AA jet and Military helicopter collide over Potomac 8

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

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

There is thing called aerodrome traffic zone in the rest of the world around airports.

But I don't know if the FAA uses it.

It's up to 2000ft and 2.5NM midpoint of longest runway.

 

[DirteJoe]

It may differ from the Army, but part of the FAA's concession with allowing military air traffic through under visual separation rules was to ALWAYS maintain 1500ft minimum separation from all civilian traffic.

So it wasn't all just a free for all, but doesn't seem the Army had similar policies in place.

 

[LittleInch]

They probably interpreted that as meaning that the civilian aircraft had to bugger off out of the way..... Even so that's only about 450m or about 1/3 mile. Or about seven seconds when travelling at 120 kts. assuming that distance is a horizontal one. If its vertical then route 4 should never have been allowed while aircraft were using runway 33 to land or take off.

And how you can judge distances when travelling at that speed at night is beyond the ability of anyone without radar. And especially virtually head on.

Think this ones going to end up unfortunately with the Air Traffic controller having all the information, automated warnings, visual tracking etc telling them a collision was about to happen and they did not do enough to ensure there wasn't either a mid air collision or a very near miss. Of course the root cause is allowing such a situation to become possible with the intersection of a helicopter route and a glide slope into a working runway with negligible vertical clearance. IMHO.

 

[LionelHutz]

Hmm, so there was a minimum distance. Imagine that...

Even without a fixed number, far enough away you don't crash would be the minimum distance to stay back, not trying to pass 25' under the landing gear.

 

[DirteJoe]

I stand corrected. It's a minimum of 500ft to any person, vessel, building, vehicle, etc. It's a DoD/FAA agreement mostly aimed at high speed military training routes for the Air Force; the USMC, Army, and Coast Guard have been instructed to follow the DoD policy for all training flights per their chains of command.

One thing to keep in mind, is 200ft on route 4 was just the maximum altitude. They could have been at 100ft and been just fine.

 

[spsalso]

FAA

I believe it was mentioned earlier that there were quite a few close calls at this route intersection. And the FAA knew, or should have known, about it.

If that's the case, someone knew there was a dangerous situation, and did nothing. Or not enough to have adequate effect.

I was just wondering who that person or people were.

The FAA does not make decisions. People do.


spsalso

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Rule 5 only applies away from landing areas. Which is the 500ft.

The whole setup is a fudge of the normal. I really think all norms have been waved.

Unfortunately lives have been lost to end it.

I suspect discussions now are purely financial to allocate who is going to pay the deceased relatives.

They will want all the blame to be pointed at the least able to pay. Ie the mil helicopter pilot.

 

[IRstuff]

No collision, but close encounter requiring diversion, and involving USAF planes and commercial airliner at same airport
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/p...7&cvid=45cc745645cc4a9ca27284d3cb8b4fc9&ei=28

 

[Garbage1]

Article on DCA ATC Argument that indicates stress levels may be rising at DCA?

Clearly way too many flights scheduled for an undersized 1930's designed airport, and then a crossing runway... Yet Delta just advertised a new non-stop from DCA to Seattle, which is crazy to add more load on over loaded airport.

Bloody Fight Breaks Out In DCA Tower Between On-Duty Controllers

Two air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport (DCA) got into a bloody fist fight while on duty. Wow.

onemileatatime.com

 

[Garbage1]

Army not being transparent with Congress.

Quotes:

"The committee said that the US Army was asked in March 2025 to provide the memo and at a recent subcommittee hearing on March 27, 2025, Brigadier General Matthew Braman had refused to commit to providing the document, citing an ongoing investigation.

However, at the same subcommittee the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy said that the agency’s investigation does not preclude the Department of Defense from sharing the memo. "

Link:

US Army fails to provide ADS-B memo to DCA crash probe

Senators have expressed outrage over the US Army’s failure to provide a memo relating to its use of ADS-B in the National Capital Region.

www.aerotime.aero

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I would any federal employee at the moment would have increased stress levels.

Plus the aftermath of a major accident is pretty intense even if it's not fatal and your not in the line with criminal investigations.

I suspect they are boiling over never mind rising.

 

[TugboatEng]

It seems to be the new MO of the US government. If you don't want yourself or others talk about it, open an investigation. While the investigation is open, cite the ongoing investigation as an excuse for opacity/obstruction. Then, when the investigation concludes without finding anything refuse any questions on the grounds that the investigation has already been completed.

 

[Garbage1]

DoD Test Conducted at wrong frequency, despite FAA warning not to at TCAS frequency range.

"Washington D.C. – A Senate hearing has revealed that improper counter-drone testing by the Secret Service and the U.S. Navy on March 1,2025,triggered false collision warnings for commercial flights approaching ronald reagan National Airport (DCA). This incident, occurring shortly after a separate, tragic aviation accident, has ignited concerns about aviation safety and interagency coordination."

"This revelation begs the question: why were these tests conducted despite prior warnings? The FAA’s role in overseeing spectrum usage and coordinating with other government agencies is now under intense scrutiny. "

Counter-Drone Tests Trigger False Airport Warnings – Archyde

%

www.archyde.com

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

It doesn't it was completely ignored over the mobile phone frequency issue.

 

[Garbage1]

Ok, I get it now. FAA Sold/Mis-allocated 5G frequencies to Telecoms for $$$$$$$$, and those frequency bands are also used for TCAS and Radar Altimeters at airports.

Telecoms have been voluntary limited their 5G transmit power near airports, because they likely don't want to loose those frequencies.

DoD/Navy/Secret Service were just using FAA approved telecom 5G bands, at approved transmit power required for their anti-drone test, and that use of 'Approved' Bandwidth/Transmit Power is still a problem FAA created and has not fixed.....

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

It wasn't the FAA that sold them.

 

[LittleInch]

It was the FCC , Federal Communication Commission, who sold the frequencies for Billions of Dollars

 

[Eufalconimorph]

Yep. The FCC regulates allocation of the RF spectrum. They sold unused spectrum to the telecoms for 5G, with a ridiculously huge 220MHz guard band between that and the allocation they'd sold to the aircraft radar altimeter & TCAS manufacturers (the 5G allocation in question is 3.7-3.98 GHz, the aircraft band in question is 4.2-4.4GHz, these don't even come close to overlapping). The FAA freaked out, because they hadn't required the radalt manufacturers to have any input filtering so a lot of existing radalts are susceptible to interference from transmissions well outside their allocated spectrum.

 

[Garbage1]

Sorry, I knew it was FCC, but got baited in article saying it was FAA.

Quote: "According to the Aireon analysis of the day’s events, all of the recorded TCAS alerts involved an unidentified “intruder” aircraft at an altitude exactly 2,300 feet — regardless of the altitude of the approaching aircraft. This clearly ruled out common errors such as TCAS ghosting or filtering issues with ownship traffic.
Additionally, Aireon compared each RA and detailed information about the intruder aircraft’s position and discovered the intruder was not broadcasting identity via ADS-B or Mode S, its signals indicate it operated only with a basic Mode 3/A transponder and altitude-reporting Mode C. The data cannot say for certain, but it is possible the intruder was airborne or related to a ground-based transmitter used for testing or spoofing."

DCA TCAS Anomalies Explained

Multiple aircraft approaching DCA experienced Traffic Collision Avoidance System Resolution Advisories, indicating a potential risk of mid-air collision.

aireon.com

In Typical Government fashion, FCC controls civilian spectrum, and NTIA controls Government Spectrum. The two agencies coordinate shared spectrum.