I don’t know if that’s compressed: but a little bit past the 7 min mark there’s something that sounds like the helicopter says he has traffic in sight, the controller responds, and almost immediately there’s a reaction to begin clearing the airspace.
If the interpretation above about altitude is accurate, horizontally he was on a route but vertically he was not.
This is not the first time this has happened and tragically highlights the fallacy of visual separation. At night, depth perception is off and perhaps had the intention to pass behind but misjudged.
Anyone who's flown over a large, well-lit metro area a night knows how hard it is to see other aircraft. I also believe that the PAT said he had the RJ in sight; perhaps he had something in sight, maybe another plane, maybe something else.
The airplane on final to 01 was still several miles out and the helo's path would have been right across that one, but there was departing traffic from 01. I do agree with the theory they had an aircraft in sight and planned to pass behind it, but I suspect it was the departing airplane. Not that it makes much difference.
well, I'm questioning this, as a general statement. I regularly fly around the CLT bravo at night and I can see a gazillion planes that I would NEVER be able to spot during the day. however, I'm usually at 3k', I can't say I've ever flown at 400' around a metro area, I have to imagine it's a much, much different viewpoint. but to say it's hard to spot traffic at night, I've always had the opposite opinion.
They do and they did. On the first one, they contacted PAT25 and they accepted visual separation responsibilities. On the second one, they confirmed separation with the blackhawk. See post 62 above with the radar screen. I think the ATC audio was posted earlier?
Agree, I find it much easier to spot traffic at night. I'm assuming he had another plane in sight. I've made this mistake, telling the tower I had the plane in sight, only to see the correct plane a few seconds later.
Yes. Having developed (many, many years ago) some of the software for the CA/MSAW features still used today, the facility can (and usually does) establish inhibit volume areas so that MSAW alerts and CAs are minimized for normal operations to/from the airport.
I don’t think they designed the route to go directly beneath aircraft inbound to DCA. They’re in class B and unless visual sep is being applied, they still need 1.5 lateral and 500 ft vertical.
This unit (12 AVN) regularly flys military and civilian VIPs in the DC area. In order to do that, they need to train on the helicopter routes in the area.
The VIP squadrons need to be trained in the area that they operate to and from. I have a college friend who flew for HMX-1 (the Marine Squadron that flies Marine One) and he said that they routinely would do training flights to the White House for pilots to learn, and to maintain currency, how to fly into and out of the White House and land on the exact spot required to pick up POTUS. Since PATS is the Army VIP Squadron I would say that they were at the Pentagon conducting training and were returning to their base at Ft Belvoir.
I don't think it is uncommon at Regan for this type of approach. It's less of a circle to land than it is a slightly angled base to final once pulled off the 01 FAC. And it was clear and a million last night here in DC. Wasn't an issue for the CRJ crew. They flew it perfectly (from what I can tell) and were stabilized on final to 33.
It appears the helicopter was supposed to be on a published route, but deviated both vertically and horizontally (drifting/turning westward into the path of the CRJ instead of hugging the eastern shore of the river per the charted route).
Not a circle to land, more of a side step. You can see they were lined up for 01, and then the controller had them move to the right to land 33.
this is going to seem petty, but I just want to point this out as I'm just learning this myself......they weren't technically doing a circle to land, they were on approach to one runway and were asked by ATC if they could take another runway. slightly different, and most likely didn't have any impact on this incident as it would have been flown almost the same way, but technically not exactly a full circle to land approach.
Yeap. And they were very much stabilized (from what the data shows anyway) on that approach to 33...
We have all probably called out having traffic in sight that turns out to be the wrong traffic.. I have done it at my home airport before. Tower - "traffic to follow is a xxx on a 3 mile final, report in sight" Me - seeing traffic landing the parallel instead - "Traffic in sight" Tower - "Follow the traffic number 2 cleared to land" Me spotting the correct traffic... oh dang ok follow THAT traffic... silly example and happened in VMC clear and a million during the day. But wonder if the helicopter had the wrong traffic or ground lights on the Alexandria shore in sight instead? Who knows right now.
PAT25 was flying on a published helicopter route.
He may have been too high but you don't know what altitude his altimeters were indicating. 200' vs 350' is not that much of a difference when altimeters just have to be within 300'.
RAs are inhibited below 1,000' radar altitude. Descending RAs inhibited below 1,100' RA. TA audio is muted below 500' RA.
The helicopter was told that the CRJ was maneuvering for Rwy 33, reported it in sight, and requested visual separation which was approved.
I agree.
They were. May have misidentified the CRJ.
They don't use that as vertical separation, although, in this case it would likely have worked. Visual separation was applied.
I think its much easier to see the aircraft. But much like the drones that "hovered" over New Jersey, more difficult to judge distance
This isn’t “pretend war.” It’s a VIP unit doing a simple training mission or enroute to / from an actual VIP mission.
Everyone is a very important person to their friends and family. But in this context, "VIP" is a term of art with a generally understood meaning.