Trump went off last night and everybody spiderman memeing each other.samurai_science said:
Trump knows something about DEI we dont. Leaks and rumors now, I bet we know in detail by weekend
Trump knew. He knew.
regional jet crash? (American Airlines) at Reagan (DCA)
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Last: 18 hrs ago by titan
Trump knew. He knew.
Listened on CNN to a former Black Hawk pilot who was a Company Commander in the same unit as the downed helicopter. He said he had flown that route too many times to count.
He said that the procedure is to contact Reagan Tower at "Key Bridge". I looked on google maps and guess that would refer to the Francis Scott Key Bridge a couple of miles north. He said that you do not proceed past Key Bridge without Tower's permission, and Tower may tell you to speed up or slow down at times.
So I learned something...
Also, I wonder where IDTEK fix is located in relation to the river. Is it prior to crossing the river and thus also the Helicopter route? As previously mentioned, IDTEK minimum altitude is 490' . My eyes are not good enough to tell by looking at the approach plate.
He said that the procedure is to contact Reagan Tower at "Key Bridge". I looked on google maps and guess that would refer to the Francis Scott Key Bridge a couple of miles north. He said that you do not proceed past Key Bridge without Tower's permission, and Tower may tell you to speed up or slow down at times.
So I learned something...
Also, I wonder where IDTEK fix is located in relation to the river. Is it prior to crossing the river and thus also the Helicopter route? As previously mentioned, IDTEK minimum altitude is 490' . My eyes are not good enough to tell by looking at the approach plate.
It's on the east side of the river, more or less where the extended centerline of 33 crosses I-295Hey Nav said:
Also, I wonder where IDTEK fix is located in relation to the river.
Why all DEI hires? Eff that. If you're going to retest hires, retest them all. Selectively testing is in itself racist like the DEI claims.fullback44 said:The FAA needs to retest all DEI hires to see if they are capable of doing the job, if not, get out the ax cut them lose or send them out to California to help fight firesv1rotate92 said:
Good luck getting the data from the FAA to prove or disprove DEI effects on the accident/incident rates
Thanks, Ed.
Looks to me that the plane can start to descend at IDTEK and when they reach the river they are half way to the runway threshold. Seems they would be below 300' at that point.
Looks to me that the plane can start to descend at IDTEK and when they reach the river they are half way to the runway threshold. Seems they would be below 300' at that point.
Stat Monitor Repairman said:Trump went off last night and everybody spiderman memeing each other.samurai_science said:
Trump knows something about DEI we dont. Leaks and rumors now, I bet we know in detail by weekend
Trump knew. He knew.
REMINDER: Biden’s pick to lead the FAA was a DEI hire who couldn’t answer a single question about aviation. pic.twitter.com/Wpq27SSm9P
— Jessica 🇺🇸 (@RealJessica05) January 30, 2025
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because hard men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
MarkTwain said:Stat Monitor Repairman said:Trump went off last night and everybody spiderman memeing each other.samurai_science said:
Trump knows something about DEI we dont. Leaks and rumors now, I bet we know in detail by weekend
Trump knew. He knew.REMINDER: Biden’s pick to lead the FAA was a DEI hire who couldn’t answer a single question about aviation. pic.twitter.com/Wpq27SSm9P
— Jessica 🇺🇸 (@RealJessica05) January 30, 2025
This guy wasn't even confirmed. It was a white male ultimately.
I will also note that night vision goggles are worse than useless with all the city lights.TRADUCTOR said:Burnsey said:
Maybe this has been addressed, but I expect the Blackhawk to be much more technologically advanced than the local newstation's Bell Ranger 206 with capabilities on board to detect an approaching aircraft. So it. Can't do that?
Called eyeballs and should be some on board every flight .
I know the ATCs were understaffed before Covid... but how much did the Covid Vaxx mandates increase the issue with ATCs being forced to retire... or fired.
I believe they tried to strike in protest.
I believe they tried to strike in protest.
Stat Monitor Repairman said:
Looking back at GWOT there were some old ass CWO pilots out there. I'll tell you that for a fact. Somehow in 03-04 when **** had to get done some old guys came out of the woodwork. Remember old CWO that people joked may have flown in Vietnam. He may well have, but people too afraid to ask. Wild to look back on now.
I have a friend who flew Chinooks in Viernam. He stayed in the reserves and flew Apaches because he wanted to hit CW5 nefore retiring. They called him up for Iraq, and he was there in 2005 when his daighter and my son graduated from high school. I remember that he watched it in Iraq on video feed. He was at Camp Spicher
He would have been about 62 at the time. Hes an Aggie, about 6 foot5. You would have remembered him if you had met
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because hard men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Tone2002 said:MarkTwain said:Stat Monitor Repairman said:Trump went off last night and everybody spiderman memeing each other.samurai_science said:
Trump knows something about DEI we dont. Leaks and rumors now, I bet we know in detail by weekend
Trump knew. He knew.REMINDER: Biden’s pick to lead the FAA was a DEI hire who couldn’t answer a single question about aviation. pic.twitter.com/Wpq27SSm9P
— Jessica 🇺🇸 (@RealJessica05) January 30, 2025
This guy wasn't even confirmed. It was a white male ultimately.
I know that however it's an example of the way DEI works with the last administration. They literally nominated a candidate who was less qualified than ANYONE Trump has put forward.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because hard men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Reading through and catching up. Responsibility ultimately fell to the helo pilot to maintain visual separation, also noted that they were supposed to be below 200ft altitude and were instead near 400ft altitude.
I have a family member who works at the Pentagon and says the scuttlebutt is that this will 100% be the helo's fault and that the command knew it almost as soon as the accident happened. We'll see. Peeps have been wrong before.Dill-Ag13 said:
Reading through and catching up. Responsibility ultimately fell to the helo pilot to maintain visual separation, also noted that they were supposed to be below 200ft altitude and were instead near 400ft altitude.
I'm good with that too.. RE check everyone.. just fix it
Forget it. Not worth the sensitivities in this thread. Ridiculous.
nortex97 said:
Yep. It was apparently an NVG training flight. Unclear to me why that would need to happen if, in fact it is true, right at the end of the DCA runway instead of further up the river away from so much congestion.UPDATE: DC Aviation Disaster
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) January 31, 2025
The BlackHawk Pilot had 1,000 Hours Experience, Co-Pilot a women with 500 hours Experience
1,000 flying hours is considered “very experienced,” considering most flights are on average two hours in length.
• The co-pilot, who is known as the pilot… pic.twitter.com/fKGXvQMAXC
Crew chief was flying apparently, named Ryan O'Hara, not the co-pilot (not that I think it matters but the latter was a female, with 500 hours or so of experience). It's pretty obvious imho this was simple human error by whoever was actually flying the UH-60 at the time.
And to the person above who asked, while there are advanced/special forces types of blackhawks, the run of the mill models used by the Army are just glorified station wagons of the sky, not a lot of high-tech devices/stuff on them, other than radio's when used for VIP duties.
This guy seems to know what he is talking about (not sure if posted, sorry if so, I gave up keeping up with this thread):
Crew Chiefs aren't pilots. They don't fly in the front seat and don't have access to the controls. An experienced crew chiefs is great for many things, but given that he was most likely sitting on the right side of the aircraft he would not have been in a position to help the pilots search for the incoming aircraft.
And while we're at it quit bagging on one of the two pilots for being female. I know many fine female aviator and many ****ty male ones. Experience may have been an issue, which is an Army wide issue, but not what's between her legs.
Yeah my mistake, thx. I expect the pilot was a senior CWO?
Edit: and I didn't 'bag on the co-pilot's gender.' I specifically said 'not that it matters.' Whatever.
Edit: and I didn't 'bag on the co-pilot's gender.' I specifically said 'not that it matters.' Whatever.
nortex97 said:
Yeah my mistake, thx. I expect the pilot was a senior CWO?
Edit: and I didn't 'bag on the co-pilot's gender.' I specifically said 'not that it matters.' Whatever.
NORTEX I wasn't talking about you specifically speakihg about the pilot being female, it was a general statement for the thread. It seems to be a trend in this thread that it was her sex that was an impact on the incident. It was a crew of 3 and I've only seen the female pilot's flight experience mentioned until your post about the Crew Chief.
This will end up being a great case study of the public's desire to blame someone other than the individual who should be held accountable. While there may be contributing factors such as ATC staffing I think at the end of all this we will learn it was human error of the helicopter pilot. People screw up all the time. Unfortunately this time it claimed many lives.
FriscoKid said:nortex97 said:Not my area but per a.net discussion apparently TCAS (traffic collision avoidance) is 'suppressed' below a certain altitude (maybe 200 feet for helo's and 1000 for fixed wing aircraft?). Joint Base Andrew's (where the 89th military airlift/marine 1 unit bases their stuff out of locally) is only a few miles from Reagan Nat'l. Theory is presently I guess that the Blackhawk pilot visually spotted a larger aircraft landing further from him, but missed the CRJ.FriscoKid said:This.TxAG#2011 said:
Why on earth would any aircraft ever be allowed through the flight path of a major commercial airport relying on visuals...
Sickening stuff
There are some snide remarks about helo's routinely violating airspace though around/near airports such as Reagan. If that's even an irregular problem it needs to be cleaned up, self-evidently. Still, this breaks a 16-year streak since a fatal airliner accident in the US, sadly.Quote:
The helicopter looks to have been following Route 1 to Route 4. The altitude restrictions along these two routes from the Memorial Bridge to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is 200 feet and below and hugging the east side of the Potomac.
I've flown this Route a few times, once at night, probably 20 years ago and we were always down around 100-150 feet. I'd guess the helo was higher than it was supposed to be, and also was looking at the wrong aircraft when they told ATC they had traffic in sight.
Maybe our military helicopter should have stayed the hell out the way?
Those routes are helicopter transition routes. They are there specifically to move helicopters through those areas.
Stat Monitor Repairman said:
Are these gold top pilots supposed to be the best of the best? Seems like the kind of unit people strive to finish out their career at, no?
In any event, seems wild that they training new people in the most heavily trafficked airspace in the US at night.
Looking back at GWOT there were some old ass CWO pilots out there. I'll tell you that for a fact. Somehow in 03-04 when **** had to get done some old guys came out of the woodwork. Remember old CWO that people joked may have flown in Vietnam. He may well have, but people too afraid to ask. Wild to look back on now.
It's an assignment. You can ask for it or be assigned. The unit's pilots and crew chiefs will run the spectrum from newly graduated to looking at retirement.
Military aviation has a recruitment and retention problem. I never dreamed I would see the day that you couldn't find pilots, but it is now an issue. The Army specifically has an issue that many of what would today be senior CW3s and junior CW4s left for the airlines. The airlines pay better and have less BS. The Army was forcing pilots out between 2014 and 2016 too. It means that we have some very senior pilots with experience and we have very junior pilots and nothing in between.
My unit as an example has a handful of CW4s and many WO1s and junior CW2s. Our mid-grad aircraft commanders are 3-4 captains.
The helicopters are supposed to follow Route 1 and Route 4 above the eastern shore of the Potomac River. See below for the routes. The flight track of the UH60 shows it deviated from Route 1 by passing over the golf course at Hains Point and ends up almost mid Potomac at the crash location. The glide paths are well established and the UH60 would have clearly been interfering with the glide path when deviating from the established route.
The AAL pilots carry 0% fault. It was the failure of the ATC and the UH60 pilots based on these diagrams.
The AAL pilots carry 0% fault. It was the failure of the ATC and the UH60 pilots based on these diagrams.
nm
ArmyAg2002 said:nortex97 said:
Yep. It was apparently an NVG training flight. Unclear to me why that would need to happen if, in fact it is true, right at the end of the DCA runway instead of further up the river away from so much congestion.UPDATE: DC Aviation Disaster
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) January 31, 2025
The BlackHawk Pilot had 1,000 Hours Experience, Co-Pilot a women with 500 hours Experience
1,000 flying hours is considered “very experienced,” considering most flights are on average two hours in length.
• The co-pilot, who is known as the pilot… pic.twitter.com/fKGXvQMAXC
Crew chief was flying apparently, named Ryan O'Hara, not the co-pilot (not that I think it matters but the latter was a female, with 500 hours or so of experience). It's pretty obvious imho this was simple human error by whoever was actually flying the UH-60 at the time.
And to the person above who asked, while there are advanced/special forces types of blackhawks, the run of the mill models used by the Army are just glorified station wagons of the sky, not a lot of high-tech devices/stuff on them, other than radio's when used for VIP duties.
This guy seems to know what he is talking about (not sure if posted, sorry if so, I gave up keeping up with this thread):
Crew Chiefs aren't pilots. They don't fly in the front seat and don't have access to the controls. An experienced crew chiefs is great for many things, but given that he was most likely sitting on the right side of the aircraft he would not have been in a position to help the pilots search for the incoming aircraft.
And while we're at it quit bagging on one of the two pilots for being female. I know many fine female aviator and many ****ty male ones. Experience may have been an issue, which is an Army wide issue, but not what's between her legs.
I wish people would stop giving Captain Steeeve clicks, that guy is an idiot, he is a classic narcissistic Pilot that rarely knows what he is talking about
A new clearer video has been released of the collision between a helicopter and passenger plane in Washington D.C. pic.twitter.com/lxzKax7TUN
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 31, 2025
SIAP but didn't see this angle on the thread yet.
Question? There is some type of bright flash about midway on the helo body before impact. What is that? Standard light?
txags92 said:
Seems like there was a cascade of small errors by ATC and the pilots both that had to happen in order to cause the wreck. Hard to pick just 1 of them as the "root cause", because if any of them were erased, the accident becomes a near miss instead.
1) ATC calls out approaching traffic for PAT25, without telling them where to look for it (ie at your 11 o'clock), instead telling them a location relative to a specific ground feature (South of Woodrow Bridge), which leaves the possibility of seeing a more distant plane as the approaching traffic ATC is talking about.
2) ATC second callout about the traffic also does not specify where the traffic is relative to PAT25. ATC misses chance to say "If you have visual on traffic, why are you still flying right at the traffic?"
3) If the collision occurred at 395 ft, PAT25 is flying at nearly twice the max altitude for their cleared route. Neither the pilot nor ATC note the discrepancy in where they are supposed to be vertically.
You had 3 shots at missing the collision. If ATC calls out where the traffic was relative to PAT25 either time, the pilot presumably turns their head and sees the much closer plane. If PAT25 flies at <200' or ATC calls them out for flying above 200', the accident never happens...it is a near miss as PAT25 flies very close, but under the CRJ.
To me, if that turns out to be the scenario, the root cause is ultimately PAT25 flying too high. But ATC would have missed multiple chances to prevent the collision.
Almost immediately following the ATC call out to PAT25 in your point #2, ATC should have cancelled clearance to the CRJ to land, while asking them to climb to 2200 at a heading of something like 290, then told PAT25 to slow and turn left while descending to 200'.
After all that ATC could have sternly told PAT25 to get back on the established route.
The controller is looking at his screen which is forewarning him what actually happened, even though the Helo was wrong in both altitude, and likely visual ID & horizontal separation. Many have commented the HELO would have been fine under 200' but what if helo was closer to the threshold an issue still could have occurred.
I suspect if Helo has CVR there is a good chance they find Unnecessary Conversation in the Cockpit.
The more articles I read the more I think the DCA is a real cluster F of air traffic and this accident could have happened many times over. Flying a bunch of helicopters around the vicinity of a major airport is just stupid. But hey it's Washington DC, and there are a lot of people over there that don't know how to think ! I don't know the answer but what they are doing will just happen again and again unless someone comes up with a real solution that will work
Y'alls speculation on bs isn't helping
Yes. Standard beacon or strobe light. Intended to help be identified and avoided (anti-collision lighting)
Why would a ng pilot be flying a big army helicopter
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