Mid-Air Collision in DC

[nsplayr]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-plane-crashes-potomac-river-collision-helicopter-reagan-n-rcna189942

Jesus Christ, not good. AA regional jet collided with a helicopter on approach to DCA. The airport is closed, likely mass casualty event, one or both birds are in the Potomac.

Edited yesterday at 03:07 AM by nsplayr

[McJay Pilot]

ATC recording is tough to listen to. Sounds like the CRJ was cicling to land, helo was told to pass behind and then they hit. Awful day.

[McJay Pilot]

 

[busdriver]

NBC is reporting the water temp is around 35 F.  Very not good.

[gearhog]

ATC audio adds a lot of context.

 

[SurelySerious]

ATC audio adds a lot of context.
 

It does, and feels like they called the wrong aircraft in sight. Twitter comments are typical social media “they called the airliner in sight, so they must have hit it intentionally.” Yeah, jabroni…that’s it.

[Lord Ratner]

Anyone remember the KCBM sim instructor who went on the news on the 90s saying that the air force was refusing to add TCAS to aircraft and it was a hazard... Right before a military plane crashed into an airliner over the ocean killing everyone? 

 

The military never learns... What a shitty day for aviation. 

[moosepileit]

TCAS is in traffic advisory below 900' agl, And is common to hear- like the collision alert going off at ATC as they see the fireball. PAT was Mode S, good enough.  TCAS can't save you.  ADSB IN is not provided in many airlines, only OUT, also won't save you.

Pat25 likely never saw their target at RWY33.  They likely saw AAL3130 on final to RWY1.   NVG distance error or blindspots or whatever, RIP.  Water is only a few yards deep there, like hitting the ground, then cold/wet.

Edited yesterday at 06:19 AM by moosepileit
context

[disgruntledemployee]

PSA was likely right wing high for the turn and blind to PAT and probably looking left for the runway.  TCAS should have made an alert unless someone was inop/off, but that is a deeper line of defense.  ATC actions should get some scrutiny here like giving PAT more direct actions like hold position or turn.  PAT actions will get it too. 

[raimius]

Flew that a few times.  Helicopter route 4 is on the east side of the river.  Most airliners land 01/19, which keeps them on the West side and no conflict.  Landing 33 crosses helicopter route 4 on short final.  

From ATC audio, PAT25 called vis sep prior to the mid-air.  Speculation, but they may have spotted one of the other airliners that usually stack up along the Potomac in sequence, or lost visual amongst the background lights (not sure if 12AB normally runs on NVGs there...the city gets very bright so it was often a coin toss on whether to scan mostly on or off goggles.)

(I was once told to orbit over Bolling for landing traffic 33, at night.)

A bit of a nightmare situation.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 06:36 AM by raimius

[ClearedHot]

5 hours ago, moosepileit said:

TCAS is in traffic advisory below 900' agl, And is common to hear- like the collision alert going off at ATC as they see the fireball. PAT was Mode S, good enough.  TCAS can't save you.  ADSB IN is not provided in many airlines, only OUT, also won't save you.

Pat25 likely never saw their target at RWY33.  They likely saw AAL3130 on final to RWY1.   NVG distance error or blindspots or whatever, RIP.  Water is only a few yards deep there, like hitting the ground, then cold/wet.

ADSB out MAY have saved them.  I fly a lot of GA now and routinely fly into some heavy student training areas and uncontrolled fields.  I typically have my right MFD zoomed in to 5NM and ADSB has "saved" me on multiple occasions.  Agreed on TCAS and but it would have added to SA if nothing else. 

For those that have been stationed at the Pentagon or even visited DC, low altitude helicopter traffic is the norm all over the tidal basin and around the airport...The Gold Tops are always flying the river as are the Marines out of HMX-1, the Secret Service and DC police.

Horrible situation, can't imagine the loss for the friends and families.

[SocialD]

Terrible.  Here is the audio/radar feed of the situation.  Couple things from an airline pilot perspective. 

 

- I'm still thankful that my aircraft doesn't go into DCA (and LGA/JFK).  Not only does it make life easier, but I get to avoid the mess that is DCA. 

- Not saying this couldn't happen on the other runway.  But no way, I'm accepting a circle to land that late in the game, especially at night.  Could I do it, sure, but no thanks.  Airline flying is boring and should always be boring.  Unable is one of the best words in our flying vocabulary.  

- I know they may not have VHF capes, but if they do, why not use it in this area?  Many moons ago the F-16 got VHF capability but noone wanted to use it.  We're on a joint use field and one day we had a runway incursion (ATCs fault), but easily could have been noticed by us if we were on UHF.  I brought up why not switch to VHF for gnd/twr/app/dep and naturally, the old fucks told the young punk to STFU.  A few years later, we had nearly the same event happen and being more senior, I was able to get the change instituted.   HUGE increase in SA when you hear both sides of the ATC conversation with all the bug smashers and other airliners.

- Based on that track and the aircraft and lots of NVG time, I know I could have easily mistaken the light behind the CRJ as the traffic they called out.  

- ADS-B is great and can be a life saver, but it often lags or just doesn't work great.  I'd like to have the extra SA though.  I actually used it once as number 3 during a flyby in the local area when I saw a buddy flying his Husky right toward the path of our flyby.  Jumped over on CTAF and asked him to turn south for a minute.  Worked great and he sent me a nice video of the flyby (missing man).    

 

 

 

[raimius]

There is a separate vhf helicopter freq in DCA's airspace to reduce comms congestion.

[Biff_T]

8 hours ago, moosepileit said:

Pat25 likely never saw their target at RWY33.  They likely saw AAL3130 on final to RWY1.

 

8 hours ago, raimius said:

Flew that a few times.  Helicopter route 4 is on the east side of the river.  Most airliners land 01/19, which keeps them on the West side and no conflict.  Landing 33 crosses helicopter route 4 on short final.  

From ATC audio, PAT25 called vis sep prior to the mid-air.  Speculation, but they may have spotted one of the other airliners that usually stack up along the Potomac in sequence, or lost visual amongst the background lights (not sure if 12AB normally runs on NVGs there...the city gets very bright so it was often a coin toss on whether to scan mostly on or off goggles.)

(I was once told to orbit over Bolling for landing traffic 33, at night.)

A bit of a nightmare situation.

 

 

I did some time in the 1st HS.    Both of these situations present themselves quite often.  I've had to hover on several occasions to wait for landing traffic. At night, in DC, NVGs were not too effective with all of the cultural lighting.   It could be very easy to maintain visual separation with the wrong aircraft. 

What a bad day for everyone involved.   

[tac airlifter]

This could be any of us at any moment.  Live accordingly 

[Lord Ratner]

10 hours ago, moosepileit said:

TCAS is in traffic advisory below 900' agl, And is common to hear- like the collision alert going off at ATC as they see the fireball. PAT was Mode S, good enough.  TCAS can't save you.  ADSB IN is not provided in many airlines, only OUT, also won't save you.

Pat25 likely never saw their target at RWY33.  They likely saw AAL3130 on final to RWY1.   NVG distance error or blindspots or whatever, RIP.  Water is only a few yards deep there, like hitting the ground, then cold/wet.

A TCAS alert is not "common" to the point you ignore them, even in DCA. Or any airport in America. Or anywhere. Especially when you can see the converging altitudes.

 

Now, I can understand the regional pilots continuing through a tcas alert because they heard that the other aircraft has them in sight. Especially when it's a slow-moving helicopter. And getting visual on the wrong aircraft in the ocean of bright lights, on nogs, is also completely predictable. So far I don't think this is on the pilots of either aircraft, but we'll see.

 

But if the helicopter didn't have a display that shows the surrounding traffic, this is on the military. And anybody who is surprised by that has had their head in the sand forever. DCA has been pretending like their bullshit airspace arrangement is perfectly ok and no big deal for a long time. Sadly, this was bound to happen.

 

Tragedies happen, and maybe there is a traffic display in the helicopter, but so far the Helo pilots over here opining do not believe there is one. Any -60 pilots know the answer? 

 

Drowning in ice water is a horrific way to go. I can't even fathom being one of the families right now.

[ClearedHot]

[Sua Sponte]

Trump currently throwing out blame to ATC hiring and training and the American Eagle crew before any safety investigation complete. JFC.

[disgruntledemployee]

Last week I'm going into SFO at night on the converging visual 28R and ATC calls out the traffic to our left and asks if I have it in sight.  We look, point, think we see it but aren't sure as its camo'd in the cultural lights and since it's really converging towards a common point, isn't moving much in the window.  So we say no, they cancel our clearance, and we are given a level off.  All good things so far for two approaches that could have been better separated laterally.  We eventually positively ID'd the traffic and are able to continue the approach. 

Last night, I didn't hear on the tapes if PSA was ever alerted to PAT.  I'm guessing the "Vis-sep" heard is probably the sup.

It really sucks to be the ATC guy/ATC sup right now.

[ClearedHot]

16 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Trump currently throwing out blame to ATC hiring and training and the American Eagle crew before any safety investigation complete. JFC.

UNSAT

[Day Man]

2 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Trump currently throwing out blame to ATC hiring and training and the American Eagle crew before any safety investigation complete. JFC.

and the Army crew!

Edited 18 hours ago by Day Man

[brabus]

DEI is horrible and needs to be destroyed, BUT it almost certainly has zero to do with last night. But, that hasn’t stopped millions of people (president on down) from declaring DEI as causal. It’s really sad because those people are showing their ignorance/clinging attachment to a politicized topic, but equally sad that the progressive left has created such a massive problem that many people just now assume that’s the cause. Bad all around.  

[Blue]

25 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Trump currently throwing out blame to ATC hiring and training and the American Eagle crew before any safety investigation complete. JFC.

Reports I've seen only mention Trump criticizing DEI initiatives in the FAA and ATC, with no blame pointed towards the crews.  WSJ link.  Granted, I haven't listened to his remarks myself.

But while pointing fingers at this early stage is clearly crass and bordering on vulgar, Trump is also not wrong.   The FAA's push for DEI in the ATC ranks over the past several years is well documented.

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview

[Sua Sponte]

12 minutes ago, Blue said:

Reports I've seen only mention Trump criticizing DEI initiatives in the FAA and ATC, with no blame pointed towards the crews.  WSJ link.  Granted, I haven't listened to his remarks myself.

But while pointing fingers at this early stage is clearly crass and bordering on vulgar, Trump is also not wrong.   The FAA's push for DEI in the ATC ranks over the past several years is well documented.

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview

It’s not bordering vulgar, it is vulgar. These poor souls haven’t even been dead 24 hours yet and this is the topic he wants to bring up in a presser discussing the accident?

[Clark Griswold]

It’s not bordering vulgar, it is vulgar. These poor souls haven’t even been dead 24 hours yet and this is the topic he wants to bring up in a presser discussing the accident?

Concur
I voted for him but a firm order by his wife or other confidant to keep his pie hole closed and stowed on this topic is in order


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