DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I remember. Folks like that trying to get random folks killed ...
And yeah, it's much worse now.
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Jet collides with helicopter near D.C.
- Thread starter kruis
- Start date
I remember. Folks like that trying to get random folks killed ...
And yeah, it's much worse now.
Gp1
Member
Pac asked for visual separation, the ATC asked if they saw the CRJ...
As someone seeing this from afar, I would believe in 3 hypothesis now or a mix between them.
1 Pac was out of their designated altitude (the traffic way pass under the glide slope in normal conditions)
2 CRJ was out of the correct glide slope (when he was changing the approach to anther runway)
3 Pac probably saw another plane on the approach an thought it was the CRJ
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Aggelos
Member
It looks like they couldn't discern each other.
When ATC asked if the Black Hawk could see and spot CRJ, they probably must have spotted something different (not the PSA Airlines Flight 5342 on landing approach).
Airtraffic Collision Avoidance System wouldn't have worked at such an altitude for Flight 5342, anyhow.
"The airplane was equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). However, TCAS generally inhibits its Resolution Advisories (RA) when the airplane is at an altitude below 1,000 feet (300 m) above ground level. This precaution is taken to avoid guiding an aircraft into potential collisions with terrain or other aircraft in congested terminal airspace and to reduce pilot cognitive load during critical phases of flight."
When ATC asked if the Black Hawk could see and spot CRJ, they probably must have spotted something different (not the PSA Airlines Flight 5342 on landing approach).
Airtraffic Collision Avoidance System wouldn't have worked at such an altitude for Flight 5342, anyhow.
"The airplane was equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). However, TCAS generally inhibits its Resolution Advisories (RA) when the airplane is at an altitude below 1,000 feet (300 m) above ground level. This precaution is taken to avoid guiding an aircraft into potential collisions with terrain or other aircraft in congested terminal airspace and to reduce pilot cognitive load during critical phases of flight."
Kacho
Gold Member
Great video
Chittagong
Gold Member
It’s wild how helicopters are allowed to operate in US. We were in NZ in November and it’s totally different there.
We had a helicopter deliver us from Waiheke to Auckland FBO for a private jet transfer further. When the helicopter approaches the airport, it goes into a holding pattern adjacent to the landing path. From there, the ATC gives the helicopter pilot permission to join the landing path between airplanes. The helicopter enters the landing path to approach the airport, and then follows the taxiways out of the runway all the way to the FBO.
Seemed like excessive precaution then but now I can see how it makes sense.
Applied to this case, you would simply need to have the helicopter hold until given permission to cross the landing path, it’s the easiest thing really.
We had a helicopter deliver us from Waiheke to Auckland FBO for a private jet transfer further. When the helicopter approaches the airport, it goes into a holding pattern adjacent to the landing path. From there, the ATC gives the helicopter pilot permission to join the landing path between airplanes. The helicopter enters the landing path to approach the airport, and then follows the taxiways out of the runway all the way to the FBO.
Seemed like excessive precaution then but now I can see how it makes sense.
Applied to this case, you would simply need to have the helicopter hold until given permission to cross the landing path, it’s the easiest thing really.
Given route seems to be mainly to ferry various politicritters and VIPs around DC, your very sensible precaution was probably inxayed because it "wastes my precious time".
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Damn. I hope pepaw was there waiting for her on the other side.
RIP
nypost.com
RIP
College student who died in DC plane crash was returning from grandfather’s funeral
“Can you imagine losing a parent and seven days later losing a child,” Cedarville University president Thomas White said of student Grace Maxwell’s parent.
nypost.com
Guardian Monkey
Member
It’s sadly at the end of the day probably a visibility and congestion issue. Anyone that’s flown into/out of Reagan knows. You are banking hard where you can just turn your head looking down out the window and be looking pretty much straight at the ground right after taking off or right before landing due to airspace issues / proximity to federal buildings.
Tams
Member
It doesn't make them look good, yes, but us even dicussing this makes us all idiots as they didn't cause this accident.
Therefore, no good will come from discussing the accident in this context. No lessons can be learned from that.
Now, future accidents, yes, but that isn't the topic.
Tams
Member
Look, you hate Trump. We get it. And the FAA's problems go back to his first term.
But to say this accident is his fault is fucking retarded. Operations aren't affected that quickly, especially critical ones.
If anything, it's the Biden administration's fault for sitting on this for four years, about the amount of time to train a new cohort. The FAA only exceeded their training target in 2024, and the target was low.
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One would hope. Much like that Indian or Tibetan airline crash that was on video, seemed like it happened in just seconds, too fast to really understand what was going on.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
If the story is that the helo was flying too high, too far off the far shoreline, and she was the one with the stick, then yeah, it's her responsibility and her fault. Doesn't mean it was malicious or deliberate, just inexperience maybe, or a brief lapse of focus, we may never know. Or maybe she was assigned to eval the other guy in which case he was in the hot seat.
The whole thing was likely just complacency. These helos sound like they have doing stuff like this for YEARS, running right under jets. This time it bit them...bad.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is an institutional failure going back decades. Both democrats and republicans are at fault. But we lack a culture of accountability in this country so no one will be a man and take the blame.
Republicans gut government funding and fight tooth and nail when democrats try to increase it. Democrats are completely incompetent and don’t get anything done despite running the country for 12 out of the last 16 years blaming republicans of cockblocking them. It’s all politics 101 but the play us against each other so we fight on forums, at work, at thanksgiving dinners while Americans die and no is held accountable.
Those boeing created could’ve easily happened in the u.s since we were flying the same planes. The U.S. government did nothing other than ground the planes. In fact they know boeing was not keeping up with the regulations and gave them a pass. This was under both Biden and trump.
Politicizing these things is exactly what they want. To distract us.
Tams
Member
This is why mid-air collisions are so incredibly rare and happen either when one or both parties are antagonising each other, or for some reason end up in the same flight path.
Tams
Member
That's a pointless comparison as your experience was only civil aviation.
While military aviation around airfields is roughly the same, on exercise it varies a lot more. In this case, the blackhawk was not attempting to land at the airport.
Chittagong
Gold Member
Sure, but the practice of stopping before the highway and waiting for a permission to cross doesn’t sound too crazy to me
Tams
Member
1. The third dimension in airspace makes it completely different.
2. Military maneuvers are a different thing entirely.
violence
Member
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ManaByte
Member
They deliberately nuked all of her social media before releasing her name. They knew what they were hiding and protecting. HE couldn’t be allowed to be right…again.
Zathalus
Member
I’m failing to see what her gender has got to do with anything. She was co-pilot with 500 hours flight time, while the male pilot had 1000 hours. The male pilot was the one communicating with ATC that they had eyes on the plane. It appears nobody in the Black Hawk saw the correct oncoming plane and probably had eyes on something else. Changing her gender wouldn’t have changed anything if everyone on the helicopter was looking at the wrong thing.
ManaByte
Member
They're not being honest when they realized it was an activist WH aide flying the helicopter. Again, they're trying to protect a certain narrative from being confirmed.
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Trilobit
Absolutely Cozy
If she got that helicopter pilot position despite having flown very little during 5 years because she was gay and female and they desperately wanted to fill the diversity quota then that's a DEI problem. But if these things have always been normal in the army then it has nothing to do with her gender and sexuality.
But if they also tried to scrub her info from social media combined with releasing her name this late then it might give fuel to those who think people in charge wanted to do damage control.
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SlyDoughnut
Neo Member
If there was the slightest chance she was gay / queer / foreign / let's be honest, not white American Loyalist, this leadership with it's surrogate fox news would be on it 24/7. I'm actually of the position that the pilot was some normal white blah blah who just fucked up, and trump doesn't know how to spin it to his cult.
Zathalus
Member
What about the male pilot then? He was the one with 1000 hours, and the one in contact with ATC. Is he not just as much to blame for the accident? He confirmed they had visuals on the plane shortly before the collision.They're not being honest when they realized it was an activist WH aide flying the helicopter. Again, they're trying to protect a certain narrative from being confirmed.
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ManaByte
Member
It's believed they visually saw the departing plane and not the landing one they hit because they didn't turn their head.
violence
Member
What could be distracting for a 20-year-old male?
Zathalus
Member
Yes, so why focus on the female co-pilot then? The helicopter had a crew of three. The male pilot had 1000 hours of flight time since 2017, which is also pretty low for almost 8 years. He was the one on comms as well. Frankly it appears the fault lies with everyone in the Black Hawk, as it appears none of them spotted the correct plane. Or at least that is the conclusion that appears to best support the evidence we have so far.
ManaByte
Member
Because if she was the one flying, then it's her fault.
You're really going to bat for what is looking like a clear DEI hire.
Zathalus
Member
It is her fault, I stated as much. She was not the only one in the helicopter though, and the other pilot is not free of responsibility either. Neither is the crew chief, who also has the responsibility of airspace surveillance, like spotting an incoming plane for example. The instructor doing the evaluation didn’t spot the correct plane either, so even if he was in control at the time, then the accident would still have occurred. There have been multiple near misses between planes and helicopters over that route so something like this was inevitable. It’s also not the only time, nor even the second or third time, that midair Black Hawk collisions have occurred.
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ManaByte
Member
Vlodril
Member
We have no info yet and you are going hard on the co-pilot just because she is a woman. Get a grip.
ManaByte
Member
"because she's a woman" is disingenuous and ignoring facts that have been presented in this thread because they go against your chosen narrative.
They purposely scrubbed all of her social media before even revealing her name. They even had her friends scrub THEIR social media. They nuked her past entirely to hide the truth. People have done digging and found out that she was a gay activist White House aide during the previous administration and that her "500 hours" of flight time was impossible based on the dates they've given for her ROTC.
But of course those saying "because she's a woman" are ignoring all of that.
Zathalus
Member
Did I specify commercial? Black Hawk helicopters have collided with each other (midair, like I said), the ground, mountains, groups of people, and even a ship at one point.
How about you ask Grok what the in-flight responsibilities of the co-pilot and crew chief are before trying to pin all the blame on one person.
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analog_future
Resident Crybaby
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
whats their defect? being gay?
the military can be sued for damages, or rather the u.s government if they are found to have been responsible for improper training. PIlot error is pilot error. In cases like these for commercial planes, the airlines, not the pilot's family that are held accountable. Surely you know this, no? or were you born yesterday?
simpatico
Member
No, crashing into a passenger aircraft with damn near a quarter mile of direct intercept vector flight. Calling that "pilot error" is an insult to pilots. Have you seen the wide shot video? The helicopter couldn't have done a better job flying directly into it if that was the actual mission. Honestly, it's reasonable to punish mistakes too. There's a lot of participation trophy narratives going on today.
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Saudi Arabia (Pre-2020): Women shouldnt drive cars.yeah but he doesn't have cooties.ManaByte is allergic to those
America (Post-2025): Should women even fly planes?
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
You must be new to this. Go look up any plane crash where the pilots were known to have been at fault. It's almost always something basic that was in their training that they simply forgot. Sometimes pilots have literally forgotten to put the landing gear down.
You can blame the pilot for being a fuck up. But suing their family? WTF does their family have to do with their training? THeir family didnt train them. The U.S military did. Unless of course, you meant raising them to be a lesbian when you said this:
Because if you didnt then surely you are ok with suing the family of every rapist, every murderer, every thief, every car crash as long as they are found to have been at fault.
Tams
Member
At the end of the day, the Pilot in Charge (PiC) is the one most responsible for their aircraft.
We don't know who the PiC was, but it seems like she was the one flying.
And the biggest issue isn't not noticing the plane from below, which from a helicopter cabin can be difficult. It's that the helicopter was flying far above the altitude they should have been (and hence no collision would have happened).
Even if it was not calibrating/checking the calibration of the altimeter pre-flight, that's mainly the PiC's responsibility (the co-pilot should of course cross check).
Tams
Member
Military aircraft colliding with each other is not comparable as it is often in uncontrolled airspace and under extreme conditions. They often deliberately fly extremely close to each other.
Jinzo Prime
Member
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Looks like the flight path was changed as they were told to take a different runway and while the ATC checked in with the blackhawk pilots, the new path led them directly at each other. The blackhawk was supposed to fly under 200 feet, but was at 300 feet at the time of impact.
demented waffle
Gold Member
There were multiple occurrences where the plane pilot had to abort landing to this shit. Not in this particular case, but multiple occurrences occurred due to army aircraft. The DC airport even complained to Congress. You might as well complain to the tree next door instead of Congress. Although, I'm sure some action will be taken now. After it's too late of course. RIP to all the victims of this. The Army chain of command was the biggest failure in all of this.
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demented waffle
Gold Member
Ya, 100 feet too high and a half mile of course. This isn't the first time. Hopefully, it will be the last.