Posted on 02/19/2025 6:07:10 AM PST by Red Badger
I believe they were way above the altitude limit based on radar data, but we don't know what the altimeters would be reading unless we know what altimeter settings they had dialed in.
An earlier story indicated that they were training for an emergency evacuation of the President away from the White House. That would very likely be happening in very busy flight traffic conditions.
Or other members of our royal society like senators and congressmen, they termed it something like COG, continuance of government training.
So the pilot and instructor both knew they were too high, and actually thought they were even more wrong than they actually were?
This is all on the Army. No way to spin that.
The post states the black box data revealed pilots thought the altimeter readings were 300, 400 and 278.
Not radar, that was enough they should have dropped low immediately.
I'm willing to take that statement at face value, and conclude there isn't an Army pilot in the region that shouldn't be grounded and sent back to basic flight training. Including the brass.
Well, I don't think the black box can determine what the pilots thought :). Do you mean the two pressure altimeters and the radar altimeter?
The planes I worked on didn't have black boxes to record data so I don't know how the altimeter settings play into what is recorded, but I do know that the altimeter setting can change what is displayed by hundreds of feet.
It was the blind leading the blind and it cost many citizens their lives...
I am only going on what is in the post. It does not say radar, it says altimeter and lists those values. As far as me personalizing the scenario that’s just a way of communicating.
Quoted 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.
Agreed. That’s why it is in quotes.
Update. Two videos from YouTubers Taking Off and Jeff Ostroff on the NTSB preliminary report. About 20 minutes each. Informative and infuriating. This near miss crap has been going on at Reagan for years.
https://youtu.be/8vrW8nScxoU?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/tF85Ph6nDMg?feature=shared
More here...
Has links to both the interim report and the urgent safety recommendation. The latter is in .pdf format so I don’t have a hyperlink.
Who uses most of the helos going in and out of DCA...?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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