Posted on 08/02/2025 10:52:51 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The goggles were discussed Friday at the NTSB's third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash, which killed 67 people.
The pilots of a U.S. Army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over Washington in January would've had difficulty spotting the plane while wearing night vision goggles, experts told the National Transportation Safety Board on Friday.
The Army goggles would have made it difficult to see the plane's colored lights, which might have helped the Black Hawk determine the plane's direction. The goggles also limited the pilots' peripheral vision as they flew near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The challenges posed by night-vision goggles were among the topics discussed at the NTSB's third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash, which killed all 67 people aboard both aircrafts.
Experts said another challenge that evening was distinguishing the plane from lights on the ground while the two aircraft were on a collision course. Plus, the helicopter pilots may not have known where to look for a plane that was landing on a secondary runway that most planes didn't use.
"Knowing where to look. That's key," said Stephen Casner, an expert in human factors who used to work at NASA.
Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that likely contributed to the collision, sparking Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to urge the Federal Aviation Administration to "do better" as she pointed to warnings the agency had ignored years earlier.
Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near the airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there.
It's too early for the board to identify what exactly caused...
(Excerpt) Read more at scrippsnews.com ...
Im pretty confident flying in and out of the flight paths if a major airport might have something to do with it. Training?
There’s a fairly significant body of water close by called the Chesapeake Bay that might have been better suited for such training.
Call the fools who thought this was a good idea up to the carpet to answer some tough questions.
Irrelevant as she was not following instructions from the copilot. They are trying to make excuses for her.
Ditto. Nods had nothing to do with the crash but competency did. Being a FAC3 aviator for most of her career and never progressing IAW the commanders guide might need some serious looking into. Seems like the TC3-04.11 is often overlooked when pressured from above. Maybe that is why they have discarded the publication which leads to accidents even when a competent IP/SP is at the other set of controls. Seen this happen with less catastrophic results over my career multiple times. Nothing to do with gender but all to do with ability.
The problem - they had already trained in those safer areas. At some point the training wheels come off. She was on a check ride evaluation. Flying into Reagan at night under night vision goggles was going to be her job. That’s what that particular VIP aviation unit does, that’s their reason for existence.
They should have had 4 members of the crew, another crew chief on the left side. That might have saved a lot of lives.
The PIC normally sits in the left seat. NVGs are like watching fuzzy black and white TV through paper towel tubes. Depth perception is nil. On moonless nights virtually nothing can be seen. In a city area like an Airport, it is extremely confusing. The IP screwed up not keeping a handle on everything. Very very sad.
The separation distances for that airspace were insane before the incident.
What's wrong with this picture? Smells like DEI to me.
Going from a cruise speed to a hover would take time. Maintaining altitude would require a lot of work. I can not recall in my career ever being requested to do this. I flew H-46s for a while, with the twin rotors it could slow down pretty fast.
We would do what was called a “button hook’ fly above tree top at max speed, abeam the LZ, dump the collective, pitch up steeply, full rudder into the turn. The helo would pitch up steeply, the nose would rapidly come around, push the nose down on a very short final.
It was amazing.
“We would do what was called a “button hook’ fly above tree top at max speed, abeam the LZ, dump the collective, pitch up steeply, full rudder into the turn. The helo would pitch up steeply, the nose would rapidly come around, push the nose down on a very short final.
It was amazing.”
Thank you for the important reply! I have actually seen this done so can visualize it! But I do not remember if the maneuver also caused the whole craft to rise in elevation as a residual flight characteristic?
What I am getting at is could it be possible that at the last minute they did try to perform a maneuver like this but it rose up into the plane as a residual of that last ditch maneuver as a natural side effect?
I saw a Sea knight ch46a collide with an hus-1 (uh-34) at the former Mile Square OLF in May 1966. 3 fatalities all USMC. Helos don’t seem very forgiving of carelessness..
As someone who has spent much time in NVGs and who is I pilot I can tell you just walking and running in NVGs is a struggle you run into things all the time while wearing them. Your field of view is very limited like looking down a tunnel. Any light sources bloom and white out whole sections of that limited field of view, you have only shades of green no colors and it’s nausea inducing lack of depth perception too unless you have binocular type and even then it’s two tunnels not.much depth perception to be had.
I couldn’t imagine trying to fly with those on at low level with lights in the background too, I would rather go full instruments and not try to VFR at all with NVGs.
“Let me ask this: The instructor pilot was a warrant officer; the student pilot was a captain, so the instructor pilot would have to have at least 3 promotions to be the same rank as the student pilot (WO->2nd Lt.->1st Lt.->Captain).
What’s wrong with this picture? Smells like DEI to me.”
That’s not how it works. Warrant Officer’s are a different career track they are not in the commissioned officer track at all. You do not get promoted from warrant to Lt.
It’s warrant one, two,three,four and chief warrant officer five.
Army helo pilots can be either a dedicated Warrant officer pilot or a leadership track commissioned officer who is flight qualified.
The flight instructor was a dedicated Army Helo point in the Warrant pilot career track he has been promoted and also had the flight hours and extra training to be the flight instructor AND point in command. That was HIS bird even though she out ranked him on paper HE was in command as PIC and the instructor.
She was a leadership track commissioned officer who was flight qualified and was the student pilot regardless of rank she was the junior person in the seat that night. She came from a spot in the White House so it’s obvious she was a leadership track commissioned officer not a full time pilot.
She might have been a DEI at the WH but on that bird it was the responsibility of the PIC and instructor to maintain his aircraft at all times. He should have said “I have the aircraft” as soon as the ATC called for traffic that is his responsibility. Once he called that she would have let go of the controls as is the protocol.
Thanks for that clarification.
In this maneuver, there is a significant pitch up to reduce airspeed and rudder into the turn to bring the tail around and descend. This is with no power until one is on very short final.
I do not see the value of this in a collision avoidance situation, in a former life I was involved in aviation safety.
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