So will all the helo goal tenders find their way back?
regional jet crash? (American Airlines) at Reagan (DCA)
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Last: 17 days ago by Stat Monitor Repairman
 BREAKING: The NTSB just dropped the Blackhawk helicopter’s black box recordings from the deadly Washington, DC crash with a commercial jet—and it’s a jaw-dropper. Here’s what it tells us:
— Project Constitution (@ProjectConstitu) February 18, 2025
 Altitude Chaos: The chopper’s altimeter was off—way off. Pilot read 300 feet,… pic.twitter.com/bmWjHx9Utx
Quote:
This wasn't just one mistake, it was a cascade of failures. 67 lives gone.
Cascade of failures... RIP
Swiss Cheese
Every single crash is.doubledog said: BREAKING: The NTSB just dropped the Blackhawk helicopter’s black box recordings from the deadly Washington, DC crash with a commercial jet—and it’s a jaw-dropper. Here’s what it tells us:
— Project Constitution (@ProjectConstitu) February 18, 2025
 Altitude Chaos: The chopper’s altimeter was off—way off. Pilot read 300 feet,… pic.twitter.com/bmWjHx9UtxQuote:
This wasn't just one mistake, it was a cascade of failures. 67 lives gone.
Cascade of failures... RIP
Take out just one thing and the accident never happens.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
Made worse by the apparent lack of visual ques. "Do you have the CRJ in sight NOT being followed by any # such as "at " your hand, clock, bearing, whatever, just seems inadequate and would not take many more words.txags92 said:Yeah, seems like allowing them to proceed on visual separation, particularly at night, is prone to allowing aircraft to get way too close to each other.Jetpilot86 said:
The answer will be restricted helo ops as visual landings are happening on that runway.
Sounds like at bare minimum they need to up the "look for" info given to any aircraft. That there was even a possibility they were looking at the wrong airliner imo is largely due to that lack of direction to look/confirm.
NOT saying that is the cause here --- its just something that is an obvious source of risk.
Looks like it is mostly if not entirely helo's fault or failure (if instruments) and also a certain lack of urgency on traffic control.
FrioAg 00:
Leftist Democrats "have completely overplayed the Racism accusation. Honestly my first reaction when I hear it today is to assume bad intentions by the accuser, not the accused."
Leftist Democrats "have completely overplayed the Racism accusation. Honestly my first reaction when I hear it today is to assume bad intentions by the accuser, not the accused."
Any government helicopter operating in that area should be flying nap of the earth for all practical purposes. Day or night, those pilots should have a much better guage of their altitude visually. They should know by looking out the front that their altitude exceeds the established maximum.
Common sense should take over when you are flying right through a final approach lane for heavy traffic of commercial aircraft. They should have been so low they could almost drag through the water.
It's a very small area in relative terms for a high performance aircraft to pass through. Go to nearly minimum allowable altitude for a minute or two until you pass through the dangerous area.
How freaking hard is this? It seems pretty straightforward to me.
Army helicopter pilots are by far the best I served with, but I think they royally ****ed this up. This should NEVER happen.
Common sense should take over when you are flying right through a final approach lane for heavy traffic of commercial aircraft. They should have been so low they could almost drag through the water.
It's a very small area in relative terms for a high performance aircraft to pass through. Go to nearly minimum allowable altitude for a minute or two until you pass through the dangerous area.
How freaking hard is this? It seems pretty straightforward to me.
Army helicopter pilots are by far the best I served with, but I think they royally ****ed this up. This should NEVER happen.
Greater love hath no man than this....
IF that tweet is correct that bird should have NEVER been in the air.
Check this Blancolirio where he chats up some Cali NG guys that stopped in at his local airfield during a training. Same/similar Lima model and he discusses the barometric altimeters.
EDIT.. He confirms NTSB said they had a 100ft discrepancy between the two barometric altimeters.
He said and gets a thumbs up from the NG pilot they should be within 50ft, and should be within 75ft of the known field elevation when set
Or is that for IFR only and they were flying VFR?
Check this Blancolirio where he chats up some Cali NG guys that stopped in at his local airfield during a training. Same/similar Lima model and he discusses the barometric altimeters.
EDIT.. He confirms NTSB said they had a 100ft discrepancy between the two barometric altimeters.
He said and gets a thumbs up from the NG pilot they should be within 50ft, and should be within 75ft of the known field elevation when set
Or is that for IFR only and they were flying VFR?
As a former Army Aviator I am still following this closely. I found this article very interesting and disturbing as it appears to shed some light on the capabilities of the current Army Aviation organization.
Exclusive: Army Was Sending Junior Pilots Straight from Flight School to Fly Top DC Missions Until 2023
"In fact, the aviator said, the Army was so strapped for experienced pilots that up through 2023 it was sending its most junior pilots fresh out of flight school to fly these specialized missions. At one point, an estimated 40 percent of the pilots assigned to these missions, which can include evacuating leaders in the event of an attack, were on their first assignment, the aviator said."
"The aviator said flight school standards have gone down just to push out more pilots, and that flying time has been cut in half compared to 20 years ago."
Exclusive: Army Was Sending Junior Pilots Straight from Flight School to Fly Top DC Missions Until 2023
"In fact, the aviator said, the Army was so strapped for experienced pilots that up through 2023 it was sending its most junior pilots fresh out of flight school to fly these specialized missions. At one point, an estimated 40 percent of the pilots assigned to these missions, which can include evacuating leaders in the event of an attack, were on their first assignment, the aviator said."
"The aviator said flight school standards have gone down just to push out more pilots, and that flying time has been cut in half compared to 20 years ago."
Scouts Out
...and let's be honest: enlistments plummeted because of all the nonsense the Biden social engineers were foisting on the military. From covid "vaccines" to sensitivity training, DEI, whatever. I can't tell you how many complaints I heard from people who had been in for a long time.
1. Identify a respected institution.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 10, 2015
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.#lefties
That's more than problematic but this has been the way of the American military since its inception; huge increase in personnel, funding, training, leadership, and experience during war then piss it all away during peacetime. It should change, but it won't, especially with weapon systems only becoming more and more expensive to build and maintain.
KGF?
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Quote:
BREAKING: The NTSB just dropped the Blackhawk helicopter's black box recordings from the deadly Washington, DC crash with a commercial jetand it's a jaw-dropper. Here's what it tells us:
Altitude Chaos: The chopper's altimeter was offway off. Pilot read 300 feet, instructor saw 400, but the real number? 278 feetwell above the 200-foot ceiling. They were flying blind on bad data.
Help me understand this?
Is this saying the pilots thought they were higher above the ceiling than they actually were? This doesn't help their case since they should have been below 200 on their own readings right?
They are saying that the altimeters used by the pilot and copilot were calibrated 100' differently from each other, and their actual altitude was 178' above what the pilot was seeing and 78' above what the instructor was seeing. So the pilot was seeing an altimeter that told her she was 100' above the ceiling (within the +/- 150 that I believe the Army allows), the copilot saw them at 200' above the ceiling (outside the +/- 150), and their actual altitude was over twice as high as they were cleared to be.AgLiving06 said:Quote:
BREAKING: The NTSB just dropped the Blackhawk helicopter's black box recordings from the deadly Washington, DC crash with a commercial jetand it's a jaw-dropper. Here's what it tells us:
Altitude Chaos: The chopper's altimeter was offway off. Pilot read 300 feet, instructor saw 400, but the real number? 278 feetwell above the 200-foot ceiling. They were flying blind on bad data.
Help me understand this?
Is this saying the pilots thought they were higher above the ceiling than they actually were? This doesn't help their case since they should have been below 200 on their own readings right?
Over on Mover & Gonkey (YouTube), Gonkey felt she was behind the aircraft and both he and Wombat thought the IP (I think both have worked as instructors) felt he was too hands off
Sounding like/looking like the Blackhawk crew was flying at absolutely the wrong altitude although they had indications that their instruments were off. It also seems like the standard response by the Blackhawk crew to ATC in this situation regarding other traffic, regardless of what ATC said, was "Traffic in sight" so that the Blackhawk could continue on their own maintaining visual separation. I say that because the speed in which they answer that they have the traffic in sight, at most a second after the ATC advises them of traffic, sounds like a 'canned' response rather than them actually looking for and identifying other air traffic.
Has there been any indication of how the majority of passengers were found in the wreckage?
Ie still in seatbelts assuming quick impact related death or chaotically pilled in a fuselage like the were fighting to escaped
Ie still in seatbelts assuming quick impact related death or chaotically pilled in a fuselage like the were fighting to escaped
Hitting the water at 130+mph, I doubt anyone was conscious after impact.
If its true the crj had time to just start to try to pull up, the instinct of passengers would be to hunker down, not jump up. Grim scene either way.
FrioAg 00:
Leftist Democrats "have completely overplayed the Racism accusation. Honestly my first reaction when I hear it today is to assume bad intentions by the accuser, not the accused."
Leftist Democrats "have completely overplayed the Racism accusation. Honestly my first reaction when I hear it today is to assume bad intentions by the accuser, not the accused."
The NTSB has released a preliminary report on the crash.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA25MA108%20Prelim.pdf
They also released urgent recommendations to prevent it from happening again.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AIR2501.pdf
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA25MA108%20Prelim.pdf
They also released urgent recommendations to prevent it from happening again.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AIR2501.pdf
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
From the first report.
Several PI attorneys who specialize in airplane crashes just rubbed one out to that. Gold.Quote:
A review of commercial operations (instrument flight rules departures or arrivals) at DCA between October 2021 and December 2024 indicated a total of 944,179 operations. During that time, there were 15,214 occurrences between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than 1 nm and vertical separation of less than 400 ft. There were 85 recorded events that involved a lateral separation less than 1,500 ft and vertical separation less than 200 ft.
The data indicated that, between 2018 and 2024, runway 1 accounted for about 57% of arrivals, runway 19 accounted for about 38% of arrivals, runway 33 accounted for about 4% of arrivals, and runway 15 accounted for less than 1 percent of arrivals at DCA. Runway 15 accounted for about 5% of departures from DCA.
Runways are assigned based on winds and aircraft type. Those percentages don't mean much.
Quote:
At an altitude of 200 ft, a helicopter operating over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River would have about 75 ft of vertical separation from an airplane approaching runway 33
If everything was flown exactly on profile, they would have missed each other by only 75 ft...that's insane. Totally unacceptable to simultaneously give two aircraft conflicting clearances like this.
BTW, the acceptable tolerance for altimeter error is...75 ft.
The clearance was to visually pass behind, not to pass 75 ft below
Their original clearance was to fly the helo route.
TexasAggiesWin said:
Sounding like/looking like the Blackhawk crew was flying at absolutely the wrong altitude although they had indications that their instruments were off. It also seems like the standard response by the Blackhawk crew to ATC in this situation regarding other traffic, regardless of what ATC said, was "Traffic in sight" so that the Blackhawk could continue on their own maintaining visual separation. I say that because the speed in which they answer that they have the traffic in sight, at most a second after the ATC advises them of traffic, sounds like a 'canned' response rather than them actually looking for and identifying other air traffic.
It's not unusual for pilots to have traffic in sight before ATC calls it out to them. It is also possible the they had another aircraft in sight thinking it was the RJ.
coconutED said:
Their original clearance was to fly the helo route.
Which they would only be cleared for if VFR. If it was 300OVC, they wouldn't have the CRJ circling to land, and they wouldn't have the helo on a route that required visual separation
Pilot not listening to experienced copilot nor ATC.
Yes, there were other factors that allowed her to screw up and kill herself and almost 70 other people, but she was the one flying the Black Hawk. And she repeatedly ignored warnings. pic.twitter.com/6oE4i35bM7
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 27, 2025
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
- Abraham Lincoln
- Abraham Lincoln
Suicide?
I know I'm shocked that the original suspicions turned out to be true.
Jaxson11 said:
Suicide?
There's no reason to think that. Neither the PF or the WO saw the CRJ coming or there would have been some attempt by the WO to take control.
Just arrogance and incompetence. Pretty much standard operating procedure for women who worked with Joe Biden.
Ellis Wyatt said:
Just arrogance and incompetence. Pretty much standard operating procedure for women who worked with Joe Biden.
Seesh.
That has been my problem all along. My understanding is that army guidelines allow +/-150' from cleared altitude and civilian is +/-200 in most cases. So routings where there is <100' of vertical separation are an accident waiting to happen. Standard practice should be for the helo to hold in that situation IMO. Letting them proceed on visual without a way to be sure they actually see the correct traffic is putting a lot of trust in something that is not that certain.coconutED said:Quote:
At an altitude of 200 ft, a helicopter operating over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River would have about 75 ft of vertical separation from an airplane approaching runway 33
If everything was flown exactly on profile, they would have missed each other by only 75 ft...that's insane. Totally unacceptable to simultaneously give two aircraft conflicting clearances like this.
BTW, the acceptable tolerance for altimeter error is...75 ft.
TriAg2010 said:Ellis Wyatt said:
Just arrogance and incompetence. Pretty much standard operating procedure for women who worked with Joe Biden.
Seesh.
What did he say that was incorrect?
Female apologists absolutely rekt
Remember the DC helicopter crash in January that killed 64 people, including 12 children?
— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) April 27, 2025
Turns out the female pilot who was flying was given multiple warnings and was directly told by her male instructor/copilot to turn the opposite direction of the passenger jet to avoid a… pic.twitter.com/50q7O7jiHR
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why even going 9 & 3 will seem like a let down to me.
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