Mid-Air Collision in DC

[JeremiahWeed]

21 hours ago, stract said:

there's a concept for that: normalized deviance.

Just a minor point. I believe the word we’re all looking for is actually “deviation”, not deviance. 

Deviance is a word with its roots in the word Deviant.  Deviant behavior is any behavior that does not conform to societal norms.There are many different types of deviant behavior, including impoliteness, violence, and substance abuse. These behaviors may or may not be criminal.

[Flev]

 

2 hours ago, JeremiahWeed said:

Just a minor point. I believe the word we’re all looking for is actually “deviation”, not deviance. 

Deviance is a word with its roots in the word Deviant.  Deviant behavior is any behavior that does not conform to societal norms.There are many different types of deviant behavior, including impoliteness, violence, and substance abuse. These behaviors may or may not be criminal.

[uhhello]

Normalization of deviance was mentioned...

Edited February 18 by uhhello

[JeremiahWeed]

Ok, fair enough.  I’ve always heard it with the other word, but I stand corrected.   

[uhhello]

38 minutes ago, JeremiahWeed said:

Ok, fair enough.  I’ve always heard it with the other word, but I stand corrected.   

Thats the not internet way!  Double down bud 

[Vito]

Can any of you guys who are in the know, answer this question from a poster on another  UK based website?

 

“Hi. Hope you're well. Interesting situation there in DCA. Can you ask those military helicopter friends what clearance and service they get when asking to transit the routes through the DCA Class Bravo. It would also be VERY interesting to know if they hear any private helicopters cleared this way, or whether it's all military. Best & thanks, WMF.”

[Vito]

Bump,

 see post above, 

Thx.

[Biff_T]

14 hours ago, Vito said:

Hi. Hope you're well. Interesting situation there in DCA. Can you ask those military helicopter friends what clearance and service they get when asking to transit the routes through the DCA Class Bravo. It would also be VERY interesting to know if they hear any private helicopters cleared this way, or whether it's all military. Best & thanks, WMF.”

You ask for specific routes or zones with tower prior to executing them.  Example: "Tower, Biff 28 Cabin John, 1, 4, 3 to Andrews". 

From what I remember, there were only military,  gov agency and police helicopters.  No tourists.   

Balt-Wash_Heli (2).pdf

 

[Vito]

Thanks BIff, I’ll pass your reply on to him. Do you know what he may mean by service? Flight following, traffic alerts?

[Biff_T]

Civilian traffic isn't normally cleared through the FRZ  (approximately 15 NMs around DCA). 

The civilian traffic that flies through the airspace within 30 NMs of DC, must have special training and a clearance to enter the SFRA. 

They basically treat 30 NMs within DCA like Bravo.   I believe they will provide flight following for the higher flying civilian traffic but helos are generally too low on the radar.  

Edited February 20 by Biff_T
Afterthought

[Flev]

If you want a quick run-down of the SFRA procedures for GA, this link has a kneeboard card explaining everything. It can get a little confusing if you haven't done the training.

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/405/1310/170301 Kneeboard - DC SFRA Checklist.pdf

[ClearedHot]

 

[MCO]

On 2/20/2025 at 6:28 PM, Vito said:

Thanks BIff, I’ll pass your reply on to him. Do you know what he may mean by service? Flight following, traffic alerts?

If he’s UK based I assume he is talking about their service requested which is like their version of VFR/IFR. How much ATC is helping or responsible to the traffic.

So IFR, VFR, VFR flight following would be most likely what he means. Depends if he was applying UK logic to US or if he just slipped up on his words.

[Lawman]

 

Austin is good people, even if he is an herbivore.

I’m glad that somebody gave him the chance to speak on this as well as he did to discuss all the nuances involved.


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[ClearedHot]

On 2/25/2025 at 9:01 PM, Lawman said:

Austin is good people, even if he is an herbivore.

I’m glad that somebody gave him the chance to speak on this as well as he did to discuss all the nuances involved.


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The LED lighting issue on nogs was news to this dinosaur.

[SocialD]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

The LED lighting issue on nogs was news to this dinosaur.

 

LEDs are a lot cooler than the kerosene lanterns you guys had to use as landing lights back in the day.  

[ClearedHot]

35 minutes ago, SocialD said:

 

LEDs are a lot cooler than the kerosene lanterns you guys had to use as landing lights back in the day.  

And we flew uphill, both ways!

[Lawman]

The LED lighting issue on nogs was news to this dinosaur.

In my opinion it’s a very overblown problem.

Like we’ve got the same “oh my god what about!?!?” going on with some people on our installation because of what seems like sheer boredom more than anything else.

Yes it’s a hazard, yes it’s different, but it’s not like the damn things are invisible. What would be great is just standardized across all elements and stop having incandescent and LEDs in the same environment. That would negate most of the problem.


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[raimius]

5 minutes ago, Lawman said:

In my opinion it’s a very overblown problem.

Like we’ve got the same “oh my god what about!?!?” going on with some people on our installation because of what seems like sheer boredom more than anything else.

Yes it’s a hazard, yes it’s different, but it’s not like the damn things are invisible. What would be great is just standardized across all elements and stop having incandescent and LEDs in the same environment. That would negate most of the problem.


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Some of them are invisible from more than a hundred yards or so, on NVGs.  Aided/unaided composite scan should be emphasized...

[Lawman]

Some of them are invisible from more than a hundred yards or so, on NVGs.  Aided/unaided composite scan should be emphasized...

That’s the point we’ve been making to counter.

It’s like NVG is the sole solution therefore anything not working well in them is ignored. In this case they were even trying to insist there is a threat to Apache which isn’t flying with NVG as its primary sensor, it’s flying FLIR and doesn’t care anyway. And it has an unaided eye as well…

There is no single solution to the issue and it’s one of the arguments we are making in the Army rotary community to fast track ITDS because of the amount of SA it can grant in addition to being a missile warning system. We did testing with seeing the category 1/2 SUAS… damn things are invisible in the day time with you know where they are beyond about 200-300 meters. The human eyeball is not sufficient to the hazards that are out there today, much less in a decade as we democratize the number of airspace participants.


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[Flev]

So what you're saying is we need a HUD or projection-type solution that converts ADS-B in and RemoteID position data into a 2D marker. It's an easier solution than we realize (it could probably be done with a raspberry pi), but innovation runs at the speed of turtle.

[Lawman]

So what you're saying is we need a HUD or projection-type solution that converts ADS-B in and RemoteID position data into a 2D marker. It's an easier solution than we realize (it could probably be done with a raspberry pi), but innovation runs at the speed of turtle.

Think about the first time you looked in a helmet mounted sight and saw the wingman or mission participant through link that was way beyond visible. That capability has existed in some form or another for a couple decades.

TCAS is older than most of the pilots flying with it and only ten years younger than the oldest people flying commercial aircraft today.

Systems like ITDS have demonstrated the ability to see further and through obscurants we can’t see through, and do it constantly but with coding provide queuing to the crew only when it’s relevant. You can take a picture and give it to your phone or social media and it’s smart enough to see faces and even identify them. This would be that principle but doing predictive analysis of other traffic so it can point where the friction will happen and disregard where it won’t. Imagine if you were that hawk crew and you looked up to see 3 bright light sources and didn’t have to guess which one ATC is trying to get you to acknowledge.

Augmented reality isnt impossible, but it requires people to acknowledge that “see and avoid,” isnt adequate.


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[disgruntledemployee]

On 2/25/2025 at 3:29 PM, ClearedHot said:

 

This is the kind of question and analysis that is sorely needed wrt media.  Glad its on utube, but this kind of content is what would make mainstream media great again.

As for landing lights on the CRJ700, no idea if they're LED, or the red/strobe anti-collision were LED.  I did read an FAA circular stating red LED lighting needed to be visible to NVGs, but that was regarding obstacle lighting.

If anyone is interested, 737NGs are mostly incandescent.  We have some 800s with LED systems.  The Max is all LED.  I like the lumens on the max more that the NGs.  Its like a a 6 cell mag light vs a candle.

My last question for the investigation, other than what will change to mitigate the collision risk in DCA, is why the ATC controller didn't tell the CRJ to go around when the loss of separation/collision alarm likely went off.

[Sua Sponte]

 

[Lord Ratner]

The R model tanker engines are super low to the ground, and pod-scrapes are one of the highest risks of landing it. Happened a bunch, until they started giving a Q-3 to anyone who did it (at least according to the old farts). Suddenly, pod scrapes are very, very rare. 

 

Punishment works, as long as it's for something that should be punished. Crossing an active runway without clearance should at least get your license suspended. And if it's just because you were heads-down, sorry, that's not a good reason. 

 

The unions have taken a lot (almost all) of the punishment for bad behavior away at the company level. That's fine, the companies behave badly all the time. But the FAA has gotten lax too. 

 

Some things need harsh punishments to keep them rare.