Posted on 01/31/2025 5:09:26 PM PST by VanShuyten
Seven hunting buddies were on American Airlines flight 5342 traveling from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington D.C. when it collided with a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River on Wednesday. Sixty-seven people died in the collision, including all plane passengers and crew from both aircraft.
The seven hunters who were aboard flight 5342 were returning from a waterfowl hunt with Fowl Plains outfitters, which is based in Great Bend, Kansas. The men lived in the D.C. area and had been hunting in a group of 10 buddies. Three of the crew had chosen to drive the 1,300-plus miles home with their duck dogs and shotguns, according to the Wichita Eagle.
(Excerpt) Read more at outdoorlife.com ...
Very sad about the hunters. Grateful the dogs are okay, but they’re going to miss their owners a lot.
Lots of quality people died in that crash.
I wonder how many of you think that this incident happened on purpose or sheer negligence on part of the helicopter pilot?
experienced controllers say it is the controllers fault.
wasnt specific enough to make sure helicopter pilot was looking at the right plane
I think the pilot was the one with 500 hours, so not all that experienced. A commercial helicopter pilot can easily fly that many hours in one year. A fire department helicopter pilot in LA is required to have 4,000 hours to apply for a job.
Yes, sounds very much like that was it. It’s really tragic, people on a trip coming home and die. Horrible.
Unfortunately too many. I have a current and a retired Army helicopter pilot working for me. I trust both more than anyone here. They had the same explanation for possible cause. Neither involved these two examples.
Tonya Harding posts her first tweet on X quickly receiving 10 million views.
Hi everyone! I've finally figured out how to make an account on here!! (@itstonyaharding)
And two hours later, six members of Nancy Kerrigan's skating club in Boston are killed in the plane crash.
There is probably a lot of blame to go around, but in one video posted online, it doesn’t appear the controller even began to contact the helicopter until a crash was unavoidable.
Outrageous.
Some questions:
What are they hiding?
Controllers at fault 70% - they saw it coming and dallied, all the controller needed to do was tell the helicopter to STOP in place or to go back down to 200’ where he was suppose to be. That is if it was an accident as opposed to pilots intent on crashing.
I read that family members of military who die while on duty can request name not be revealed. Family has requested it in this incident.
I suppose there are exemptions such as when it goes to investigation phase after the investigation is done if person was at fault.
Gen𝕏
@gen197x
·
Replying to
@GenFlynn
It’s the families request - their status is DUSTWUN since they haven’t been recovered.
Safer now with attention focused on DCA operations. We’re flying in to Reagan in March and have no concerns.
wasnt specific enough to make sure helicopter pilot was looking at the right plane
I think that’s correct. My theory is that the helicopter pilots were looking more or less straight ahead for the traffic they were supposed to cross behind, but were likely looking at aircraft lined up for final to Runway 1. What they didn’t know was that the controller had changed the runway for the American Airlines RJ to Runway 33, which caused them to track more to the east of the Potomac, placing them to the helicopter’s left.
Aside from obvious controller lack of attentiveness, I believe the primary cause will be that the helicopter crew expected their traffic to be roughly straight ahead of them or slightly to their right, and had no idea that it was actually bearing down on them from their left. The better quality video released today clearly shows the helicopter flying in front of the RJ a split second before it T-bones the helicopter in its left side. It’s almost simultaneous, but the helicopter just barely cuts in front of the jet. They never knew it was there because they weren’t expecting any arrivals to be lined up for Runway 33. This is a classic example of one of the many dangers of airports with intersecting runways.
I suppose there are exemptions such as when it goes to investigation phase after the investigation is done if person was at fault.
Makes sense. I’m calling off the dogs on this one. It wouldn’t be fair to the family if people are accusing her of the accident, if it truly wasn’t her fault.
If this was my family member I wouldnt want the name revealed yet. There will be a massive amount of accusations against that female pilot when it really looks to me that it is the fault of the Tower.
I would say not until investigation is over or at least until they have listened to the black boxes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.