was supposed to do, so reduced or not, that is not the problem. Red herring.

Conflicting air traffic patterns that regularly require deconflicting were the norm.

For future improved safety, good point. For this situation: red herring. ATC was on top of the situation and gave instructions to avoid collision. Helicopter confirmed.

It's all part of the swiss cheese model. All the failures need to line up.

So now ATC needs to assume the army pilots can look at their radar for their closest jets or at which runway is which? And describe everything in poetic detail? Teach the pilot you have model? All realtime- not trust the pilots to understand basic stuff like runway number, required altitude, active airport, middle of the river vs East bank?

No that’s not the Swiss Cheese model where every stakeholder is simultaneously failing.

This was helicopter pilot team not following altitude protocol and not double checking radars or two runway lines.

ATC did not fail

CRJ did not fail.

No thanks. Pilot DQ. Get a neuropsych.

I've seen this "look at their radar" comment a few times, from someone who obviously has never sat in a cockpit. The pilot flying is looking OUTSIDE, not staring at their on-board radar scopes. This isn't flight simulator - the radar systems are not the same at ATC and while yes there is a conflict alert this isn't something you can scan easily with might vision. Fault here will go to the helo pilot but this is absolutely swiss cheese - if ATC hadn't screwed up the incoming traffic he wouldn't have had to have anyone do a circling approach to 33 that always conflicts with Route 1.

You need to stop with the silly Swiss cheese metaphor. If National is known for these constant traffic changes, then the helo should have been extra careful about 1) not breaking altitude protocol and 2) obeying ATC's instructions. It did neither.

Also, you just make the helicopter sound more and more dangerous. Aren't the other people on the plane supposed to see what the pilot can't? If not, I don't question just flying over an airport (insanity!), I question them flying at all!

[Anonymous]

FAA has indefinitely closed the helicopter routes around DCA according to CNN

[Anonymous]

Suicide/Homicide odds just shot way up.

[Anonymous]

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Wow these videos. I know looks can be deceiving but it just looks...so intentional. How do you not notice a jet flying at you. Do Blackhawks not have windows on the side? Are there blind spots?

Plexiglass bubble, and they were way above the tree line so no excuse not to see or look slightly left at a plane lining up for runway 33.
Plus the fact that ATC told them the facts twice.

At night it can be hard to tell if a stationary light in the sky is a light on the ground, or a light from a plane traveling directly at you. I help my dad spot traffic in his plane whenever I see him, and have since I was a teen, and night flying can be tricky because of that even in clear conditions.

This explanation is very unsettling to those of us who are not pilots and do not work in aviation.

"It's hard to see things that are right in front of you while flying at night" is never going to satisfy anyone for an explanation for this crash.

Sounds like you need to get to work STAT on some conspiracy theories and rumors!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suicide/Homicide odds just shot way up.

Why?

[Anonymous]

The landing plane has right of way, always.

The helo was crossing a runway. Even driving when you are crossing a major road, do you not LOOK before you cross? There really is no way the BH pilots do not look at best extremely reckless.

[Anonymous]

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