Anonymous wrote: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”.

I cannot follow this at all.

Regardless of who was flying the helicopter, there were THREE of them. Not one of them could have taken control if the lead pilot wasn't being safe? Or were paying attention on the visual separation? It seems like there's a failure in protocol, for all 3 of them. They had failed to no notice the right passenger regional jet despite several calls and confirmations.

They were so young, and many were traveling with their moms. It’s unimaginable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question about the helicopter pilots and the "visual separation" issue that I have not seen answered on any of the (otherwise incredibly helpful) explainer videos by aviation experts.

I understand why the helicopter pilots may have identified the wrong plane visually due to the angle of the aircraft (the challenge of seeing a plane coming right at you at night in a populated area) and the possible use of night vision goggles.

But would the helicopter not have radar and be able to see that there was a plane on the radar MUCH CLOSER than the plane they may have incorrectly thought ATC was referring to?

I am confused because I would assume with three people on board, one person would be at least glancing at radar periodically (especially while passing National for obvious reasons) and could have easily checked to see where the plane they assured ATC they were maintaining "visual separation" on (twice) was indeed where they thought it was.

I am not a pilot or aviation expert at all so maybe this question is stupid but it's been bothering me. If anyone can explain or point me to a resource that will explain, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

There are countries that use instrumentation for approaches v visual approaches. Most US airports allow for visual approaches. The prob is sometimes you can't see everything with only your line of sight. There are aviation experts who will bring up the fact that in Europe, pilots will less likely do visual approaches because tech is after process.

I am of the mind that in this tragedy, does it really matter who didn't see whom? Cause obviously someone didn't see a crash happening and it's a tragedy for all. Who is to blame? Who cares. It was 2 aircraft involved you know? We may never know.

I don't know that an in depth investigation will resolve much because in this context, 2 planes crashed that simply did not see each other. Perhaps the answer is simple - and so simple people don't want to believe it: don't rely only on visual approaches in busy congested air traffic at night too often???

But the helicopter was not landing and is not a plane. You are talking about the difference in how planes land in the EU versus the US.

I am talking about the. helicopter crew, who was not landing but was navigating a set flight path along the Potomac past a busy commercial airport. They were alerted three times to an oncoming airplane and twice told ATC they saw the airplane and requested "visual separation." But apparently at no point did any of the three people on the helicopter look at their radar and see that the plane they were supposedly keeping visual separation from was actually right in front of her.

It seems weird for a helicopter to rely exclusively on their eyesight in that situation, given what we know about traffic at the airport, the fact that it was nighttime, and what we are learning about the challenges of sighting other aircraft both with and without night vision goggles.

Ok but my point exactly is that there's 2 aircraft that collided. The heli may or may not be at fault but the plane was relying on a visual approach landing. Maybe if you used instrumentation, the plan could avoid the helicopter. The point is there's too much traffic for anyone to only use line of sight! Esp landing into a not often used runway closest to helicopter flight paths. So you take even some risk away and you could have a different outcome. Maybe it would not have helped, maybe it would.

I live in a different state these days. I know none of the people and I’m not involved in the sport. But these photos of the sweet figure skater kids are killing me. I don’t know why this has affected me so much when there is sad news every day. It’s just so so so sad.

Anonymous wrote: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”.

It's not ambiguous at all. They know exactly what that means and they expect that language. That directive is routinely given.

Anonymous wrote:He went to NC to disparage FEMA and LA to attack Newsome. I guess he can attack ATC from his desk.

That’s literally his job.

Anonymous wrote: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”.

I think if you look at the radar matched up with the ATC recording, it's not true that by the time ATC instructs the helicopter to "pass behind" the plane, the helicopter and plane were head on. This instruction comes at the last minute as both the helicopter and and plane have banked to the west (NW for the plane, SW for the helicopter) toward collision. At that point the best chance of avoiding collision was the helicopter (which has far more ability to stop and steer) to hold up and pass behind the plane making its approach to National. We don't know if the helicopter had enough time to respond to this and didn't, or if the instruction simply came too late. Ideally the black box from the helicopter will provide the info necessary to judge that.

ATC was not technically in charge of the helicopter avoiding the plane in any case. I mean in a bigger sense, ATC is responsible for ensuring all collisions are avoided. But in this instance, the tower asked the helicopter twice if they saw the oncoming plane and both times the helicopter said they did and asked for "visual separation." This is them asking for permission to steer around the plane and is common in that situation because, again, the helicopter has a high degree of maneuverability and it makes more sense for the helicopter pilot to navigate around a plane than for ATC to try and direct the helicopter around the plane.

The problem is likely that the helicopter thought ATC was talking about the plane further south at that point. They could not maintain visually separation from a plane they were unable to see at all. But it appears ATC and the helicopter didn't realize they were talking about different planes until it was too late.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question about the helicopter pilots and the "visual separation" issue that I have not seen answered on any of the (otherwise incredibly helpful) explainer videos by aviation experts.

I understand why the helicopter pilots may have identified the wrong plane visually due to the angle of the aircraft (the challenge of seeing a plane coming right at you at night in a populated area) and the possible use of night vision goggles.

But would the helicopter not have radar and be able to see that there was a plane on the radar MUCH CLOSER than the plane they may have incorrectly thought ATC was referring to?

I am confused because I would assume with three people on board, one person would be at least glancing at radar periodically (especially while passing National for obvious reasons) and could have easily checked to see where the plane they assured ATC they were maintaining "visual separation" on (twice) was indeed where they thought it was.

I am not a pilot or aviation expert at all so maybe this question is stupid but it's been bothering me. If anyone can explain or point me to a resource that will explain, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

There are countries that use instrumentation for approaches v visual approaches. Most US airports allow for visual approaches. The prob is sometimes you can't see everything with only your line of sight. There are aviation experts who will bring up the fact that in Europe, pilots will less likely do visual approaches because tech is after process.

I am of the mind that in this tragedy, does it really matter who didn't see whom? Cause obviously someone didn't see a crash happening and it's a tragedy for all. Who is to blame? Who cares. It was 2 aircraft involved you know? We may never know.

I don't know that an in depth investigation will resolve much because in this context, 2 planes crashed that simply did not see each other. Perhaps the answer is simple - and so simple people don't want to believe it: don't rely only on visual approaches in busy congested air traffic at night too often???

But the helicopter was not landing and is not a plane. You are talking about the difference in how planes land in the EU versus the US.

I am talking about the. helicopter crew, who was not landing but was navigating a set flight path along the Potomac past a busy commercial airport. They were alerted three times to an oncoming airplane and twice told ATC they saw the airplane and requested "visual separation." But apparently at no point did any of the three people on the helicopter look at their radar and see that the plane they were supposedly keeping visual separation from was actually right in front of her.

It seems weird for a helicopter to rely exclusively on their eyesight in that situation, given what we know about traffic at the airport, the fact that it was nighttime, and what we are learning about the challenges of sighting other aircraft both with and without night vision goggles.

Reminds me of my husband.

Yeah yeah I’ll do it
Yeah yeah I saw that
Yeah yeah I turned it in
Yeah yeah I did that.

And he did not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were they flowing 200 feet above the maxixmum altitude. And on top of that not seeing a plane that is descending right in front of them. Seems the helicopter did so many things wrong. Doesn’t really make sense.

Watch the video shared above. It’ll help you understand.

DP, I watched the video and it’s excellent however it does not answer the question WHY the helicopter was 200 feet above the maximum altitude Recommend recommended for that area of the flightpath.

One of the comments on the YouTube was from another pilot who says he overhears the ATC telling helicopters at DCA they’re too high all the time.

Lovely.

At night when DCA is still operating?!?

Ambiguous!

Anonymous wrote: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”.

No. Not amphibious to anyone who drives, flies, or plays a team ball sport.

Pass behind is fall back/slow and go behind them (left). Not ahead of them (right).

They are going from your left to your right to land. So fall behind means bank left in this situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This administration will be slow to blame the helicopter pilot, cuz military, and also he was a white male.

But I don’t envision a scenario where the Black Hawk crew was not at fault.

Actually it was a she. “The female pilot who was commanding the flight at the time….”

The male was the instructor pilot and evaluator, according to this article

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/army-black-hawk-crew-involved-dc-crash-made/story?id=118276697

Fascinating article on the huge spike in accidents the last 12 months from ARMY aviators.

Also note how the army aviator head, now in DC to help “investigate,” states how easy this nighttime exercise is. “All you have to do is go down the center of the river.”

Not by the busy airport and kill a whole flight of people!

Anonymous wrote:Why hasn’t the identity of the third helicopter pilot been revealed?

Pretty sure all three are identified at places in this thread. All identities this far were released by families, not by govt entities.

Anonymous wrote: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”.

The elevation was the primary issue.