Aviation Ping!....................
The pilots are less responsible, imo, than those who were supposed to ensure safe airways.
Airborne collision avoidance radar hasn’t been invented yet
It’s impossible to believe that the approach/takeoff paths to/from Reagan airport are not major freeway on-ramps and off-ramps that are marked and known and tightly controlled, etc; etc;
To state the obvious.
I wonder what the helicopter pilot’s name was. Just asking for a friend of course.
I’ve never worn — or evn seen — a flight-quailified night vision rig, BUT I’ll speculate they aren’t a “wide angke” view.
Can any real-life MIL pilots comment on this?
Could tunnel vision be a contributing factor?
In ordinary flight outside controlled airspace, when two aircraft are approaching each other the aircraft on the right-hand side has right of way.
~~~
Likewise with watercraft, I believe the starboard craft has right of way.
This is why you can't believe anything writen in a newspaper these days. Class A goes from 18,000 ft through FL600.
Once given clearance to land by ATC, however, an aircraft does not have to alter course even if, as seems to be the case in this incident, another aircraft (the military Black Hawk helicopter) is closing in on its right-hand side.
I understand they don’t have to take evasive action but couldn’t in this case (presumably).
I understand that Reagan National has no scheduled landings after 1030 pm due to noise restrictions. Why not do the night military training when the airport is closed?
I thought modern day aircraft had early warning crash protection devices in them. Silly me.
The other thing I picked up on is the frequency of these military helicopter flights in and out of Washington DC? Apparently the military is running personalized air taxi service to key government officials, taking them to or home from their offices. This also needs to be explained. What were they doing cutting thru an ILS approach glideslope localizer inside of the inner marker beacon? What was the purpose of their mission, and previous missions?
Were they running a VIP air taxi service?
“””The helicopter should therefore have given way to the passenger jet. The crew of the Black Hawk should also have sought permission from ATC to “cross the active”, meaning to fly over the active runway and an imaginary line extended from that runway out to the ATC zone limits.
This is another safety mechanism designed to keep aircraft landing, and other airspace users clear of each other. In the ATC transcripts released so far, no such permission seems to have been given.”””
This is the critical part of this article.
NO SUCH PERMISSION SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN
WOULDN’T OPPOSING DIRECTION BE 165 DEGREES???
1/2 of 330???
From Kristina Wong from Breitbart on Twitter/X:
Spoke to someone who served in the same unit as the Army Black Hawk crew, knew them personally, and flew those routes. He made the following points:
1) That it was a training flight was not unusual at all. Those flights are flown everyday.
2) The co-pilot was going through her annual evaluation for night flying. Night vision goggles can magnify light, making it easier to confuse aircraft lights with ground lights.
3) Runway 33 — where Air Traffic Control told the passenger jet (CRJ) to land — is “rarely used.” This person said in his four years, he saw it being used 10 times. It is a much shorter runway than the main one used, which is Runway 1.
4) The Black Hawk appeared to confuse the passenger jet with another plane landing at Runway 1 — which is why the pilot-in-command confirmed seeing the CRJ and requesting “visual separation,” or essentially saying he would avoid it.
5) The CRJ was circling to land and making a left turn at the time. The Black Hawk was in its blind spot.
6) The crew was experienced: The instructor pilot had just under 1,000 flying hours. He was former Navy. The co-pilot had around 500 hours, and the crew chief — who served on multiple combat tours — around 1,000 hours. They flew these same routes for at least three years.
7) It was not unusual to have three crew members on a Black Hawk. There’s only four for certain mission sets. Whether the crew chief saw the CRJ would have depended on which side he was sitting on.
8) It was a dark night, with no moon.
9) Air Traffic Control could have told the Black Hawk to hold north, or diverted it.
10) Potential changes could be to change the route, altitude, or hours during heavy air traffic.
“All these things, they all made for the perfect storm.”
I’d be curious to hear from any pilots about how to approach an airport. Skyvector had the details of which direction, altitude and direction of circling to prevent chaos in the air. Why was the helicopter flying counter to the landing pattern within the landing pattern? I just have forgotten how to read the Skyvector charts. You have to learn that stuff to get a Drone license.
I’ve read that helicopters are never to fly in plane flight paths and obviously this was what was going on.
“Air traffic control’s communications with Black Hawk pilot
A recording released by LiveATC.net of the communications between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport air traffic control (ATC) and the Black Hawk helicopter indicates the military flight crew was aware of the American Airlines plane’s approach before the crash.
ATC is heard in the recording asking the crew of the helicopter, which the controller referred to as “PAT 25,” if the plane was visible.
“PAT 25, do you have CRJ in sight?” ATC said, using the initials for the make of the American Airlines aircraft, a Bombardier CRJ700.
Two seconds later, ATC provided instructions to the helicopter crew, saying, “PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ.” Three seconds later, the controller provides further instructions to the helicopter crew, saying, “PAT 25 has aircraft in sight – maintain visual separation.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/reagan-national-airport-closed-due-aircraft-emergency/story?id=118246693
You can’t control incursions into controlled airspace when the pilot ignores the area.
Full list of DC plane crash victims: All the people confirmed dead in Washington’s Reagan Airport tragedy
Hiring is easier when merit is not your number one requirement.