AA jet and Military helicopter collide over Potomac 1

Reagan National Airport crash: Military Black Hawk helicopter collides midair with American Airlines jet

An Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair with an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, at Reagan National Airport on Wednesday.

www.foxnews.com

 

[drwebb]

The pilots have to train to deal with a civilian ATC environment and civilian pilots and hardware.

I'll bear in mind we may be unwittingly participating in a potentially risky military training exercise the next time I purchase a commercial plane ticket for myself or family.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

No everything is magnetic we look at or talk about With ATC.

There are flux valves in the wing tips that measure it.

The FMS carries an almanac which then fits us into it's grid navigational database.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I'll bear in mind we may be unwittingly participating in a potentially risky military training exercise the next time I purchase a commercial plane ticket for myself or family.

It will be a navigation exercise. The police, news helicopters and sight seeing will use the same routes.

 

[Roga50]

USA you can do VFR at night which is the rules I suspect the mil helicopter had declared.

The ATC recording that I heard has the helicopter pilot declaring at least twice that they are using "visual separation."

FYI, Scott Manley ran a quick preliminary simulation of the flight along with ATC audio on his secondary channel:

 

[stcbus]

President of the US: “DEI”. Just amazing.

 

[dik]

It has secondary radar mode C Information on the radar display so yes it's on.

Thanks...

 

[dik]

Diclination is 15deg east in Washington.

Is runway orientation set on magnetic north? or geodetic? What happens when the magnetic pole shifts?

 

[fel3]

Is runway orientation set on magnetic north? or geodetic? What happens when the magnetic pole shifts?

They rotate the airport.

Not to make light of this tragedy, of course