Posted on 04/27/2025 10:01:21 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
As they flew south along the Potomac River on the gusty night of Jan. 29, the crew aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter attempted to execute a common aviation practice. It would play a role in ending their lives.
Shortly after the Black Hawk passed over Washington’s most famous array of cherry trees, an air traffic controller at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport alerted the crew to a regional passenger jet in its vicinity. The crew acknowledged seeing traffic nearby.
One of the pilots then asked for permission to employ a practice called “visual separation.” That allows a pilot to take control of navigating around other aircraft, rather than relying on the controller for guidance.
“Visual separation approved,” the controller replied.
The request to fly under those rules is granted routinely in airspace overseen by controllers. Most of the time, visual separation is executed without note. But when mishandled, it can also create a deadly risk — one that aviation experts have warned about for years.
On Jan. 29, the Black Hawk crew did not execute visual separation effectively. The pilots either did not detect the specific passenger jet the controller had flagged, or could not pivot to a safer position. Instead, one second before 8:48 p.m., the helicopter slammed into American Airlines Flight 5342, which was carrying 64 people to Washington from Wichita, Kan., killing everyone aboard both aircraft in a fiery explosion that lit the night sky over the river.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
“The instructor” you said. Was this a formal trainee-instructor relationship? I don’t get that impression; rather that the right seat happened to have hours performing as an instructor.
AVIATION PING!.....................
Remove? No. Minimize? Sure, by selecting the right pilots, among other strategies.
This wasn't an error - it was negligence, part of a larger program of putting Didn't Earn It (DEI) into positiongs they're not qualified for.
Even 100' vertical separation is insufficient clearance.
So that would be an additional point of failure. Perhaps some investigation should be conducted on everybody involved, including the co-pilot.
Here’s a good flight plan. Let’s fly in front of airplane traffic taking off and landing at an airport with a margin of about 300ft clearance... and at night too.
Oh and assign a low experience pilot.
Who created that flight plan?
200 feet was the copter’s assigned elevation maximum at that point in the flight (It does change in different parts of the flight). I can’t remember the plane’s exact elevation but it was reported as in its allowed elevation window above “300ft. Those elevation records are known since the control tower has them, as you know.
“Who created that flight plan?”
The people in charge of the airport, the most crowded one in the USA. It has been questioned by others since the accident. Many thousands of flights managed to miss each other, so there’s that. You can set the rules anywhere but if pilots don’t follow them, well, you know what happens.
For the non-aviators on the thread: The pilot, as part of their pre-flight checklist, checks the altimeter altitude against the known field elevation of the runway (or helicopter pad). Since they were that close to their takeoff point, it's unlikely there was much difference in barometric pressure from ATC and the altimeter setting from takeoff.
For this flight, temperature was not a factor where icing would affect the static tube feeding the altimeter.
just my opinion, but in watching video and recreations of flight paths, it seemed to me, the helicopter pilot was trying to get in the way of plane, since I don’t see how anyone could make so many “mistakes” in such a short time as happened, to bring the helicopter not only up but also drift more and more into the path of oncoming plane. the H pilot was almost constantly off their flight path for many minutes before the accident.
I also blame control tower for not clearly telling the helicopter to stop and hover, instead of just asking questions about altitude etc and letting them proceed when controller could see for many minutes it would be close before it even looked like a hit. Controller had ability they did not choose to use.
Would you set the known field altitude first then the pressure or vice versa?
It’s just one knob. Both the pressure in the window and the altimeter hands move when you twist the knob. On the ground you can set to the field altitude or set the baraometric pressure to what atc reports. It would be a good idea to set to the reported pressure and then check that the field elevation agrees. All in all vertical separation near the airport would probably be more accurate if everybody used the tower’s “altimeter setting” which is the local barometric pressure corrected to MSL. Altitude over terrain might be more accurate using the field elevation but the chopper pilots probably have radar altimeter and eveballs.
You check the Field Elevation against the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) if it's available, to make sure your altimeter is working and within '75 of the ATIS. If it's not, you're likely calling in the A&P to check the altimeter. If it's within '75 feet of the ATIS, you'll later set the altimeter to Field Elevation on engine run up, per your before-takeoff checklist.
Thanks. You know whereof you speak! 9 hours in a 150 in 1969 here.
You too know what the hell you are talking about! I’m just a mere aviation buff since about 1944 when I got my first airplane ride.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but I ( in my opinion only) think it doesn’t do anyone any good to jump to assumptions/conclusions just because of the bandwagon effect or if it validates our biases. Let’s see what comes out of the investigation.
Anyone flying off their bar alt @ night on a ceiling restricted route is an idiot
She wasn't listening to the IP who was 4 feet away, why listen to ATC when you are on a 'mission'.
Normal flight accidents in the military include looking at all crewmembers; not only their actions on the flight but actions days before including what was eaten, amount of sleep, currency etc At least that was what was done when I used to conduct investigations
IP should have taken control of the helo when she did not follow instructions!
It may be difficult for a junior WO aviator IP to take the controls FRom a Captain, but (and I have several thousand hours as an IP), safety of flight overrules all other considerations!
How we ALL wish the WO IP had taken control!
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