Crash at Reagan National Airport, DC. Small aircraft down in the Potomac.

I spent some time listening to DCA Tower this afternoon, and one thing I noticed was them frequently calling out helicopter traffic to the arriving and departing jets. No idea whether this is SOP, but when listening to ATC replays of the accident, I don't recall hearing tower point out the PAT25 traffic to the CRJ (just the other way around).
 
You guys are odd, maybe just imagine it was your wife, or for many here great grandkids on that flight
 
MauleSkinner said:
Can you give me the time stamps for the audio involved that indicate this was due to a post-9/11 change, or that a “VIP” was training, or that Larry’s dying mom would be denied that route?
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That would be the traffic in sight part


Or even allowing that crap show, flying into a 121 approach path that close would be a hard no if it wasn’t a DC Blackhawk BS route
 
Warmi said:
Well, the training flight went horribly wrong because it was flying a route that took him across final approaches for two runways at a major international airport - hell, I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that these two facts are related.
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Well there was a comment earlier about how this route isn’t supposed to be used with 33 arrivals. As bad as the media reports have been, I’d take that with a grain of salt though. It’s possible but I’d think ATC would’ve squashed the route 4 request in a heartbeat if that were true.

Simple fact is these routes exist in other places. If everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing there isn’t an issue. I will say there isn’t much room for error on the part of the helicopter pilot. But there isn’t much room for error for airline pilots or ATC when running parallel ops either. Phoenix TRACON proved that just a couple weeks back.

You can see here, Logan’s runs (no pun) right off the departure end. Not much room for error. Heck, O’hare’s makes my head hurt just looking at it. Can’t believe they don’t lose sep there on a regular basis with that maze. The caution listed for “vortex encounter” is pretty applicable when running that close to airline arrivals.

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Prayers to the families involved. Tragic. Wichita is 30 minutes from home for me. Hits pretty close to home and my community.
 
Velocity173 said:
Well there was a comment earlier about how this route isn’t supposed to be used with 33 arrivals. As bad as the media reports have been, I’d take that with a grain of salt though. It’s possible but I’d think ATC would’ve squashed the route 4 request in a heartbeat if that were true.

Simple fact is these routes exist in other places. If everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing there isn’t an issue. I will say there isn’t much room for error on the part of the helicopter pilot. But there isn’t much room for error for airline pilots or ATC when running parallel ops either. Austin TRACON proved that just a couple weeks back.

You can see here, Logan’s runs (no pun) right off the departure end. Not much room for error. Heck, O’hare’s makes my head hurt just looking at it. Can’t believe they don’t lose sep there on a regular basis with that maze. The caution listed for “vortex encounter” is pretty applicable when running that close to airline arrivals.
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Yes, these routes do exist and yes indeed ,airline pilots do need to pay attention when landing parallel but my point is that we should be in the business of minimizing risks and having a route like that being accessible to anyone for any reason is the very opposite of minimizing risks.
A flight carrying “Larry’s dying mom” ( as somebody mentioned in one of the posts ) would have represent a risk worth taking but a military training flight taking the same route should classify as unnecessary and reckless.
 
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Roller said:
You guys are odd, maybe just imagine it was your wife, or for many here great grandkids on that flight
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No, we're pilots. That means we try to look at accident reports with detached objectivity. We try to understand what happened and learn lessons that may save us in the future, when our own families may be on board.

This forum has multiple airline pilots, military helicopter pilots, and ATC controllers, many of them participating in this thread. Lots of good discussion and analysis for those inclined to listen and participate.

If you just want to jump in and declare you have it all figured out, nobody is going to take you seriously, and some are going to mock you.
 
Larry in TN said:
The aircraft were not being separated by altitude. In no situation would a helicopter be allowed to fly under an airplane landing on 33 at that position based on the helicopter staying at, or below, 200'. The separation standard being applied was visual separation.


Yes. Or a police helicopter, or a medivac helicopter, etc.


The Metro already goes to IAD.


The interwebs make the information about them much more available and causes the news to spread quickly.
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Maintaining visual separation didn't allow the helicopter pilots to go off route and bust altitude. That's unless they were avoiding traffic. These pilots weren't avoiding anything because they were likely looking at / 'avoiding' the wrong plane that was further away.
 
Roller said:
Yeah no, medevac flying your dying mom would be denied the routes those baclhawks flew

They would also deny fixed wing into that airport
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I have no idea what you're saying.

The published helicopter routes are available to helicopters, not airplanes, military and civilian. They are published on the Baltimore-Washington Helicopter chart.

My mother died in 2021 a few weeks short of her 99th birthday. She never rode on a helicopter.
 
Warmi said:
Yes, these routes do exist and yes indeed ,airline pilots do need to pay attention when landing parallel but my point is that we should be in the business of minimizing risks and having a route like that being accessible to anyone for any reason is the very opposite of minimizing risks.
A flight carrying “Larry’s dying mom” ( as somebody mentioned in one of the posts ) would have represent a risk worth taking but a military training flight taking the same route should classify as unnecessary and reckless.
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How would you train a pilot to fly the route without flying the route? Or check their proficiency? I believe this flight was a proficiency check and if so, I would guess it will be scored as “Fail.”
 
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Larry in TN said:
How wide is the helicopter route?

What is the precision of the Mode-C reporting?
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The route hugs the eastern edge of the Potomac. For some reason, that helicopter was a little west and gained about 150' of altitude right before impact. Watch Blanco Lirio for confirmation of that.

 
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Half Fast said:
How would you train a pilot to fly the route without flying the route? Or check their proficiency? I believe this flight was a proficiency check and if so, I would guess it will be scored as “Fail.”
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Do your night training when there are no passenger jets landing.
 
I'll say it again: Apparently no one in the PAT 25 was concerned about wake turbulence from the jet.

ADS-B couldn't save this from happening. Somewhere, either in the control cab or the cockpits, someone wasn't looking outside the windows or at the right target. Consider - you can have two cockpits looking down at the panel and still have this happen. ATC owned that airspace. We love our technology too much, we forget the basics of if you say you have someone in sight, you have to make sure they stay in sight. And the chart Terps have some explaining about that helicopter route.
 
It's almost as if the universe decided this was going to happen and there wasn't anything anyone could do to stop it.
 
Half Fast said:
How would you train a pilot to fly the route without flying the route? Or check their proficiency? I believe this flight was a proficiency check and if so, I would guess it will be scored as “Fail.”
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I agree and am confused. It seems like everyone here and on TV are saying the Helo route was 200 or below. Yet the PAT25 was well above that for the crash and leading up to it.

I'm a simple VFR pilot but anytime I was on a proficiency check I would get a smack for busting altitude. Mostly because I'm usually under one of 2 Class B airspaces.

Is this typical behavior to ignore that type of error?
 
Tom-Flying said:
It seems like everyone here and on TV are saying the Helo route was 200 or below. Yet the PAT25 was well above that for the crash and leading up to it.
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skyking3286 said:
Apparently no one in the PAT 25 was concerned about wake turbulence from the jet.
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Maybe they were concerned, so climbed above it? Emergency authority and all that? :dunno: Might not have seen the correct jet or misjudged closing rate. Or another one of those optical illusion scenarios like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Carmel_mid-air_collision

Keep the jets over the water, helos over land — problem solved.
 
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Warmi said:
Do your night training when there are no passenger jets landing.
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And when are they supposed to do that? They’ve got quiet hour / noise abatement rules, fuel restriction times in effect at Davison AAF. They’ve got to get off at a decent time to get back before those restrictions are in place.
 
CaptainDoug said:
For some reason, that helicopter was a little west and gained about 150' of altitude right before impact. Watch Blanco Lirio for confirmation of that.

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There are at least a couple visual illusions, potentially combined, that I can think of which might have contributed to this. Seems bizarre to any of us not in the situation, but the eyes are powerful in the brain hierarchy, and they fool us frequently at night. Just determining aspect, or track crossing rate, can be challenging in a saturated lighting scenario. Some non-sensical course/altitude corrections could have been the result of that entirely.
 
Man, does Juan ever sleep? Don’t know where that guy has time to whip out so many vids. @Flymy47 white phosphor. Of course not sure if both or none were goggled up front. I’d at least go one aided and one unaided up front. Especially these days with the hard to see LEDs in towers. I know the FAA is getting around to replacing them but they’re still out there.
 
35 AoA said:
There are at least a couple visual illusions, potentially combined, that I can think of which might have contributed to this. Seems bizarre to any of us not in the situation, but the eyes are powerful in the brain hierarchy, and they fool us frequently at night. Just determining aspect, or track crossing rate, can be challenging in a saturated lighting scenario. Some non-sensical course/altitude corrections could have been the result of that entirely.
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Which was my point earlier. Maintaining visual separation is a fallacy. Especially at night. It's not the first time it's gone horribly wrong. Sure there's seemingly other factors in play. But 150 foot visual separation at night is playing a 110 knot game of chicken.
 
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