Plane crash DCA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

I think the copilot was equally culpable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

No one should be blaming anyone at this point.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s odd all of the female pilot’s social media was completely scrubbed. But also her siblings and her parents.

Why? It’s the first thing I would do.

Because the other pilots and crew involved were released immediately, either willingly or not, I don’t know. They didn’t take extreme time and measures to erase all traces of them the public could potentially judge. And when you are involved in killing a bunch of people, the public will judge. By them not allowing military to release her name and then scrubbing all traces of narrative about her except what they explicitly publish, it seems like something is being hidden she would be judged harshly for- beyond her gender alone

Rebecca as a Captain outranked the copilot, how does that factor in to decision making?

It may have.

NVGs likely were a factor.

That the plane saw the BH at the last second and tried to evade is sad.

ATC could have been more explicit.

NVGs have been used for decades without this ever happening before now. Helicopters and planes don’t crash into each other weekly, monthly, daily. Stop making up excuses. ATC has been using the same commands and language for decade, as have pilots - this wasn’t invented yesterday.

The issue lies with the three in that helicopter. Full stop. The combination of those three individuals is the variable. That plane route was regular and common and the runways were not new.

Were they paying attention? Were they jacking around? ATC was directing dozens of planes all night without issue.

Helicopter behavior on the night in question is the issue here.

You don't know that.

You don't have all of the informaton.

We know the helicopter flew outside their route and well above their allowed altitude. We know that to them into the path of a landing airplane, when they were told by ATC to wait until it passed before proceeding.

We know the helicopter's behavior caused this. We just don't know why they did it.

You just don't know, period.

There's a lot we do know. Why are you ignoring that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

He wasn’t training her. He was evaluating her on a normal and routine flight. She should already have known how to flight. This wasn’t flight school. While yes, I do think he does have some fault, to what degree I don’t know. She was the one ultimately controlling the helicopter. Perhaps he couldn’t or didn’t have the capability to correct it in time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s odd all of the female pilot’s social media was completely scrubbed. But also her siblings and her parents.

Why? It’s the first thing I would do.

Because the other pilots and crew involved were released immediately, either willingly or not, I don’t know. They didn’t take extreme time and measures to erase all traces of them the public could potentially judge. And when you are involved in killing a bunch of people, the public will judge. By them not allowing military to release her name and then scrubbing all traces of narrative about her except what they explicitly publish, it seems like something is being hidden she would be judged harshly for- beyond her gender alone

Rebecca as a Captain outranked the copilot, how does that factor in to decision making?

It may have.

NVGs likely were a factor.

That the plane saw the BH at the last second and tried to evade is sad.

ATC could have been more explicit.

NVGs have been used for decades without this ever happening before now. Helicopters and planes don’t crash into each other weekly, monthly, daily. Stop making up excuses. ATC has been using the same commands and language for decade, as have pilots - this wasn’t invented yesterday.

The issue lies with the three in that helicopter. Full stop. The combination of those three individuals is the variable. That plane route was regular and common and the runways were not new.

Were they paying attention? Were they jacking around? ATC was directing dozens of planes all night without issue.

Helicopter behavior on the night in question is the issue here.

You don't know that.

You don't have all of the informaton.

We know the helicopter flew outside their route and well above their allowed altitude. We know that to them into the path of a landing airplane, when they were told by ATC to wait until it passed before proceeding.

We know the helicopter's behavior caused this. We just don't know why they did it.

You just don't know, period.

There's a lot we do know. Why are you ignoring that?

There are things you assume to be true because you heard it on the news. But that doesn't mean it's true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Of course you can (provided said joy rider was a woman, obviously).

Why wasn't the type of anger pointed at this female pilot for an alleged mistake pointed at Hegseth for his DUI joyrides? Instead Trump and Congress made him the head of 2 million of our armed forces? I guess DUI hires are fine, but not DEI hires.

DUI good. DEI bad is basically the motto of the Trump administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s odd all of the female pilot’s social media was completely scrubbed. But also her siblings and her parents.

Why? It’s the first thing I would do.

Because the other pilots and crew involved were released immediately, either willingly or not, I don’t know. They didn’t take extreme time and measures to erase all traces of them the public could potentially judge. And when you are involved in killing a bunch of people, the public will judge. By them not allowing military to release her name and then scrubbing all traces of narrative about her except what they explicitly publish, it seems like something is being hidden she would be judged harshly for- beyond her gender alone

Rebecca as a Captain outranked the copilot, how does that factor in to decision making?

It may have.

NVGs likely were a factor.

That the plane saw the BH at the last second and tried to evade is sad.

ATC could have been more explicit.

NVGs have been used for decades without this ever happening before now. Helicopters and planes don’t crash into each other weekly, monthly, daily. Stop making up excuses. ATC has been using the same commands and language for decade, as have pilots - this wasn’t invented yesterday.

The issue lies with the three in that helicopter. Full stop. The combination of those three individuals is the variable. That plane route was regular and common and the runways were not new.

Were they paying attention? Were they jacking around? ATC was directing dozens of planes all night without issue.

Helicopter behavior on the night in question is the issue here.

You don't know that.

You don't have all of the informaton.

We know the helicopter flew outside their route and well above their allowed altitude. We know that to them into the path of a landing airplane, when they were told by ATC to wait until it passed before proceeding.

We know the helicopter's behavior caused this. We just don't know why they did it.

You just don't know, period.

There's a lot we do know. Why are you ignoring that?

That PP wants to argue that ATC is full of DEI hires

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:On Reddit, people said the wife of one of the pilots is being treated horribly. She had asked for people to share photos of her husband, and someone replied they should share photos of CRJ victims.

My call to everyone is to do something nice for others.

Text your government friend and let them know you appreciate their work.

Hold the door for someone.

Text a friend or family member, and let them know you love them.

Hope we can preserve aspects of a healthy society where we treat each other well.

It is shockingly insensitive for families of the helicopter pilots to be seeking that kind of attention under the circumstances.

Don’t think those families are less devastated? You suck.

Of course they're probably devastated. But sometimes it is not appropriate to publicly ask others to join in your grieving.

She posted on her personal facebook page. Presumably, the only people that would be looking at it and sharing would be her friends and family. If "the public" doesn't want to share and join in her grieving, they don't need to look at her page.

Or she might not have understood that some posts are set to public. Plenty of people don’t understand the Facebook post settings.

People assuming she set her FB post to public and then trashed her for that are—again—small-minded people who can not envision a variety of possibilities.

So she made a mistake. Just like the helicopter pilots. Luckily her mistake didn't kill 64 innocent people.

The grieving spouse didn't "make a mistake". Bullies targeted her. Don't victim blame here.

And you have no idea what happened on the helicopter or if any "mistakes" were made.

No one is blaming the victims-- the 64 innocent people on the airplane.

Just shut up. The three military members on the plane are victims too who died serving their country. People have accidents all the time. We don't crucify the people involved. You're a toxic ghoul.

If the helicopter crew had survived, what repercussions would they be facing?

They'd almost certainly be court-martialed for flying outside their assigned route. The question is whether they'd face negligent homicide charges.

I'm not even sure they'd be courtmartialed. There would be an investigation. They'd want to rule out aircraft malfunction and other potential explanations first. They don't automatically court martial people when civilians die. A decision would be made based on the results of the investigation, whether or not to prosecute and if so for what (sometimes people are courtmartialed for behavior or lapses in judgment associated with an accident, but not for the accident itself).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s odd all of the female pilot’s social media was completely scrubbed. But also her siblings and her parents.

Why? It’s the first thing I would do.

Because the other pilots and crew involved were released immediately, either willingly or not, I don’t know. They didn’t take extreme time and measures to erase all traces of them the public could potentially judge. And when you are involved in killing a bunch of people, the public will judge. By them not allowing military to release her name and then scrubbing all traces of narrative about her except what they explicitly publish, it seems like something is being hidden she would be judged harshly for- beyond her gender alone

Rebecca as a Captain outranked the copilot, how does that factor in to decision making?

It may have.

NVGs likely were a factor.

That the plane saw the BH at the last second and tried to evade is sad.

ATC could have been more explicit.

NVGs have been used for decades without this ever happening before now. Helicopters and planes don’t crash into each other weekly, monthly, daily. Stop making up excuses. ATC has been using the same commands and language for decade, as have pilots - this wasn’t invented yesterday.

The issue lies with the three in that helicopter. Full stop. The combination of those three individuals is the variable. That plane route was regular and common and the runways were not new.

Were they paying attention? Were they jacking around? ATC was directing dozens of planes all night without issue.

Helicopter behavior on the night in question is the issue here.

You don't know that.

You don't have all of the informaton.

We know the helicopter flew outside their route and well above their allowed altitude. We know that to them into the path of a landing airplane, when they were told by ATC to wait until it passed before proceeding.

We know the helicopter's behavior caused this. We just don't know why they did it.

You just don't know, period.

There's a lot we do know. Why are you ignoring that?

That PP wants to argue that ATC is full of DEI hires

FAA is more than 70% male and 70% white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There has been such a tight lid on the VIP leg of this flight.

There is NO WAY the "VIP" request isn't something that is bad optics.

Where are the journaliats who used to lurk around here?

They weren’t on some special unauthorized route for a VIP. The VIP wasn’t part of this crash.

They were flying an authorized route that is frequently flown by helicopters and were getting signed off on their annual night training on this route when the crash occurred. This was a required evaluation they were doing AFTER whatever VIP business was done

The VIP leg is why they were training in the dark during the busiest hour at National. The public deserves to know who the VIP was and the purpose of the VIP trip.

Thank you. I don’t know why people can’t understand this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think it’s odd all of the female pilot’s social media was completely scrubbed. But also her siblings and her parents.

Why? It’s the first thing I would do.

Because the other pilots and crew involved were released immediately, either willingly or not, I don’t know. They didn’t take extreme time and measures to erase all traces of them the public could potentially judge. And when you are involved in killing a bunch of people, the public will judge. By them not allowing military to release her name and then scrubbing all traces of narrative about her except what they explicitly publish, it seems like something is being hidden she would be judged harshly for- beyond her gender alone

Rebecca as a Captain outranked the copilot, how does that factor in to decision making?

It may have.

NVGs likely were a factor.

That the plane saw the BH at the last second and tried to evade is sad.

ATC could have been more explicit.

NVGs have been used for decades without this ever happening before now. Helicopters and planes don’t crash into each other weekly, monthly, daily. Stop making up excuses. ATC has been using the same commands and language for decade, as have pilots - this wasn’t invented yesterday.

The issue lies with the three in that helicopter. Full stop. The combination of those three individuals is the variable. That plane route was regular and common and the runways were not new.

Were they paying attention? Were they jacking around? ATC was directing dozens of planes all night without issue.

Helicopter behavior on the night in question is the issue here.

You don't know that.

You don't have all of the informaton.

We know the helicopter flew outside their route and well above their allowed altitude. We know that to them into the path of a landing airplane, when they were told by ATC to wait until it passed before proceeding.

We know the helicopter's behavior caused this. We just don't know why they did it.

You just don't know, period.

There's a lot we do know. Why are you ignoring that?

That PP wants to argue that ATC is full of DEI hires

You are confusing posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

He wasn’t training her. He was evaluating her on a normal and routine flight. She should already have known how to flight. This wasn’t flight school. While yes, I do think he does have some fault, to what degree I don’t know. She was the one ultimately controlling the helicopter. Perhaps he couldn’t or didn’t have the capability to correct it in time

You don't actually know. Some commentators have stated that he might have been engaging in a "check down" in which he posed certain challenges for the pilot to see how she responded to them. There was a checklist she had to pass in order to get the recertification. We don't actually know how the instructor did this. You are assuming he was just observing but we actually do not know that.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:On Reddit, people said the wife of one of the pilots is being treated horribly. She had asked for people to share photos of her husband, and someone replied they should share photos of CRJ victims.

My call to everyone is to do something nice for others.

Text your government friend and let them know you appreciate their work.

Hold the door for someone.

Text a friend or family member, and let them know you love them.

Hope we can preserve aspects of a healthy society where we treat each other well.

It is shockingly insensitive for families of the helicopter pilots to be seeking that kind of attention under the circumstances.

Don’t think those families are less devastated? You suck.

Of course they're probably devastated. But sometimes it is not appropriate to publicly ask others to join in your grieving.

She posted on her personal facebook page. Presumably, the only people that would be looking at it and sharing would be her friends and family. If "the public" doesn't want to share and join in her grieving, they don't need to look at her page.

Or she might not have understood that some posts are set to public. Plenty of people don’t understand the Facebook post settings.

People assuming she set her FB post to public and then trashed her for that are—again—small-minded people who can not envision a variety of possibilities.

So she made a mistake. Just like the helicopter pilots. Luckily her mistake didn't kill 64 innocent people.

The grieving spouse didn't "make a mistake". Bullies targeted her. Don't victim blame here.

And you have no idea what happened on the helicopter or if any "mistakes" were made.

No one is blaming the victims-- the 64 innocent people on the airplane.

Just shut up. The three military members on the plane are victims too who died serving their country. People have accidents all the time. We don't crucify the people involved. You're a toxic ghoul.

If the helicopter crew had survived, what repercussions would they be facing?

They'd almost certainly be court-martialed for flying outside their assigned route. The question is whether they'd face negligent homicide charges.

I'm not even sure they'd be courtmartialed. There would be an investigation. They'd want to rule out aircraft malfunction and other potential explanations first. They don't automatically court martial people when civilians die. A decision would be made based on the results of the investigation, whether or not to prosecute and if so for what (sometimes people are courtmartialed for behavior or lapses in judgment associated with an accident, but not for the accident itself).

Exactly. No one here has the data/information to even speculate on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

He wasn’t training her. He was evaluating her on a normal and routine flight. She should already have known how to flight. This wasn’t flight school. While yes, I do think he does have some fault, to what degree I don’t know. She was the one ultimately controlling the helicopter. Perhaps he couldn’t or didn’t have the capability to correct it in time

You don't actually know. Some commentators have stated that he might have been engaging in a "check down" in which he posed certain challenges for the pilot to see how she responded to them. There was a checklist she had to pass in order to get the recertification. We don't actually know how the instructor did this. You are assuming he was just observing but we actually do not know that.

+1

Lots of posters making ASSumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that some people on here really want to blame the female pilot, but I ask you to ask yourselves if you were training someone and they were taking risks you weren’t comfortable with, isn’t it your responsibility to get them back into the realm of safety? And if the ATC is trying to make both pilots aware of a risk they are encountering, and you are in charge of answering, isn’t it your job to make sure you and the other pilot are aware of the risk the ATC is alerting you to before you answer in the affirmative and take responsibility for that risk?

Not trying to throw all the blame at the trainer, just think there was more than one failure here. I feel sorry for everyone involved in this situation.

And again, just to echo what other folks are saying, if this training was really just the return trip of the helo necessitated by some initial (and perhaps not really necessary) VIP trip, we deserve to know that, too.

I think the copilot was equally culpable.

Why? Please be specific. And also please tell us your qualifications and experience that give you insight.