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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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”.
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I cannot follow this at all.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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. [b]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.[/quote][/b]

This is actually a great point. If helo truly had sights on the wrong plane, the direction from ATC to go behind the plane wouldn't make any sense because that plane was much farther south and they didnt follow that order anyways because they didn't slow down. [/quote]

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