Anonymous wrote:DCA closed until at least 11 am, possibly longer

Sounds like they will open as planned at 11.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The contributing factors to this crash will never be fully addressed. The fundamental problem is the orientation of Runway 33 vis-a-vis military traffic on the east side of the Potomac. It’s past time that Runway 33 is closed. If that means DCA has to shed a few slots so be it. Plenty of capacity at IAD.

That was also the opinion of a guest (aviation expert?) on nbc4 this morning. Planes have to swing out to the east side of the river to land on that runway, which brings them into the same space as the helicopters that fly low and the helicopters have to maintain visual distance. Too much can go wrong.

While that may be happening with jets coming from the north, this one was way south and approaching for a long time. Horrible. Head on collision.

For the best breakdowns follow Juan Browne on YouTube. Posts under blanco lirio. He’s a 777 pilot and former Air Force and also GA. Great analysis.

Anonymous wrote:The ATC did everything right. How about some concern for those doing a highly stressful job? Yes, there are staffing shortages that everyone on this board should be concerned about. We take it for granted that flights take off and land safely every day ("safer than driving on the beltway") but do we really stop to consider how that happens and the people in the tower who make that happen? We'd all benefit from more ATCs who are well supported, materially and emotionally. I'd like to know why a training flight had to happen at night in that particular airspace.

The ATCs aren't magic. They can repeatedly tell a helicopter to avoid collision but they can't actually change how they're flying. You also know the ATC who was talking to the helicopter A) is dealing with a mandatory investigation B) is likely devastated by what happened and C) is going to face blame from the media even if totally cleared and could potentially face harassment.

Anonymous wrote:No confirmed survivors yet, am I right?

There’s no way there are any.

Anonymous wrote:The contributing factors to this crash will never be fully addressed. The fundamental problem is the orientation of Runway 33 vis-a-vis military traffic on the east side of the Potomac. It’s past time that Runway 33 is closed. If that means DCA has to shed a few slots so be it. Plenty of capacity at IAD.

That’s THE runway to land from the south, given wind flow from the south or east.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh no. I wonder if it’s one of those control tower snafus that didn’t get caught in time.

Air traffic controllers were too distracted

There is no way you can know this.

The cameras and recording will know. Help was going north to south along the east side of the river, then cut west.

No confirmed survivors yet, am I right?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

They’re doing training flights over a heavily populated area around the busiest runway in the U.S.?

Doesn’t seem wise.

They do it all day every day. Spend some time on the Mt Vernon trail and you’ll see tons of helicopters - Army, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard all run helicopters up and down the river for training. Sometimes you’ll see a police helicopter (DC or Park Police) but they usually have a good reason to be there.

Yep. I live in Arlington and drive to and from DC every day- right along and across the Potomac We have seen more helicopters than usual lately. Yesterday at 2:30pm we were driving in to pick up my kid and my husband noted the giant military helicopter - over head—bigger than what we usually see

Is this due to the new dipsh@ts running things?

This is interesting to me too because last Friday I was driving on one of the many highways that encircles the Pentagon and was shaken by a surprising noise/feeling. Looked left, and there was a helicopter taking off immediately to my right, probably less than 50 feet away on the other side of the short barrier wall. Never seen this before. I don't drive in that part of VA a lot so who knows but it was startling and notable to me.

Well that needs to be super coordinated with ATC at DCA, they’re half a mile apart, day and night.

And sorry, flying at 200 ft under a landing jet isn’t safe. The jet is going from 400 ft to 0 on gps software.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many helicopters flying along the Potomac when Republicans come into power. They love their VIP rides and the pilots love to hot dog up & down the river for the VIPs. No consequences for anyone, good times back again.

No one likes dour Democrats who put the kibosh on expensive helicopter flights.

Oh FFS, it was a training flight. It had nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats.

Look at the flight history. It was coming from Langley, where it likely dropped off VIPs. “Training flight” means they let the young, more inexperienced pilot fly the helo back to Belvoir so he could get his hours and build familiarity with the route/traffic patterns.

The issue is that there’s too many helo flights over the Potomac. And the issue gets worse during Republican administrations because too many of them consider themselves “VIPs”. The military loves it because they get more flight hours, more justification for budgets with VIPs.

Someone will scrap the historical air traffic data on PAT helo flights, comparing Biden and Trump admins. It won’t even be close. Anyone with a set of eyes & ears knows that the number of helo flights have surged since Jan 20.

Republicans love their VIP flights.

DCA closed until at least 11 am, possibly longer

The ATC did everything right. How about some concern for those doing a highly stressful job? Yes, there are staffing shortages that everyone on this board should be concerned about. We take it for granted that flights take off and land safely every day ("safer than driving on the beltway") but do we really stop to consider how that happens and the people in the tower who make that happen? We'd all benefit from more ATCs who are well supported, materially and emotionally. I'd like to know why a training flight had to happen at night in that particular airspace.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have any experience with how this type of wreckage impacts use of the river in the near future? Thank god the river was mostly frozen and not being used by recreational boaters.

Mostly frozen? Temps have been above freezing for several days.

I work at the Wharf and the river freezes and unfreezes when it's in the 40s 50s during the day.

I cross it every day. It was a solid sheet of ice the past 2 weeks. Yesterday there was still a ton of ice. I commented I hadn’t seen it freeze like this since I was a kid…12 when I was stuck at school watching the Air Florida crash rescue efforts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fundamental problem is that the approach from upriver violates every FAA best practice for safety in order to follow the sharp curve of the river around Georgetown Landing, in order to reduce noise over residential areas and avoid protected airspace (VP mansion etc.). This removes the safety that comes from having a long-straight approach to the runway, which gives the landing pilots plenty of chance to see anything flying near them and gives helicopters relief from having a plane come whipping around the corner.

The sick irony is this all happens within site of FAA HQ.

That wasn't the approach the plane used here. It came from the south.

So is the southern approach long-straight, or does it also involve dangerous/late turns? And if so, why does it need these dangerous turns?

The turns aren’t “dangerous”. It’s a demanding visual approach both ways. In this approach the pilot follows an instrument system and then breaks off to turn and land on another runway. It’s a common GA approach but rare in commercial aviation. It isn’t unsafe. BUT it diminishes the ability to see and avoid which is a problem when there is another flight path that crosses and whose pilots aren’t on the same frequency. And you have overworked and green ATC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Air Traffic Control error.

Did you listen to the ATC recording? The helicopter pilots screwed up.

Right. The ATC ask several times for PAT25 (helo) to confirm they see the CRJ and PAT25 doesn’t answer.

The news is also reporting that it was an Army training flight. It definitely seems to be an error by the helicopter.