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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Great pilot analysis. He seems fairly confident the Helo simply had the wrong airplane in sight. Literally did not see the other plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4[/quote]

If true it's really hard to understand how they don't see the airplane right in front of them, both on radar and visually. Like I understand what this guy is saying and I assume he knows more than I do about what it's like in the air, but when you look at the radar and see the video footage, it's hard to make sense of because the plane is *right there.*

What is the reason they might not be looking at radar to see the closer plane? There are two pilots and a crew chief on the helicopter. Surely one of them would be in charge of checking radar especially while flying through that particular corridor knowing there will be planes taking off and landing from National. I don't get it.

It also raises the question of whether the night vision goggles they were wearing for training purposes obscured their vision to the degree that it made it more likely they would not see the closer jet and would think the area closer to them was clear. If that's the case, I'm sorry, but this is 100% on the DoD for permitting that kind of training flight near a very busy urban airport. Like completely unacceptable. I understand why an Army pilot would need training with night vision goggles but there is no reason why that should be done in an area where it could jeopardize civilian lives in that way.

So if this is the explanation, it honestly raises more questions than it answers. IMO.[/quote]

I see what you are saying. But the [b]Helo pilot acknowledges at least twice (maybe 3 times?) that he sses the aircraft and assumes responsibility for visual separation. [/b]So he's either a terrible judge of distance and incorrectly thought he would clear the plane, OR was focuses on creating visual deparation from a completely different plane. [/quote]

22 years flying the H60 for the Navy. 
1) sounds like this was a check flight at night. That adds stress for pilot and divides the crew as they are not all operating as a team (one is grading the other)
2) You graduate flight school with about 250 hours. 500 is NOT "experienced". Thats rather Green, and Navy safety center has TONS of data showing most dangerous period for pilots is between 500-1500 hours. Flown enough to feel comfortable but not enough to gain required experience to be ahead of more complex environments.
3) ^add to this we will find out how much night time AND goggle time the pilots had. Im betting total night time was less then 100 hours. Night is different. Everything moves faster and you can easily get behind aircraft. 
Beyond that this is insane. We fly at 150 feet almost ALL the time over water around the carrier because it deconflicts us from jets overhead. Here they are clearly too high for the corridor and If I had to guess "check-ride-itis" (a term we use to define normally solid pilots screwing up) was a factor.[/quote]

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