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[Tams]

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.

It doesn't matter that plane had to change runway. Yes, it would likely have prevented this crash, but that's beside the point. It not taking off also would have, etc.

The fault solely lies with the helicopter crew for not flying within the altitude range, one designated for decades. It won't matter much if their altimeter was miscalibrated either, as they should have been able to visually tell even in the dark.

Frankly, training flights should never be happening in such congested airspace.

 

[SlimySnake]

It doesn't matter that plane had to change runway. Yes, it would likely have prevented this crash, but that's beside the point. It not taking off also would have, etc.

The fault solely lies with the helicopter crew for not flying within the altitude range, one designated for decades. It won't matter much if their altimeter was miscalibrated either, as they should have been able to visually tell even in the dark.

sorry, but you cant have a chopper fly 100 feet right under a plane that descending. thats far too close.

this is on the military that allowed this to go on for far too long. no one should be flying 200 feet literally where planes are taking off and landing. this was bound to happen.

 

[simpatico]

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.

Frankly I would expand parental liability everywhere, especially for juvenile offenders. It's a concept I've been fond of for years. It would severely reduce the fucking around after the first couple years of examples being made. This instance would be an edge case for something like that, but I mainly throw it out to splash a little reality onto the people handing out participation trophies this morning. You can logically and rationally apply fault to nearly every 'mistake', and it's usually a multi-generational correction that needs to be made.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

So it turns out that her 500 hours are not possible or something?

 

[Tams]

sorry, but you cant have a chopper fly 100 feet right under a plane that descending. thats far too close.

this is on the military that allowed this to go on for far too long. no one should be flying 200 feet literally where planes are taking off and landing. this was bound to happen.

They shouldn't be that close, yes.

But the fact remains that if the helicopter had remained below the maximum altitude in that helicopter path (200ft), then it would not have hit the plane.

Instead it was 100ft above the maximum allowed altitude.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

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.

Well, I mean they did have to abort they just didn't know it... Anyway... to the thing about Congress. They keep passing laws to make DCA take on more flights. In my initial look at it I saw that Senator Tim Kaine passionately opposed the bill and preached safety... and I thought to myself, "Wow, maybe I was wrong about this guy, I thought he was a total twat." And then I thought for a few minutes and realized he lives in Richmond, and it's like a 70 minute drive to Washington, so he's not going to fly in anyway. I struggled to find the actual vote and it looks like it was typical omnibus bullshit wrapped up with a million other things and eventually gave up. But ultimately the whole thing about adding routes to DCA is so that the Congress Critters can get direct flights to their home states. Purely ruling class bullshit. And it's working, for only peasants perished in this crash so we're golden.

As for DEI, well anyone with half a brain (that's not infected by a certain mind-virus) can see why it would call into question the competence of a female pilot. You'd want to know that she didn't get a slot over someone who tested better but didn't have the right immutable characteristics. One of the DEI fantasies is that so long as you meet 'the standard' that anyone is as safe as anyone else. Anyone who understands basic statistics and has some life experience knows that competence isn't a yes/no, but a spectrum. So, this line of questioning is required by any rational mind. I'm not saying that it 100% was a factor. But obviously it could be. And no, Trump shouldn't be making snap judgments, that's not how air safety works.

As for blame, right now I'd put it down to something like 25% ATC, 75% army. The DCA "we cried to Congress but they no listen" thing only goes so far with me. If they've had multiple helo pilots blowing it and causing near-misses then surely management of ATC could do something. Just tell your controllers to not grant visual separation at night to these dorks, or whatever the actual problem is. Vector them around like little babies. That's well within their powers.

And then who knows what the hell was going on in the cockpit of the Blackhawk. It sure does seem like Captain Rainbow Flag was way high. It's not clear exactly what the nature of the training flight was... I've seen references to it being a 'check ride' of some sort... but either way, CWO Fuckface should be monitoring and noticing that she blew her flight ceiling... not to mention he immediately called that he had the CRJ in sight (5 miles away, at night, probably wearing NVGs, so pretty sus) and asked for visual separation. Doesn't seem like he checked with Cap'n Rainbow at all on that point. I don't think Blackhawks have a CVR so it will be tricky to piece together what was going on.

ATC did initially warn them that the CRJ was setting up for runway 33 -- that should have been enough for the Blackhawk to figure things out or at least start questioning things when the (presumed) aircraft they were actually looking at didn't swing to their left at all. Surely the layout of DCA and the landing paths are part of their briefing.

And then the final ATC call which was only a few seconds from disaster. They went with a mildly confused tone and didn't reinforce that the CRJ was coming in on Runway 33. Not very useful. I mean you got a collision warning on your screen, I don't know how common this is, but I think that's something that's going to warrant an incident report in itself? Like it's something that shouldn't actually happen? Clearly they blew their visual separation, I get that puts the "responsibility" in the hands of the Blackhawk crew but 'pass behind' isn't that useful of an order at that point. I guess that transmission was about 16 seconds from collision so not a lot of time to avert disaster but maybe just enough if they told the CRJ to go around and/or gave the Blackhawk an immediate turn vector.

Just my Guy-who-watches-Mentour-Pilot-every-week take. I suppose that there will be both an Army and an FAA final report on this one. Should continue to be interesting.

 

[zaga]

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.

Dude messed up the maths. He wrote 125 hours a month but he should have written 125 hours a year. His analysis is totally wrong after that point.

 

[ManaByte]

Flight recorder shows the plane tried to climb to avoid the helicopter right before it hit.

 

[readonly]

Dude messed up the maths. He wrote 125 hours a month but he should have written 125 hours a year. His analysis is totally wrong after that point.

He's saying the person graduated with 500 hours, so to reach 9000 it would take 125 a month from the grad date in 2019 to now.

 

[Hookshot]

Flight recorder shows the plane tried to climb to avoid the helicopter right before it hit.

Amazed they even had time, they weren't doing anything wrong and suddenly they got side swiped and murdered.

 

[zaga]

He's saying the person graduated with 500 hours, so to reach 9000 it would take 125 a month from the grad date in 2019 to now.

The person writing the tweet had 9,000 hours.

But the pilot of the helicopter that crashed only had 500 hours.

 

[readonly]

The person writing the tweet had 9,000 hours.

But the pilot of the helicopter that crashed only had 500 hours.

Read what he wrote... He says "having 500 hours after graduating ROTC college in 2019" so why would he do math from 2019 to 2024 and you expect him to reach 500? Pretty sure he was trying to reach 9000ish (8500) in his math.

 

[zaga]

Read what he wrote... He says "having 500 hours after graduating ROTC college in 2019" so why would he do math from 2019 to 2024 and you expect him to reach 500? Pretty sure he was trying to reach 9000ish (8500) in his math.

I think he just messed up years and months. No reason to aim for 9,000 which is his own number over 20 years.

The media reports say the pilot had 500 hours flying experience.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

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.

Maybe done by the family? Given the extent that the wingnuts have gone to assassinate this persons character and accomplishments simply because she was the only one on that helicopter carrying two X-chromosomes, it's understandable.

 

[SlimySnake]

lol these bitches on twitter trying to discredit an army pilot with far more training, guts, courage, and accomplishments than themselves just because she's gay......

If even she fucked up, and was 100% at fault, she's still way more of a man than these cunts discrediting her on twitter.

This happened because someone didnt properly secure some humvees. No one asked if the person was white or black or gay or straight. WTF has happened to this country.

 

[demigod]

Read what he wrote... He says "having 500 hours after graduating ROTC college in 2019" so why would he do math from 2019 to 2024 and you expect him to reach 500? Pretty sure he was trying to reach 9000ish (8500) in his math.

You need to reread what he wrote. The guys math does not check out. The 9000 hours are HIS 20 years.

 

[YCoCg]

WTF has happened to this country.

Scapegoating and the need to blame is in, DEI is the target so if any of these tragic events can be pinned on DEI then that's the route America will take.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

WTF has happened to this country.

Pendulum swing back.

If this was 2010, nobody would care what the pilot's gender or sexuality was. DEI wasnt a thing aside from some low key affirmative action stuff, social media wasnt rabid, no cancel culture and US politics werent so extreme. Not sure when the pendulum swung hard one way. It might not had even been that far back in 2010. Maybe 2015.

Past few years its now the anti-woke crowd going hog wild (justly or unjustly pending the topic) flaming back when it was years of white guys are all bad and DEI jammed into everyone's faces in products and media. Even something traditional like college admissions (grade score qualifications) got nailed with DEI. Cancel culture is basically dead, so that side has no fear doing it back. Even companies have had enough as many are shutting down DEI policies. They just dont do it in loud obnoxious ways or latch onto helicopter pilot accusations. They announce it in a one off statement about changing their own corporate rules and that's it.

It's basically tit for tat. So to speak, America (especially) got hit with the tit for probably 10 years. Now it's time for the tat.

 

[jason10mm]

lol these bitches on twitter trying to discredit an army pilot with far more training, guts, courage, and accomplishments than themselves just because she's gay......

If even she fucked up, and was 100% at fault, she's still way more of a man than these cunts discrediting her on twitter.

If it turns out she had very little flight time recently (and only 500 hours over her career doesn't seem like a lot) and spent most of her time recently in a DC post due to her non-flight characteristics like her sexual orientation, then she was back in the saddle for a recert and fucked it up, thats a bit on DEI but mainly just an issue with who gets to be a pilot, how often they need to train and how good that training is, and whether this particular route and night ops is the best for a recert purpose. Even the male with 1000 hours doesn't seem like a lot, really, he's not some salty dog with countless flights under his belt. Almost no one gets to fly every day for their whole career and getting skills back up can be a hard thing to do.

And I doubt there are many high hour pilots left, certainly not outside the tier 1 units. Those folks are all out doing much higher paid civilian work, not scrambling to get in one flight a month between all the admin b$.

 

[violence]

WTF has happened to this country.

People are pushing back a non-merit based world.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

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.

I hate how quickly we want to judge people based on things that have no bearing on their performance

That said they should not have nuked her social medias and took so long to ID her, all this just fuels wild speculations in an already witch hunt type of society

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I hate how quickly we want to judge people based on things that have no bearing on their performance

That said they should not have nuked her social medias and took so long to ID her, all this just fuels wild speculations in an already witch hunt type of society

I didnt follow whatever they did to her social media accounts, but often times when someone is involved with something big (crime, killed, suspect etc....) their social media account disappears. And I dont think it's the person (if alive) or their fam taking it down. I'm pretty sure places like FB even state they take down high profile accounts.

For example, that Luigi killer has his FB account nuked. The day it happened, it was still up as I saw it. But oddly, if you search his Linkedin account it's still there but his picture is taken off.

 

[Rush2112]

Hey reddit: now that we know the identity of the chopper pilot, how are you coping?

 

[newtypepilot]

stop blaming this on DEI or whatever, Even if the helicopter pilot has tons of flying hours, this is an accident waiting to happen, because they have a helicopter path intersecting a final landing approach to a busy airport with only 100 feet of vertical separation. And it is flying over an urban environment with lots of lights during night time which means it'll mess with the night vision goggles. What's troubling is that the helicopter responded he had the CRJ in sight even though it was 6 miles away.

It really makes you wonder how many near misses have happened in the past.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

lol

*loonies scouring internet for info on dead pilot, trying to find family/friends/past lovers/enemies etc all so they can vilify all of them for a stupid DEI narrative*

also those loonies - LOL why did they scrub her social media

 

[AJUMP23]

Updates from black boxes.

 

[daffyduck]

So they were actually higher than they should have been; and both gauges were wrong, but they both read much higher than they should have been.

So they *knew* they were too high; what were they thinking?

 

[Hookshot]

It's fucked up that the plane tried to get above it. Also and this is hindsight talking but if night vision googles reduce your angles that much, maybe don't practice wearing them in an airports descent path.

 

[daffyduck]

Did they actually try to climb, or were they just starting to flare?

 

[Pegasus Actual]

They weren't at the runway, they were on the other side of the river still and ~375 feet up, so they wouldn't be flaring. Also, the sudden control inputs were ~1 second before impact, it was simply too late.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Updates from black boxes.

So , so many things going wrong at once. Why would all these systems be turned off or not working at the same time? What is going on with the military?

 

[Gp1]

So , so many things going wrong at once. Why would all these systems be turned off or not working at the same time? What is going on with the military?

The famous swiss cheese model of failure in risk analysis / mitigation.

In fact, this is quite common in any unforseen event like that.

 

[Trilobit]

Updates from black boxes.

This makes no sense:

Altitude Chaos: The chopper’s altimeter was off—way off. Pilot read 300 feet, instructor saw 400, but the real number? 278 feet—well above the 200-foot ceiling. They were flying blind on bad data.

200 is the ceiling and the instructor sees 400 without reacting already when climbing over 200? And the pilot saw 300 and didn't go down?

!!!

 

[Musashipan]

DEI

 

[DeafTourette]

DEI

Yes indeed. They never should have flown a BLACK Hawk Helicopter.

 

[AJUMP23]

I have experience with Blackhawks. I am skeptical of the ADC being bad and giving false altitude readings. Altitude heading and airspeed are your essential data in the craft. I think they read their altitude accurately and they did not correct. Someone should get their hands on the ADC and see if it had any issues.

this is the ADC provider

https://www.curtisswrightds.com/products/flight-test/air-data

THIS is the ADC.

 

[mitch1971]

Yes indeed. They never should have flown a BLACK Hawk Helicopter.

 

[demigod]

DEI

Yes indeed. They never should have flown a BLACK Hawk Helicopter.

So tell us, was the instructor DEI too?