Washington DC Plane/Helicopter Collision

[ThatEllie]

Is anyone awake and following this, or anyone in the States? It looks horrific. A US military Blackhawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines plane and both went down into the Potomac River.

You can see helicopters circling like mad on FlightRadar. I really hope they’re finding people.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/29/us/plane-crash-washington-dc

@Lavenderfarmcottage there is clear footage of the helicopter in the Potomac though? Far clearer than any dot on a grainy video.

Yes, the plane was lit but (a) lights point forward more than sideways and the helicopter hit from the side but (b) more importantly, there were lots of lights around from the city and from different aircraft. Especially if - as seems from the ATC footage - the helicopter was looking at a different passenger plane and focused on missing that.

also don’t forget that the jet was descending at however many feet per second. It wasn’t directly in front of the copter until fairly late on, whereas from the ground it’s hard for us to see the vertical separation

The domino effect. Very well known about with aviation safety and within health and safety more widely.

I guessed that. This is a reasonably sensible site though, not a whatsapp group for 10 year old.

But that’s exactly how things work in so many systems.

In the UK, for example reducing nursing bursaries reduces nurse trainees. Which leads to understaffing, which contributes to ambulances backing up cos they can’t get people on a ward, whicb means an ambulance can’t get to a road traffic accident quickly, and eventually, someone dies who might otherwise have been saved.

(To note, this is hypothetical. But I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis. Clearly in any given incident the coroner would weigh up if the individual would have likely died of their injuries anyway etc etc.)

The approach for 33 is to fly the approach for 01 and then, at a late stage, dogleg to the right onto 023 degrees at 3.5nm finals, and then reverse left at 1.4nm finals to line-up and land on 33. The dogleg is flown visually.

The helo, assuming he had visual on the lights of the correct aircraft, would have planned to pass behind.

The CRJ then turns towards him and then reverses back across his path in a descending left turn.

That turn puts the CRJ wing-up away from the helo so the CRJ crew can’t see them; the helo will lose sight of the landing light as they reverse and the other lights will be almost co-alt and against the background of the street and other lights.

That would be challenging even in daylight, let alone when unable to see the CRJ and its turns rather than try and work out what’s happening from the
lights.
This is a quote from https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/663890-mid-air-collision-us-military-blackhawk-regional-jet.html
Thought it was interesting .

@whatwouldyoudoifisangoutofkey

That’s obviously a possibility but TBH possibly overthinking things.

I think (I.e. IMHO) the comment in that piece from prune that “ assuming he had visual on the lights of the correct aircraft,” is the really important one

It’s quite possible the Blackhawk crew misidentified the traffic they were meant to pass behind, and perhaps were fixated on the the Airbus pretty much dead ahead of them on long final on a straight in approach to 01and never saw the CRJ moving around off their left quarter or saw it too late.

Positively identifying specific aircraft at night over a lit environment is v difficult to say the least.

All should become a bit more clear if there are any voice recordings from the Blackhawk.

I’ve done root cause analysis of accidents and it often begins with a myriad of small and seemingly unconnected factors that all feed into each other.

The PEPCON explosion in 1988 is a good example.

ETA: I meant 1988 not 1998.

I don’t think domino model is well liked in aviation accident prevention because it almost implies an inevitability once the first domino has fallen…

The Swiss Cheese model has its faults but it does highlight that just one slice of the cheese being shifted to unalign the holes (e.g. and this is purely speculation, in the case of the other night, perhaps a comment of “I’m not happy that’s the CRJ, let’s not proceed”) stops the accident, regardless of possibly multiple error/faults that have happened upstream.

Domino model is about taking a domino out though to interrupt the outcome.

OK, get the logic but never really heard of it used in my old line of work, the go to for teaching/model was very much Swiss Cheese…

If it makes you feel more educated, middle class or elevated to post things like that, I’m glad to have helped.

I’ll let you get back to being the host of your very own Armchair Aircrash Investigation thread…

@notimagain yes, speculation of course.
And I suppose only those with all the data can be criticised for overthinking.

Is it possible the pilot was a bit rusty after a long period effectively out of action while doing the DC aide thing?

It’s maybe really important to hear in mind there were two pilots in that helicopter, and it’s entirely possible Captain Lobach wasn’t the nominated pilot in Command..

In any event I’m not sure what Captain Lobach’s very recent career path was but if, as a military pilot, you do a ground tour (as you say it sounds like she had as an aide) you don’t just finish that job and jump back into your old aircraft as if you’ve never been off, you have to be retrained and requalify on type before being released back into the operational world.

In any event flying experience, both total and recent, of all the crew on both aircraft will be looked at by the investigators.

Sorry I know I'm jumping in this few days after it's happened but I'm in England and what we are hearing is totally different to what alot of people on here are saying,we've been told no survivors,that's all we've been told,would love to know where alot of people get there miss information from,let's wait and see what gets said then speculate on that try not to speculate on gossip

I'm in England and am getting lots of current news, so slightly baffled as to how you're not.

I'm confused by what you mean 'that's all we've been told'? You clearly have internet access...

But sadly there are no survivors, confirmed several days ago.

It is isn’t it. It’s been recognised in health care and why it’s so important in hospitals that incidents of a certain level are investigated externally. We saw the issues of not doing so at Morecambe Bay where higher mortality wasn’t seen as an issue.

Yh I do have internet access hence been able to communicate on here,I should of made it clearer my bad,I just meant we got told no survivors am I wrong?we haven't heard much else about it apart from this plane crash and that second one few days after with again no survivors,IV seen it loads on the news but nothing different as yet,no news on how it happened or anything yet,unless it's been on this morning as haven't seen it today but yh sorry should of made it clearer what I meant

@Itsyourwifeymacrid no, there are no survivors, that has been clear and consistent from early reports onwards. Not sure why you think you might be wrong, on that basis.

There will be a preliminary report from the national safety board within 30 days and a full report may take 1-2 years. So anything between now and then is speculation from public/semi public information eg the ATC recordings or the airport security cameras.

It was someone's comment saying there was 4 survivors that's all and I thought I not heard that but they lived in America so thought they might of none more before us that's all

News is pretty universal these days so I think a member of the US public and a member of the UK public would have access to the same info.

Like others I’m not really sure what you are now expecting to hear.

You’re not going to get a day by day rolling release of definitive findings and conclusions, certainly not in the MSM.

OTOH the NTSB (the investigators) may run frequent press briefings….those may be worth watching out for and watching live but don’t rely on any conclusions drawn by the “experts” or talking heads used by the media or much if anything published in the MSM…A lot of the expertise on display is highly questionable and much of what is said is often sensationalist.

As @SheilaFentiman has said there will be an initial report at about the thirty day point, that will just give not much more than an outline of what is being looked at..you’ll have to wait a year plus for a definitive report.

s

NSTB channel for official briefings.

Given Trump's trade wars, it will probably drop out of the news, but the NSTB will of course keep working.

There were several US news outlets that reported 4 survivors, in the initial flurry of reporting on the tragedy, and it was picked up by the Daily Mail. Someone on here said it was in the Guardian, which I didn't see. (If it was ever there it was soon corrected.) It was a misunderstanding around the first 4 bodies retrieved and some overheard communications about their transportation, assuming they were being rushed to hospital, as far as I understand.

Ahhhh right bet that's where they got there wires crossed then,so I was watching the real BBC news lol