AA jet and Military helicopter collide over Potomac 7

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

 

[hokie66]

According to a video I Just watched, they were asking why was only the flying pilot's name withheld for 4 days?

They went on to say she could have only been a part time pilot, because she was social media coordinator for White House for 4 years. She was in ROTC in 2018. So in 6 years time and 450-500 hours she is doing training check ride in the DC War Zone and not in a safe rural area? And her social media accounts were totally wiped and there is nothing on line, for someone who was a social media coordinator for White House.

Their opinion was nothing adds up about this whole catastrophe, and that it appears either pilot/crew were totally incompetent or intentional in their actions, and if not intentional why did other pilot not intervene or crew chief?

Can u smell that smell?

Yes, she was in the Biden White House. It does smell like DEI.

 

[TugboatEng]

The fact that they needed 4 days to purge her social media is what makes it smell like DEI. I'd like to think that there were at least some qualified people working in the Biden White House.

 

[waross]

The fact that they needed 4 days to purge her social media

Good point.
Posting your opinions should not be an embarrassment to you when you are dead.
Who would be embarrassed by what she had posted.
By the way, A friend of mine died a number of years ago. Most of his posts are still up.
His theories were very controversial.
Now in the unlikely event that a prestigious think tank had a connection to him, they could have been very embarrassed by a connection to some of his theories.
They would want to have his posts scrubbed.
No one else would care.
I try to avoid conspiracy theories.
BUT
Sometimes there is a conspiracy.
DEI?
Dead End Idea??

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

The fundamental issue with the separation for that route 4 still remains.

The number of losses of separation detailed in the video is extreme.

Instead of focusing on the lady. You should be focusing on who was authorising that mission.

And preventing the practice continuing.

Quite why a military paid person should be involved attached with social media is beyond me.

I have alot of feeling for what her relatives must be going through.

 

[DirteJoe]

Sure would be nice to know the Army's policy on flying route 4 around traffic. I highly doubt it is to pass under or even near civilian aircraft.

As for the PIC's social media being scrubbed, her family probably knew damn well the fire storm that would be coming when word got out a lesbian Biden administration aid was in command at the time. Military policy is to wait 72h after the family is informed before releasing the names unless they are given permission to release them. I doubt there's any cover-up going on with the Army there.

DEI may well have been a factor in her getting to where she was, but the Army isn't going to let anyone incompetent get anywhere near 500h of flight time.
15h as PIC is enough to qualify you as an instructor in the military, and her check ride instructor was in the 1000h range. Now it'd be pretty damning if she had a hiatus from flying and training for years while working as a social media aid for Biden, but I hope that's not the case. Again, 500h of flight hours in the US Army is very easily 2-4 years of experience, so far from an inexperienced pilot.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Really don't under a serving officer working or being under control of any politician.


doing ministry of defence interactions with civil servants yes.... But political social media ?

Or is it a nation guard thing ?

 

[DirteJoe]

It's a grey area for sure, but really depends on what tasks were performed, and if they were performed in uniform and on duty. I have not seen any of what sort of social media stuff she was doing for the Biden admin, though I do believe it would have been more of a Harris' hand pulling the strings than Biden.

If she was performing political activities in uniform, that would very likely be another nail in the DEI coffin as that would be against DoD and Army policies.

 

[Garbage1]

ADS-B appears to have been turned off, on helo, according to latest information to congress. Therefore, not providing ATC with the most accurate information on helo. Clearly having that off was likely intentional, and may have been standard operating procedure for Army.

Perhaps our self designated VIPs did not want all their movements tracked in their Tax Payer furnished 'Personal Limos'? Therefore policy was to turn off ADS-B on all military craft.

Clearly DC's War Zone threat is more one of political threats than security for the tax payer funded luxury limo's. If they don't want to be tracked, then VIP's should not use the helo's to stoke their bloated ego's. They can work just fine with today's technology in their tax payer funded ground limo service provided while traveling around DC, compkete with their logistics train of security detail.

I suspect the DEI is likely all the way to the top. The military Secetary of Defense is a Civilian Position, appointed and serving at the pleasure of each president.

 

[DirteJoe]

ADS-B being off ia 2018 FAA policy under the Trump admin for military aircraft.
Standard procedure for them.

 

[Garbage1]

New Rule Allows Military Aircraft to Turn Off ADS-B Transmissions - Avionics International

U.S. federal, state and local government aircraft performing sensitive operations are now permitted to fly with their installed automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) position reporting electronics turned off, according to […]

www.aviationtoday.com

"Under the new rule, aircraft conducting operations related to homeland security, law enforcement, national defense and intelligence that could be compromised by transmitting real-time aircraft position information are permitted to disable ADS-B transmissions after obtaining proper authorization from the FAA."

Regulations start at top, then each government level can generate more specific regulations that higher level when implementing. Therefore Army can modify FAA's rule at Army level, based upon their intrepretation. I have seen Reg's get massively altered by the time they reach local command levels. In theory local can be different as long as it does not directly conflict. Therefore, Army could have intrepreted rule to mean all military flights or just offically desiginate flight to be a Continuing Government Training Mission. Which in real life would entail turning off all transponders for surviveability reasons.

That one item on training mission appears in conflict with FAA rules. Clearly FAA was not operating in a Continuation of Goverment scenario for the Army's training mission.

 

[Garbage1]

Quote from article above:

“Once an agency has determined the broad mission sets that should be excepted from the transmitting requirement using its internal policies and assessment criteria, it must contact the FAA for authorization to conduct these broad mission sets without transmitting,” FAA officials wrote in the new policy statement."

Clearly threading a needle under civilian airplanes landing should never constitute turning off VIP limo ASD-B transponders within security circle around airport, unless all players are actually working to the same Mission as directed by the Commander in chief.

 

[Garbage1]

DOD INSTRUCTION 3020.26
DOD CONTINUITY POLICY
Dates June 4, 2024

So this is DoD and not Army Policy, or local Army Policy... But one of the links. It even links to Trumps EO which is on the internet too for reading.

 

[Garbage1]

Quote from Article:

"The FAA currently operates ATC under its Air Traffic Organization arm, though for years various parties have pursued on-again, off-again efforts to strip the agency of that function. The effort last gained traction during the first administration of Republic president Donald Trump but lost steam amid the tenure of Democrat Joe Biden."

“Separating the provision of air navigation services from the civil aviation authority and putting the [air navigation service provider] at arm’s length from its safety regulator… is now the globally recognised best practice,” Marc Scribner, senior transportation policy analyst at libertarian think tank Reason Foundation, tells lawmakers."

Proposal to strip ATC from FAA reappears ahead of second Trump term

A renewed push to separate air traffic control (ATC) from the Federal Aviation Administration arose again in Washington on 12 December, as lawmakers consider means of addressing the problem of aging ATC technology.

www.flightglobal.com

 

[Garbage1]

To show what has been previously mentioned about the complex and confusing helo routes and map, I have overlayed markings on DC Helo Map around DCA. Note Helo traffic area on Route 1 from the East is traveling SW direction and dropping in altitude from 500' plus to 300' near Y with Route 1W and Route 4. Whereas Route 1 from the West is heading South from 300' over river to 200' over river, then back up to 300' as it diverts over land before Y intersection.

Where exactly is the transition heading South after the Y-Intersection from 300' on both route 1's to 200' on Route 4? Or do we read route 4 stays at 300' on both sides of Wilson Bridge.

Very poor Map , and this Map is likely a separate map from DCA Airport Nav Map. So no way should helo be traveling at 120 kts thru a target rich environment, especially at night.

Lots of blame to spread all over on this one. After Listening to full voice recordings of tower communications with air traffic before crash, the one thing I noticed is the ATC/M's voice was hard for me to understand and I had to read the text conversion to fully understand. Whereas the female ATC/M later and all pilots were much easier to understand. ATC/M also had to correct incorrect information several times.

Now we can wait and see if the whole truth actually comes out on this one...





Edit: Zooming in on the large Helo Route Map, to read the fine print on a Laptop, I found the Route 4 Notes that make it clear Route 4 North of Wilson Bridge to Anacostia River is 200' Max Elevation. However immediately South of Anacostia River intersection with Potomac River, and at Wilson Bridge, altitude steps up to 300'.

However, the note circled in red allows ATC to alter routes at Pilot's Request, or as directed by ATC.

 

[waross]

A thought that I can't shake;
Startled reaction and muscle memory;
In the helicopter:
The helicopter may have passed below the commercial flight, but when the helo pilot was startled by the approaching aircraft at about 9:00 o-clock, slightly high, The Startled reaction and muscle memory was to stop this thing.
That action caused the helicopter to rise into the flight path.
Without Startled reaction and muscle memory the helicopter may have passed close beneath the other craft.
In the CRJ, again, Startled reaction and muscle memory.
When the pilot was startled by the helo at about 3:00 o-clock, slightly low, Startled reaction and muscle memory may have caused the pilot to bank away, dropping the left wing into the path of the helicopter.
Without Startled reaction and muscle memory, the helo may still have passed beneath the CRJ. The helo may have been still rising and may have just hit the wing further out.
Is it possible that Startled reaction and muscle memory turned a potential very close call into a tragedy?

 

[DirteJoe]

Very possible. Also possible after the 2nd call from ATC they began looking around and the body started to go to where the head is looking; Unintentional control inputs. Target fixation can be a bitch.

 

[TugboatEng]

That's a big rule in off-road motorcycle riding. Never look at the object you're trying to avoid.

 

[LionelHutz]

I see lots of comments about the route allowing helicopters to pass below landing aircraft. That's not supposed to ever happen in normal operations, the altitude separation is just to prevent a crash in case it does.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Had a bizjet pilot coming back to self loading freight work on the jump seat doing his observation flights post type rating yesterday.

We were discussing this incident. He said it was a common occurrence but without the crash, and refusing to take the switch runway would put you in the sin bin out of sequence and possible diversion with a pissed off prime in the back.

He was extremely glad escaping having to do it. And by the sounds of it, its not a USA only issue. To be fair by the sounds of it there is the volume of occurrences without incident to justify the risk assessment for allowing it. Although this one event fatalities may kill that argument.

 

[LittleInch]

Sorry, but only just realised what "self loading freight" was.....

Like everything really, it's all ok when everthing is working, but when it isn't then eventually the stars / holes in the cheese align.

To get to negligible status you're looking at 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 1,000,000. That's a whole lot of helicopter flight near misses / interactions.

And in general for industrial incidients, you see something like 15 to 20 reported near misses to an incident. In reality its probaly closer to 1 in 100 as many won't get reported.