I’m sorry I know this was all a big tragedy but if I had a loved one on that plane and I found out the pilot did not flow the ATC’s instructions and just slammed into the plane I would be livid at the incompetency. And these BH pilots certainly won’t be heroes in my opinion. But I am lucky not to have known anyone on that plane. |
apparently the FAA agrees since it has suspended helicopter traffic. My view isn’t an outlier. |
But wouldn’t you also be mad at whoever decided it was a good idea to have training flights there? |
How is one even selected as a White House social aide? I wonder if those duties took away from her flying hours. Perhaps she wasn’t getting as many flying hours as other pilots due to those duties. |
They resumed it for "VIPs." |
The passengers were acceptable losses, apparently. |
The possibility is that if they weren’t flying VIP’s all over the area just so these shitbirds don’t have to sit a few extra minutes in traffic, then perhaps they wouldn’t have been anywhere near the plane carrying all those innocent victims. Capisce? I’m guess no. |
Military officers in the DC area apply. You do five or six events per month: https://www.army.mil/article/273603/white_house_seeks_military_social_aide Given that military pilots don't get a lot of flight time anyway, due to other duties, I doubt it impacted her flight time. The bigger problem seems to be that military helicopter pilots don't fly enough generally. |
I would have been mad about that if this crash was truly unavoidable and both the BH and AA pilots were not at fault but based on what we know so far (and I’m not saying we know it all) it seems this was completely avoidable but for the BH pilots failing to follow the directions and not looking for the plane literally coming towards runway 33. The ATC literally said go behind the plane. What were they doing??! |
Are you really this dense? No one is saying they don’t need training hours - only that the VIP flight may be the reason this “training” was shoehorned into such a dangerous time and place. The MAGA brain is so low wattage. Unreal. |
+1 some of these posters, truly do not understand how the military works. |
What people fail to understand is that these three crew members didn't independently decide to fly that route at that time. They were assigned. Someone else made that call.
If it was irresponsible to have a Black Hawk running that route on a training mission at that time, then that is on the higher ups who made that call. Accidents are always possible and there are many, many examples of Black Hawks crashing and killing people. A training mission carries some risk. Even just a standard transport of a personnel to another base carries some risk and the risk goes up if you have a less experienced pilot in command, which this helicopter did. You cannot direct anger at this helicopter crew the way you would someone joy riding on the highway. They were assigned this task and route, and the person who assigned it was better positioned than they were to know if this was an acceptable risk to take. |
There are published helicopter routes, which go right by DCA every day. They’ve been talking about this in the news since day one. It’s not that they “just decided” to go by DCA, this was one of the approved helicopter routes… training or not. |
If the helicopter crew had survived, what repercussions would they be facing? |
The new head of the Army already admitted, in Congressional testimony following this crash, that they should re-evaluate whether it makes sense to have training flights go through that corridor.
This is separate from the FAA's decision to restrict helicopter traffic in that area. Some of you don't seem to understand that even if the pilots made horrible errors in judgment, they didn't choose to be there at that time. They didn't say "hey you know what would be cool -- let's do my annual night recertification next to a commercial airport at its busiest time! That will be awesome!" They were told, and they are in jobs where you do what you are told. And they died. |