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

Thanks @notimagain - much appreciated

At least Trump has learned his lesson about not rushing to a snap judgement against someone or something he doesn’t like.

Oh, hang on…

'Also causal was the lack of effective pilot-applied visual separation by the helicopter crew, which resulted in a midair collision.'

There were several causal factors identified in the report.

Yes that's there but it's causal as a consequence of:

" the air traffic system’s overreliance on visual separation in order to promote efficient traffic flow without consideration for the limitations of the see-and-avoid concept."

The FAA allowed a system to evolve where at night/lowish vis in very busy airspace separation was hanging by a thread, based on "see and avoid", and " see and avoid only"...

. and if you want to understand the limitations of see-and-avoid in the enviroment at DCA have a look at both replays in the following link (this from the NTSB docket).

Try to bear in mind unlike the crews on the night you don't know the scenario in play and didn't have a nice red ring round their conflicting traffic.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ10ZOcWuC4

For reasons various I've just reread my last comment about the NTSB replays and realised I'd completely stuffed the last para up..it should read:

"Try to bear in mind unlike the crews on the night you know the scenario in play and you have a nice red ring round the conflicting traffic."

Holy heck, it’s out of nowhere.

Watching (in stages) the YouTube of the final NTSB meeting (7h+).

The panel are very impressive, especially Chairwoman Homendy

Yes, she's been very impressive, both with regard to this accident and also some other investigations.

ETA that she and the Board won over any doubters when they gave the FAA both barrels in March last year with the notice about dire airspace design/use at DCA...

The board meeting is a fascinating watch

It is but just be aware that once senators and/or congressmen get involved there is a danger of politics interfering.

The main reason DCA has got stupidly busy (according to many of those who fly in and out of there) is because the politicians were reluctant to cap movements - why? Because the politicians want to fly home at weekends from a really handy airport, not slog out to Dulles...

Also the senior mil and political figures like the freedom helicopters to give them to scoot round the city...

There's also an massive compensation issue down the road....

I sensed from some of the questioning that there's a danger some politicians would still like to portray this as a a case of a rogue/not competent crew or controller and chuck them under the bus, rather than fix a systemic.
problem.

I'm sure Jennifer Homendy will be on top of all this, we will see when the final written report comes out.

Final report of over 400 pages published a few days back..lots to unpack for those interested...

I'd highlight the images taken through night vision goggles on pagres 112 and 113 of the document- they show how tough the "see" in "see and avoid" can be at night, even with optical aif.

Secondly with regard to height keeping and allegations made at the start of all this about the Handling Pilot's performance page 242 onwards comments about altimeter accuracy..or lack therof.

As the report correctly states all altimeters have errors, but in this case those errors were of a magnitude that could have put a seemingly accurately flown aircraft 100 feet or more above the published 200 feet ceiling of the helicopter route without the crew being aware of it...

Link here, opens as a pdf.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AIR2602.pdf

Thanks @notimagain