DC Mid Air Update 2/3/25
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- LINKS:
VasAviation: • Last Radio from Army H...
NTSB: • NTSB Media Briefing 3 ...
Blancolirio: • Potomac Mid Air UPDATE...
Flying Eyes 10% OFF: flyingeyesopti...
Code BLANCOLIRIO
MERCH: blancoliriosto...
PATREON: www.patreon.co...
GEFA Aviation Scholarship:goldenempirefl...
GROUND SCHOOL: Learn The Finer Points! www.learnthefi...
THEME: "Weightless" Aram Bedrosian - www.arambedros...
Not in a million years would I have imagined there would be air traffic routes that cross the final approach path of a runway so low to the ground. How did anyone think this was a good idea? If there are more routes like this they need to removed before more lives are lost.
The same people that approve pylons and chimneys on runway approaches
All you need to hear is "military" and "VIP"
That's why they call the area The Swamp.
@@TiagoSeiler Exactly!
Agreed
100 ft. of vertical separation… as a standard practice… intersecting the final approach path of commercial aircraft into one of the busiest airports in the country… no words. Thanks Juan for the clear and thorough explanation as usual
I flew CRJ's in and out of there for years and me and everyone else who did have been saying what you just said for years. An accident waiting to happen.
Thinking the same thing. 100 feet vertical sep will trigger TCAS every time.
This with avg 2.5min separation inbetween landing planes.
My guess is the controllers didn't like this operation. They work what management and the airport tell them to work.
Why a "100 ft. of vertical separation"?. The helicopter was supposed to cross BEHIND the CRJ.
Your point about normalized deviance is completly spot on. Aside from the fact this ridiculous route should have never existed in the first place, it was so obvious the helicopter pilots are used to just responding with request visual separation every time they’re advised of traffic.
Indeed, exactly - it seems to be a prime example for a normalized deviance.
I guess they really meant
« F off, civilians. We are the real deal, leave the serious stuff in our hands, that’s a piece of cake for us fighters »…
Russian roulette is a game where you always end up winning.
I keep thinking of the old joke that ends with "See him? I hit him didn't I?!"
Complacency kills.
@@joso5554 speaking of russian roulette, you've just outed yourself as a russian shill/bot thanks to your cyrillic quotations. Your attempts to sow discord truly are pathetic, and honestly rich due to the fact you guys just downed an airliner... again.
As a former Blackhawk pilot i’ve flown that route and been forced to hold due to landing DCA traffic. The aircraft should never been allowed to get that close together. The Blackhawk’s radar altimeter is on the bottom and the helicopter is nearly 20ft tall. Uh-60L has no autopilot but does have a digital radar altimeter showing exact AGL and the default location for the crew-chief is behind the right pilot facing to the right . They do have the opportunity for heads up displays but likely not
using them on a regular training mission. I don’t agree with them
being on UHF vs VHF as that’s a practice that I avoided. Unfortunately the swiss cheese model of safety is on display here as many opportunities were available for all parties and this accident was preventable if any one of them occurred. Not pointing blame on anyone but many chances to avoid this were missed, Sadly.
If you have questions please let me help as a Blackhawk SME and Instructor for over 20 years, now airline pilot. Thanks for what your channel provides as you always try to present facts.
I work in industrial safety and the Swiss. Cheese model is obvious. How many reported and not reported Near Misses have occurred here??
30 last year according to faa. The airport has been a problem for years
You are a wealth of information. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your willingness to help by answering questions as they come. Great Job Brother. To me, the only plausible answer for the helicopter crew not seeing the incoming commuter jet was NVG's...
As a fixed wing pilot, I'd say below 500 hours is a low amount of flying time for civilian or military operations. PIC had 1000+ hours, where as the Rebecca Lobach only had 450 hours as Juan stated. One other aspect is that she was a Social aide at the Whitehouse for President Biden and First lady along with being a SHARP rep. This indicates a heavy involvement in non military "political activities". Also from what I've read she was studying to become a physician, as that is what she wished to pursue once leaving the military. Would you say these other activities could be a distraction away from focusing on flying?
Why does no one NO ONE mention that PAT-25 also deviated SIGNIFICANTLY from Corridor 1 right above Hains Point?? Seems they were joy-riding.
Does the BH have a look-ahead RADAR? Does the BH squawk its precise alt or does the tower receive “it’s own”
altitude info ?
Ex-BH pilot here. Two things: The instrument above the altimeter (on the top right) is a radar altimeter which would have been just as relevant to assist with remaining at or below 200’ (notwithstanding the requirement to have the correct QNH). And, in the case of the Black Hawk, and unlike other helicopters, the aircraft flies with zero degrees pitch attitude due to the fly-by-wire stabilator at the back. It is true that the visibility out the front isn’t as good as some helicopters, but that isn’t due to the aircraft attitude.
The radar altimeter has received very little attention in this event.
That sounds like a Chinese Noodle Swamp of useless information. Did they lose the old human gift.COMMON SENSE?
Wondering if the more senior officer would have visually known they were "off" or too high?
If I were being evaluated, I would go through the checklist twice before the instructor arrived.
Also if the baro altimeter was wrong and reading low they'd probably have already been above 200 prior to the accident to compensate.
Ever since you explained the whole route in the first place, it blew my mind that it was ever allowed to exist like this.
It's wild that they intentionally have a setup where planes are coming within even 1000ft of each other, much less when one plane is focused on landing and the helicopters are expected to keep an eye outside and find a plane in a crowded sky at night with all of the water and city behind everything.
100', not 1000.
@@justinjwolf Yeah, in this event. I more meant in a general sense. It's wild to me that you would have aircraft flying even within 1000ft of each other, much less anything below that.
It's crazy that this situation was even made possible at all.
Wreckless
Exactly. No one (yet) (besides you...) is pointing out that currently it is correct for a plane to be at 300 ft there and helo at 200'. This seems to be accepted as good and correct there. Seems very strange.
@@thecastle09Sadly not😢
Juan, as you might remember I flew EMS and Law Enforcement for over 30 years in Helicopters. During this time I worked over 50 percent at night and have logged over 2500 hours under NVG’s. We used the ANVIS 9 goggles and I can say they do have issues with being over city lights at night. At low altitudes they can be overwhelmed with input from ground lighting, causing interference with the clarity of what you see in them. We as helicopter cops often would go off goggles in bright city environments due to excessive glare. Also there is a video on utube by a former CRJ Piedmont pilot who had flown that very aircraft and many approaches into Reagan with the circling approach to RW33. He showed a video from another Piedmont Pilot while flying that approach he synchronized his video with the time line and CRJ would have been wing-up in a left turn about the same time as impact. There is no way they could have seen the Blackhawk coming from their right rear. This may have played an important role in lining up the holes in the cheese. Thanks again for your great video contents. Your awesome.
The CVR transcript suggests they may have seen them.
@@taotoo2 In the last2 seconds?
The helicopter approached from the front right, not the rear right.
@@taotoo2 They got a TA 18 seconds before impact and seems to have pitched up therefore just in the moment before impact, there´s no hint that they ever saw the helicopter.
@@taotoo2In the very last few seconds.
When you really want to get the right info on aviation issues - this is by far the best channel to go to.
Pilot Debrief as well!
I take that back. Hoover just changed his membership fees and now I'm a nobody haha oh well. Blancolirio ftw
Agreed Juan is respectful non judgmental. I like his approach. I come here for my future safety, just the facts . blame filled rants do not help.
This channel is amazing
Really? This video was worthless. Review the FAA regulations for VFR corridors.
This is crazy to have helicopter traffic flying into the path of the runways.
Indeed, exactly.
Suicidal stupidity.
Right. A little common sense goes a long way.
Even crazier to have NODS on in a large city. They’re pointless because of light pollution.
The airport is next to the Pentagon. They will gladly hog every sliver of air space that you give them
Ya, we’ve been hanger flying this accident since its occurrence… Three former AF pilots, two Navy pilots and a former Army Blackhawk pilot. all of us have flown into DCA. The changes that are forthcoming are looong over due in our assessment. Sadly, it took a tragedy of this nature to get these changes made. Seems to be what it takes to make our skies safer…🦅
@@Eagle621 yup all the rules regulations and improvements were all paved in blood! It’s never proactive but reactive in North America! Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, do more with less, do as I say not as I do mentality! Until we see jail time or any repercussions, accountability this will keep on happening!
So true🤙🏼@@idunnoanymore2870
I can very well imagine you using one hanger oriented upside down to represent copper, and another hanger turned to the horizontal to represent the CRJ.
@@idunnoanymore2870it’s as bad as the current surge of the almost runway collisions. They’ve become so bad at any major airport, shocked there haven’t been more reactions to that
@@idunnoanymore2870 And I still see some popular youtuber saying there was no accident for the last 15 years. So don't look at changing yet
My Army son flew this route for years in his Blackhawk Mike model, and he always slowed way down and went down to 150' from the bridge to the bridge, (without goggles) and complete communications with incoming traffic. And why not? the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in the back. Why not everybody?
Great insight into what I believe is the “elephant in the room”. All the other talk about ATC, NVG, etc is just noise. The fact is all three Army crew missed checking their altitude which is the ultimate cause of this tragedy. Sounds like your son is the kind of guy I’d love to fly with any day. ✌️
@@aslansgirl9014 The helo crew completed a trifecta of failures to: aviate, navigate, or communicate, leading to tragic results.
@@aslansgirl9014one of the people in the BH wasn't there to keep an eye on altitude. But either way, ATC holds much responsibility as well. We are but human.. regardless of the skill level. That's why ATC is there. They literally say there and watched as the aircraft flew right towards each other. The info he gave initially was quite vague.. and at six nautical miles, visual separation should have never been granted to begin with. And once it was, it should have been a huge red flag that the BH never changed their heading. Had they saw the CRJ, they would have most certainly changed their heading. Then 16 seconds before the crash, while the ATC controller was watching them on his radar fly towards each other.. instead of asking again if the BH saw the CRJ & saying go behind.. he should have immediately said traffic traffic traffic and called for an immediate left turn to be made... As there was a C A Warning on his screen at that very moment. Or if he didn't want to be that drastic, it was a helo... Again, instead of saying hey do you see that plane go behind it that it obviously did not look like they saw... He simply could have said PAT25 hold your location for a moment.. It's a helicopter, they can do that. ACT is there, with an overview of everything and a sophisticated means of communication to relay information in the event a human makes a mistake.. And there was every opportunity for that to occur, but it did not.
Smart, getting that speed in check gives the pilot more to spot and evade. Less stress on the airframe if a maneuver is required. The bottom line is you need some experience to make this look easy. 200 ft on that route is the max, not the target. Get on VHF frequency so fixed wing can hear both sides of the conversation.
Your son has common sense. It can come in handy. 👍 👍
Related anecdote here: last summer I was on a long final for PHNL 08L at night in a 737. I noticed TCAS traffic below us on final that was converging with our path and slowing unusually for a fixed wing. When I finally got eyes on the traffic it was only running its red beacon and no other nav lights. As we got closer it descended very low and then appeared to stop and make a sharp right turn…it was some kind of rotor wing (maybe an Osprey?) that had just landed at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point under NVGs. There were no airport lights on and no required landing lights, navigation lights or strobes on. At first I thought it was weird but then later I realized how dangerous it is to have NVG operations nearby civilian aircraft that don’t have the same capabilities or comms. This DCA accident is exactly the kind of thing I imagined.
The military needs to practice this stuff but they really shouldn’t be doing it around civilian aircraft. It’s a dangerous mix and protocols need to change.
Do they really need to practice? If there became a need to emergency evacuate VIP’s, the Washington airspace would have been closed to civilian aircraft and they would fly direct across the airport grounds at medium level. For routine VIP transport, the black hawks should proceed with maximum safety controls of cruising speed to the runway crossing points, slow approach or hover until cleared for crossing the flight path at 500ft. Fire and EMS do it at railway level crossings so why not for non-mission critical transport flights. 😎😇
@@gbphil I think Andrew meant that they need to practice using NVGs, not that they need to practice doing it right beside major commercial airports.
And, yes, for routine transport missions, they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near landing airliners. But many Generals and high-level politicians have a tendency to consider their personal convenience to be much more mission-critical than everyone else considers it to be.
@@vbscript2 The term "national security" is thrown around like confetti.
Frankly, they should just be required to talk to ATC on VHF so all traffic in the vicinity is on the same page, and not relying on ATC to relay information to them.
There's no good argument against it. Cost is not an issue, especially compared to the loss of life.
If pilots can't handle switching over to VHF (or mechanics rigging the radios to simulcast), then they have no business being pilots.
@@gbphil Yes, they need to practice flying these routes.
You do NOT want the first time doing something to be in an emergency.
Makes you wonder how many thousands of "near misses" they have had over the years.
Too many!!
Exactly! And is there anybody, civilian or military, that ever looks at truly high-risk operations like this and periodically monitor separation?
That’s how I feel about my motorcycle riding. I guess if I knew, I’d quit riding.
@@alandaters8547 No, there's not or if there is, they remain quiet. Changes are written with other people's blood.
There are some videos that have been posted showing many CA alerts at this airport between helos and planes. I think controllers got halfway used to them and so did helo pilots. They may have started to ignore conflict alerts or at least treat them with less respect
I worked at DCA as a firefighter in the 90s and noticed how often choppers passed by up & down the river. It became apparent that they had the habit of keeping to the eastern side of the river so seeing the H-60's path down the middle was puzzling. We used to do driving and positioning exercises on the airfield at night and it's a totally different world out there. Even when you know your area, you can get lost with all the blinking and moving lights. We had to be very careful we didn't run off the taxi & runways.
Wow! I had the flying bug when I was younger and had trouble getting into the “pattern” of small uncontrolled airports. At night, it was 10X harder. It cured me of wanting to get my license and airplane. Plus, I couldn’t grasp the rapid chatter of the ATCs. I have the same problem for all auditory communication. I know that i could have persevered and obtained all of this, but didn’t want to be pushing in skill areas that were not developed.
This seems more and more to have been an accident waiting to happen. Everything depends in fact if the helicopter pilots are able to pick up the right light out of the ocean of city lights.
@@NicolaW72 Especially if they are using night vision goggles.
@@NicolaW72 Wrong. Fly the route as designed = no issues.
Flying deliberately out of the route is a Big issue deadly even.
@ What do you fly? How long and what mission, Impress me,
It's worth noting that the preceding company aircraft, 5307, was asked if they'd take the circle to 33, and the pilot responded immediately, "unable tonight." 5342 was not on tower yet to hear this, they came up on tower 17 seconds later. 5342 was also asked if they'd accept a circle to 33... They responded *25 seconds* later they'd take it. This seems like a small detail, but there's a lot to unpack there. 5307 recognized it was a bad idea instantly, where 5342 talked it over. If it takes you 25 seconds to decide, that means you didn't anticipate it, you didn't brief it... So the answer, like 5307, should have been "unable." This isn't airspace in which you should ever leave a stabilized, briefed maneuver for an unstabilized, unbriefed maneuver.
Reagan carries a very similar ops count with just one runway at a time that Dulles carries on 3 parallel 10,000 foot monsters sitting on 13,000 acres of opens space and robust obstacle clearance. DCA was built before jets were even a thing, before Pearl Harbor. It's almost like nothing could go wrong.
This is the classic "long chain" accident where the crash was already underway years earlier when the airspace was designed, and the airline's flight ops manual was approved and published. Once those two things happened, it was then only a matter of time, and that time was now. *This incident probably started before some of the pilots were even born.*
There is a good article in the hang/para-gliding world about risk management. It's called - "Target on Your Back." The more times you get away with a high risk activity, the more likely you are to continue doing it, or even increasing the risk, making the risky behavior "normalized." Eventually, the bullet will hit the target. This is exactly what we've been doing for decades at DCA, also LGA.
Yep, normalization of the deviance spiral, is a very good visualisation of this problem.
Pretty much the definition of "normalizing deviancy", as Mr Brown said.
Indeed, exactly.
Also the foam strikes on the doomed space shuttle. They knew it was a recurring problem but they'd always been lucky, until they weren't.
Like running a yellow light.
I'm retired USAF Weather and would sometime do crew briefs at the squadrons. I remember the officer going through the last bit of his mission briefing with - "Remember guys, this is training, if something doesn't look right, abort and come home safe!"
I'm glad the NTSB expressed their frustration - I am sick and tired of the FAA being a reactive vs. proactive agency when it comes to safety.
the airlines and manufactures own the faa, they scream about every restriction….and get their way
The FAA is being gutted. Expecting good news.
@@All-Inn-Funand replaced with what
their frustration was with the reporters that weren't listening not with the pilots. Did you watch it? I did.
You need to put pressure on your House representative and your Senators to increase the FAA budget. Republicans have REDUCED the funds for the FAA several times in the past 10-20 years.
So, I'm a black hawk instructor pilot at the Army flight school and I teach exclusively night flights. A couple of corrections for you. The gauges in the UH60L are not "steam-powered." This is really just a colloquialism. The are powered by electrical gyros and air pressure. Also, if CPT Lobach was sitting right seat, the crew chief would likely have been sitting behind her facing the 3 o'clock position in the "gunner" seat. Basically looking the complete opposite direction of the on-coming jet. If they were indeed using the NVGs at the time, they wouldn't necessarily have to look at the instrument panel to scan their instruments. It is actually very likely they had a heads up display employed to show altitude. The UH-60V project has actually been canceled. I was an SME to validate the project back in 2022 at the time that article was printed. There are a few still flying around. The UH-60M is the predominant model still flying around. A black hawk does not really need to tip nose down. The transmission is already tilted unlike most helicopters. So the pitch attitude at normal cruise speed is 0.
Thank you. Can you tell us approximately when the Lima Black Hawks were upgraded with cockpit voice and data recorders?
@@DallasNatureLover Not sure on that one. I'd have to do some digging. I'm not in the army anymore so idk if I'd have access to that info.
Great in info man. Thank you for your service. I love the UH-60.
I have been going into DCA since 1998. I have said since that time this is an accident waiting to happen.
Change only happens after an accident happens. Reactive never proactive
Awesome video Juan
It hasn't been a problem until you add in all the additional difficulty. Night with Google goggles... This absolutely no sense.. Six eyes in that bird... What the heck !
It has been said quite often over the years.. Aviation regulatory changes are most often written in blood.
Right! Wait until the baby drowns before you cover the well.
@TheGospelQuartetParadise My background is heavy industry, and that is the quote for OSHA guidelines, written in blood. So sad.
@ I know. I had my first industrial accident before there was an Osha and I didn't start having problems with the injury until 40 years later.
Juan you are hands down the best person I've ever heard describe details in a way that I can totally understand. You are a blessing to the aviation community. Thank you! 👍
Thank you for your report. I AGREE with your report!!
Taken flight rocket also is a great channel they drop some
Knowledge 😊
Juan Browne for head of FAA!
You should also check out Mentour Pilot. He doesn't do real time analysis but his analysis of older crashes is highly technical and educational.
What got me was your first photo, Juan - the cluster of boats and the wreckage in the middle of the river with the runway quite visible in the distance. So close, yet so far away, from getting on the ground safely. What a tragic outcome affecting so many. Thanks so much for your highly-valued insights.
Buck up, sister.
@@sonicimperiumWhat is your problem? You seem to have one, hopefully it isn't with people who wish that a tragedy didn't happen.
That single photo really does illustrate the stupidity of the Route 4 design and placement. Also striking is the FAA’s ability to close airspace for miles around, at a moment’s notice for AF 1, but they have left this Route 4 intact for so many years. To me, this is unfathomably beyond stupid. Someone at the FAA needs to be demoted.
It makes me sick to think that only a 60 second delay on either end and none of this would have happened.
Good job Juan. I have 5k hours in CRJs, and have landed at DCA numerous times. I agree that the First Officer in the CRJ would not have a good view down and behind him as they banked left to line up with Rwy 33. (Not to mention being focused on the landing, even if they were the monitoring pilot, not the flying pilot for this leg.
Now I want to know how many other US airports have similar military helo routes in such close proximity to runway approaches?
Fortunately I think this can only be possible at the few major airports still located in or near the city centers, but DC's airspace and security expectations pushing everyone over the river in opposite directions has to be unique, ya think? That's the only reason DC has those helo corridors, right? Other cities might have helo corridors, but no need to route them across short final paths. I can't imagine an equivalent need to route everyone over the same real estate like that.
Sorry... rambling, thinking...
The last thing CRJ should have to think about is another aircraft running into it on final. Sure, it would have been impressively amazing if the FO happened to see and avoid this tragedy. But the tower and clearly lazy approval of VS as the norm as Juan points out is just unforgivable.
10:10 EXACTLY its a normalization of deviance. the first time i heard him say "traffic in sight request visual sep" i recognized that as soundling like the 287th time he has said that in the past week. then i heard the 288th time. and thats exactly what it is. nailed it
normalization of deviance is precisely the correct term to describe this event. In lay terms it's like getting a bit lax or cavalier with duties and responsibilities.
At any rate, sterile cockpit must prevail.
My thoughts exactly, it's like saying done this 99 times, nothing has happened, but the 100th time catastrophe hits. As the old adage complacency kills.
Indeed exaclty.
Warrant officer running comms on PAT25 may have not had any aircraft in sight, and just said whatever he needed to say so they could keep flying their route. Could be arrogance.
@@danielstarnes7354ATC believed him, maybe the crew chief, and the pilot he was supposed to be monitoring believed him too.
Mary Schiavo warned us back in the 1997 book “Flying Bilnd, Flying Safe” the unholy alliance between the Airline Industry and the FAA. As Juan mentions all the pending NTSB recommendations that are yet to be implemented. We have been extremely fortunate that we have gone so long since a mid-air accident. Thank you to all the professional pilots and heartfelt sympathies to those affected by this tragedy.
FAA seems to believe that its' job is to promote the aviation industry rather than regulate it.
I’ve been doing this for 40 years, there are several places where we fly where there are helicopters around the airports, normally below 500feet. Most places I fly on a regular basis., I am based in Fort Lauderdale, the helicopters are told to hold position, in space, until I am airborne, and out of the way. And we have at least 500 feet or more separation. This is crazy. 100 feet is nothing. It’s been years probably more than 15 since I’ve operated out of DCA, I thought the airport should’ve been closed down back then….
Same here, hated operating into DCA and always felt it was a bad setup
I know what you mean...I used to live right by FLL and listened to the scanner all the time. Frequent police, EMS, and news helicopters in that area. Sometimes they were even covering crashes on the nearby busy I95/595 interchange, but always told to hold on one side of the parallels for conflicting traffic.
Las Vegas has'm all over that airport. I won't fly in there.
Pretty solid assessment Juan. I'm a former Starlifter IP & airline Captain, my brother was 23 yrs Army Blackhawk WO & Examiner pilot with a DC VIP tour under his belt. You both are on the exact same page so far. Major changes are on the way ASAP.
🙏
Controller here. The vertical separation required in class B between an IFR aircraft and a VFR aircraft less than 19000lbs is 500'. I'm not familiar with DCA's local procedures, but I am certain the helicopter routes and the final for 33 are not intended to be procedurally separated. My guess is visual separation is likely their SOP. From a controllers point of view, once the aircraft has accepted visual separation, your separation responsibility is over. Most controllers will operate on trust but verify and scan back to insure everyone is doing what they are supposed to. In this case the controller did exactly that with his second call. His only error was not informing the CRJ that there was a helicopter maintaining visual. This is a required call when traffic is converging during visual separation.
Well explained, thanks‼
Shouldn't the controller have specified traffic at your 10 o'clock, with the altitude? How else to know they were talking about the CRJ and not some other????
Personal opinion here, but near zero altitude deconfliction and known crossing paths, the controller should not allow both aircraft to continue. I haven't flown there recently, but when I did most controllers would stop helicopter traffic on Rt4 at Hain's Point or Wilson Bridge (or sometimes by the navy facility North of the bridge), if there was landing traffic to 33.
Ultimately, it is the PIC's responsibility to see and avoid after asking for vis sep...but the whole sequence of catastrophe could have been stopped by a "hold at Hain's Point for landing traffic 33."
@@nancycallas5301 Traffic calls using the clock positions is generally a radar traffic call. While I'm sure the tower there has a certified display, towers will normally use aircraft positions in traffic calls. Things like ahead and to your right/on a five mile final/over a landmark are common and approved traffic calls.
@ I understand what you are saying, however, the controller used an approved form of separation. From his point of view going back and issuing another restriction wouldn't make sense. In his mind they were already separated. As an example, if I have vertically separated two IFR aircraft it wouldn't make much sense for me then to vector them for lateral spacing also.
Former DC resident. 30 years. We were all aware that these helicopter flights seemed to be vanity flights for the one star and better Brass. This was an accident that was actually overdue. The Potomac flyway was a racecourse for helicopter flights between CIA, joint base Andrews and Boling AFB.
Hubris.
Heck I've lived in NoVA my whole life and generally go into DC only once or twice a year for events/outings, and yet I can't remember the last time I did a day trip to the Tidal Basin/Mall where I didn't see at least one flyover, if not more. The frequency certainly seems obnoxious.
@@biladcock9055 I can't speak for all helicopter units around there, since I didn't fly with all of them, but I did not see vanity flights. The DoD used to do more of that sort of thing, but got smacked down by Congress and the media a few decades ago.
Tell me, what was the mission?
@@biladcock9055 Training associated with Continuity of Government contingency planning. You know, in case, of a Dr. Strangelove scenario.
Not only for brass, but for dignitaries and people of powerful interest.
As a former Helo pilot with lots of goggle time I can tell you this with almost certainty: There is no way, in a city lights environment, under nods, can you identify an aircraft coming at you head on...6 miles away. Just no way. They said their request out of habit and never had that aircraft in site. The Army crew porked the puppy in this incident... unfortunate.
If that's the case, that helo crew shouldn't have been looking at an aircraft 10 miles away either, correct?
@@jamesharp3445 , it’s not “unfortunate”, it’s completely unacceptable what happened here…67 people lost their lives and 64 of them just about 30 seconds from touchdown!
Outrage is a very nice way of putting what I really feel here…
They weren’t wearing night goggles were they? Other pilots are saying that would not be the case BECAUSE of the hindered vision at night at the busiest airport in the country. “Out of habit” is not the way to drive OR fly. Thats negligence and now homicide. Shameful
@@topherdallasDCA is not the busiest airport in the country
True, but the controller is also partially responsible. He let them get too close, and he trusted the Helo pilot had the traffic in-sight. I think they were both complacent. Everything is routine... until it isn't.
As a former Black Hawk helicopter crew chief, and now a civilian trained commercial EMS helicopter pilot I want to point out a few things. First, if the helicopter crew as wearing the goggles, and the airplane was above the horizon, you can easily see an aircraft from six miles away. In areas with little ground light I can make out the beacon on top of a hospital from 30+ miles away on a clear night. But if they were below the horizon, their lights would easily be drowned out by the ground lights and the movement of the aircraft would be very hard to keep sight of. I do agree with Juan on the fact that the immediate response of maintaining visual separation from the CRJ is to automatic. That it seems as if they just need the approval to shut up ATC, and that it was nothing more the a procedural thing. Second, The crew chief would be sitting sideways behind the pilots. They could sit on either side. Generally they would be looking out the sliding window on the side which may or may not have been open. Third, it is true that generally the "PIC" would sit on the right side of a helicopter. But for the black hawk, and the fact that is always has duals installed, the PIC could sit on either side technically. So they may have been flying cross cockpit, thus could have an obstructed view of the CRJ.
When you can't find something search in different places. The answer is hiding right in front of you. Hint: Hal 9000: I'm sorry Dave I'm afraid I can't do that
Could that be why they were higher than expected? Trying to nudge a little higher and get better visuals instead of staying low and being basically blinded by the light pollution?
@@Mankorra_Gomorrahthat would not only be dumb, but in violation of their 200’ max .
Can you update these points?
-radar altimeter: was it in use? does it require calibration? how accurate is it? any problems with water/building/bridge changes in terrain
-ntsb briefing mentions (IIRC) 2 altitudes for the helicopter (200ft, and 300ft) I think
.does this suggest that the helicopter recently changed altitude (raised or lowered by 100ft)
.does this suggest that the ATC equipment lacks the resolution, precision, accuracy, whatever- to track aircraft that closely. e.g. maybe it can only measure to +/- 100ft, maybe it polls in 3 second intervals, etc. IDK
-someone mentioned that looking up from the instruments to get a visual on the 5342 as ATC told them about it, may have caused an instinctual movement via the hands on the controls which would raise the helicopter
@@dustyb7677 well it’s looking more and more like they did, in fact, violate their 200 max. The question is, why? Just throwing our hands in the air and saying “guess they were just stupid, nothing to see here time to go home.” Isn’t helpful. They clearly had a reason for being where they were and of all the ones I’ve seen, the notion that someone said “it’s safer for us to break the 200max a little bit and see where we are going than be flying blind at 199ft” and everyone else just kinda went with it is the most plausible I’ve seen thus far. Especially if that person was the instructor.
I’ve been involved with 2 near collisions while in the military, none were reported. IMHO The military is hesitant to report mishaps if they can avoid it. This is also a problem
Thank you Juan! You are invaluable to the aviation community!
Juan, I am really glad you brought up the normalization of deviance. It sounds so much like the IP was taught to always request visual separation and habitually says aircraft in sight as a way to limit radio traffic with the busy tower. It’s more robotic but lacks situational awareness, as does tuning out radio traffic of potentially conflicting traffic.
One other point, Blackhawks have VHF radios and could certainly have used the VHF rather than UHF. For whatever reason Army aviators are not taught to prioritize VHF at civilian airports until attending the Instrument Examiner’s Course (CFII equivalency). Also, Blackhawk helicopters have radar altimeters on both pilot and copilot instruments. At low altitudes on NVGs attention is typically more on radar altitude than baro altitude.
"They're just saying this automatically... as if it's a normalisation of deviance". This really spooks me, because I have noticed this trend in all spheres of life, and I have always feared that the effect might enter safety critical arenas. When I ask for a "small coffee", the barista will verbally repeat "small coffee", but then immediately ask "what size?", as if not registering what she had said a moment ago. When I tell the barista i'd like to "pay by card", she writes "Card" on the cup, thinking that it's actually my name. When I order a taxi, the operator will confirm "to city centre for one person", and then immediately ask "and for how many people?". This "verbal autopilot" is not so much a lapse of concentration, as it is a permanent state of dissociation. It would be very concerning if pilots/controllers are also subject to this kind of "verbal autopilot", but we will see what the investigation finds. Thank you for the video.
I believe a lack of aggressive listening affects many industries. I like to think that pilots and controllers are more aware of that than most since precise communication is so vital.
All humans are subject to it. We're very good at identifying and acting on patterns, even when the pattern doesn't exist and/or we shouldn't act on it. It's one of the reasons that ATC communication is ideally supposed to spell everything out and include a read back, as in literally reading back what has been written down. It's a check against reflexive responses.
As Juan has alluded to in this and other videos about this crash, see and avoid has inherent problems because it relies too much on fallible human minds. Safety systems need to be designed around these quirks of human cognition.
@@SnakebitSTIThis is no excuse for the awful ATC voice and talking speed. Even with the subtitles in Juan’s video, I couldn’t decipher half of what ATC was saying. This is totally unprofessional and worthless.
We are all on verbal autopilot far more than we realize. I have intentionally mispronounced certain words for years but no one has ever said anything about it. Close enough works to activate the perception in your brain to hear what you expected to hear.
It is speed. In jobs like atc., piloting, coffee servers and more speed and multitasking is common̈. That is why sometimes pilots crash due to oversaturation. Their minds cannot keep up with the multiple input and at a critical moment like a near crash they will freeze or push the throttle the wrong way. Good crew resource management can help but in some crashes it's so bad that when the copilot tries to take controls the pilot won't let go resulting in dual input and crash.
Black Hawk crew chief here. We sit behind the right seat and face outboard, located behind the co-pilot
On a Huey, the pilot (AC) and crew chief sat on the right side, left side was co-pilot and door gunner. So on a Blackhawk the pilot (AC)sits on the left side?
Happy you referenced that NTSB conf, was both emotionally meaningful and excellent source of information. NTSB is a unicorn of an agency.
My personal favorite is still the USCSB, but the NTSB is definitely a close second.
(Perhaps not coincidentally, the CSB is also an accident investigation board, and also only has the power to make recommendations to actual regulators ... the only difference is that their domain is industrial accidents.)
Juan, always great fact based analysis and zero sensationalism, its what makes you easily the most well balanced interpreter of these events as they occur.
Absolutely the best analyst. Should head the FAA.
Too bad the crazies don’t actually watch it. They just come to the comments to spin their narrative on who they want to blame before all the evidence is in.
This NTSB frustration with the FAA has been going on for decades.
Or longer.
FAA is corrupt
Not encouraging information safety wise. Argh.
I wonder what the defunding and staff elimination is going to do to not only the NTSB but the glacier that is the FAA?
@@flower2289 ...🤔...
I hope the NTSB releases the information gleaned from the helicopter CVR.
I have absolutely no experience in aviation but what I can say is, if there is an aircraft of any size coming in for landing there shouldn't be any form of congestion in it's path. Great video!
Wow master of the obvious ..glib of the year award goes to.
@@cyclingtripsandticks2777no need to be a dink
@@cyclingtripsandticks2777 He may be obvious, but as a retired pilot with 42 years military and commercial, he is right. The helicopter should have been held north of the bridge until final was clear. That airspace belonged to the RJ.
No congestion except for congressmen
Great analysis as usual. Talking to a friend in UK today, an ex Navy helicopter pilot, he tells me the rules for flying in London were to stay overhead the Thames, and if heading east-bound to not pass Tower Bridge until and unless receiving a specific ATC clearance when there was no inbound or outbound traffic at London City airport, which sits on the south bank of the Thames just a few miles east. Just common sense. Can’t believe how uncontrolled it was in DC. That must stop immediately.
LCA Is actually on the North Bank of the Thames: not that this effects your pertinent point, but I wouldn't want anyone to repeat the error.
And yes, it's exactly 5 miles and exactly east of the Bridge. I've not flown in/out of it, but I've been to events in the Excel Centre right next to it.
I flew that route once, in 1987, as lead Pilot in a formation of two Canadian CH136 (OH58A) Kiowa helicopters. I was sweating by the end of it. The precision expected and demanded - justifiably - was incredible. The slightest deviation up or down, left or right, generated an immediate corrective call from the controller(s).
We were briefed thoroughly by the British Army Air Corps Squadron whom we had been visiting, and phoned ATC prior to taking off, warning them that we had not flown the route before.
The relief felt by the end of it was huge - neither deaths nor embarrassment resulted. It was a great experience - once over.
My NVG time is limited, but we never ever used them over/around built-ùp areas or flying into or out of airports. Maybe they've improved since I ceased flying and there is less "blooming", but I learned a few lessons through fairly close calls.
I also had a lot of unaided night time, including a year of police helicopter flying, and was much more comfortable with that.
A little red light on a small antenna mast, right in front of us, on one low-level flight in a large dark and deserted military training area looked, through NVG, exactly like a very bright white light a long distance away. It wasn't. Feeling less than comfortable, I looked beneath the goggles just in time to see that it was dead level with us and very close.
I had at around 4000 hours then, and continued to learn - fortunately mainly from the experiences of others - just how tiny errors, false assumptions, complacency, disorientation, miscommunications, illusions etcetera can result in major consequences right to the end of my career.
I knew a lot who weren't so fortunate.
Another great update Juan - One important omission though, from having watched the briefing: The NTSB indicated evidence from the CVR that the CRJ crew did see the impending collision and tried to take action: (From the briefing document you displayed: "At 20:47:58 the CRJ700 started increasing its pitch after a verbal reaction from the crew, and a second later a collision occurred.") Chilling moment.
Too late.
I did my initial training out of KMTN and remember the great pains we took to stay out of all the military airspace there, Phillips/APG next door, Dover AFP across the bay, etc. etc. I think the military can afford the same airspace respect for the civilian system. Imagine doing your check ride sauntering through the final approach course of an incredibly busy commercial airport. Beyond comprehension.
The closet thing this reminds me of is the mid-air over New Delhi in '96. Back then, they used to route all civilian traffic on one corridor, with departure traffic flying below approach traffic. And that had the standard 1000ft separation between planes, but people still realized that it was unnecessarily dangerous... but apparently we've been doing this "just VFR at night bro, you've got a couple hundred feet!" nonsense for nearly 30 years after that.
It looks like, yes, unfortunately.
I also thought of that accident. Good reminder.
Laughed way too much from the "vfr at night" citation... XD XD
The only safe way to resolve this is to have a "paper stop".... a clearance limit on PAT 25. In this case Hains Point. When all else fails, PAT 25 can't proceed past Hains Point until it receives onwards clearance and the situation is clearer.
I was wondering the same. Why can't the helo fly to Hains Point, then stop until given an All Clear to proceed?
And when the airlines have so much pressure on an airport that there's an arrival every 2 and 1/2 minutes. When exactly is that period of clear? When are you going to cross that helicopter? And clearance limits do not apply to VFR flight plans.
Would not be necessary if they were flying at the correct altitude.
Unfortunately, the mission set of this unit is VIP Priorty Transport. When the SHTF, certain officials need to be rapidly moved to safe locations. DCA is going to need more eyes and ears. Train like you fight.
@ I just don’t buy it. At a certain point your training is just putting others at risk. Figure it out. If SHTF shut down DCA have the planes hold and let the helicopters run swiftly wherever they need to go.
Spent time observing night operations, yesterday, intentionally from a hotel adjacent to a major airport. It's amazing how difficult it is to accurately observe movements and direction of travel.
A teacher in his class room, around 12 pm, watched Black Hawks flying extremely fast in tight circles at the same area where the crash happened that night. He said he felt there was going to be a accident soon. He knew what these BH really were. I can't believe no one has figured it out.
@@jjk2oneWell tell us please. If you can. I can't figure it out? Why would they be flying in tight circles?
Thanks for such a thorough analysis of this tragedy. Worth noting that at about 7:30 you mention that the BH would be "looking up" for the CJ. Viewers should note that at 6 mile separation and 1000ft altitute difference that look up angle is less than 2°. That would be very difficult to separate from the cluttered ground lights.
Man. Your the only objective view I see of this whole situation. Educational.
Taking Flight with Rocket is pretty good.
Yea dude the wildly uninformed, ignorant, overconfident conspiracy theories from all the sudden "experts" is really grinding my gears. For this and the Philly mishap. Just crazy uninformed confidence and "expertise" (as in "my brother was a pilot and he said...!") 🙄
Edited for typo: "os" changed to "is".
@ Just wade through it. I always wait as long as the information starts making sense. For the DC accident, I am waiting to see what barometer setting was put into the altimeter. Juan mentioned it just now and another channel brought this up.
@@MattH-wg7ou The clueless will always be clueless. Internet has emboldened the witless. The don't know anything and should be treated as such. Just push through it and get down to the nitty-gritty, which is why I'm a big fan of this channel and a couple of others. They know what they're talking about. The witless rabble do not.
@oldgoat142 well said.
I am not a pilot but have always been fascinated with the industry. Juan breaks things down that most anyone can understand. Very much appreciate his efforts.
I didn't even know we have so much resources for Flight Data.
Like Flight path and altitude graphics I saw for Philadelphia crash. Like we also have ATC chatter
It's amazing how easy and accessible everything has become to have overview of what could've happened 😮
Wow! I was an engineer 37 years ago at Sikorsky. I see the glare shield light installation that I did in-the late 80’s. It was a crude and simple design. Well. Simple and reliable. No one changed it.
I was waiting for someone to say - "helicopter hold position, wait for CRJ to pass", ( and wake turbulent to dissipate) before proceeding. Bloody obvious !
Thinking the same. You have an aircraft extremely close, hold and wait. But if every helicopter did that, would they get anywhere.
There's no need to hold them if they have visual and can maintain visual separation. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and it's done all the time. So many unlikely circumstances seem to have come together here. I'm not satisfied with a simple explanation that they misidentified the wrong plane. If that happened, we need to know why. That guy on the radio was confident he had the CRJ.
I’ve also read that although it seems logical to have them hold it’s not atc protocol so the controller was just following procedure
@@6806goats1 Waiting for an aircraft on short final to land before you cross the final isn't a big ask. If you're crossing short finals often enough that doing this means that you wouldn't get anywhere, then you (or the FAA, as the case may be) really need to work on route planning.
It's really crazy that there is only 100' of separation this close to the ground, especially with all the ground clutter lighting and the virtually head-on closing.
"An accident waiting to happen." it
Why not over the top of the airport at 1500’ like many other airports?
Accidents happen!
But why were the Response Unit and ferry boats soo slow ?
It is not like an Pacific Ocean crash.
Potomac river is only 300 feet long ?
@@justinborysenko3885 because Bolling is right there.. Pentagon just upriver. Whitehouse..
Right? Bogles the mind
I have fished along that section of river for close to 50 years and the fact that an accident Iike this hasn’t occurred before this has always absolutely amazed me. I cannot tell you how many thousands of landings and takeoff wave-offs I have witnessed at this airport much less near collisions by fixed and rotary wing aircraft around that airport. I can recall one night that there was a gusting crosswinds and I had taken a date down to the park at the end of runway 1 and between runway 1 and 3 in the course of 3 hours we counted over 50 wave-offs. That all said I can tell you one airport that I flat refuse to fly in or out of
wow.
I think what people forget is that at a distance, it looks all pleasant and precise, but landings often have the plane bouncing around 50 ft this way and that - and that's "stabilized". Not even windy conditions.
Not only was the helo high, it looks to be well west and outside of the Helo Route 1 (ie helo was in the middle of the river, not over the bank) , yet little commentary on this point to date.
We see it
I believe the NTSB said the Helo was within the lateral boundaries of the route. They don’t have the verified altitude yet tho it’s pretty obvious it was 325’ +\- 25’
NTSB said the heli appeared to be within the lateral boundaries, probably because they needed to pass "behind."
NTSB did cover this in the full press conference. They actually stated laterally the Blackhawk was within limits…..which is surprising. They are yet to determine longitude.
NTSB said that it was within the confines of its route laterally.
Something else to consider is the CRJ was at a constant bearing from the blackhawk since they were on a collision course. Their lights would appear to be stationary to the helo pilots.
When I flew those routes in the early ‘90s, the ceiling was 50’.
Those people on the plane were literally 5 seconds from landing safely on the ground. First picture highlights how close yet far they were from the rest of their lives
At an altitude of 325 feet, it would be somewhat longer than 5 seconds before they actually landed.
I work in the area where this happened for over 20 years and during that time I started on my aviation journey and it was clear to me after just a short time of study and flying that this was inevitable. You could see that everyone had gotten way to comfortable with airspace that was way to congested
I worked in pt 135 flight ops then as a pt 121 dispatcher out of Dulles in the 90s, and back then nobody was comfortable at all. There were way too many near misses just within my own airline. The pilots were sometimes rattled, and sometimes furious. That's just what I saw at my company.
Hi - whether they got an altimeter setting , sitting on the field, the altitude indicator give the field elevation. It they were paying attention, they would have been picked up.
Also, there is no way that Par 25 saw the CRJ in sight 6 miles out at night with all the background lights of DC.
And PAT2 was at 350’ & 300’ as seen on the scopes. Unfortunately ATC missed it, otherwise they would have said descend to 200’
Tragedy on so many levels. Thank you Juan for your good work.
The altitude information provided to the controller came from different sources for the CRJ, ADS-B and the helicopter MLAT.
12:22 ~ From what a BlackHawk pilot told me: "black hawk is different from many other helos in that the transmission is already tilted forward so that when in forward flight around 100 knots, the fuselage is at level pitch."
Most helicopters are actually like that. Juan is not a helicopter guy. You'll also notice a lot of helicopters hover in a tail low balance, further helping the helicopter stay level in cruise. The Blackhawk and a couple other helicopters also have a moveable horizontal tail section to balance flight loads.
@ ~ good info!
I was an CW4 Army CH-47D/F instructor pilot and here are a few thoughts:
1. Check rides can be made from either seat. The left seat duties (generally speaking) include managing the flight. This check ride most likely has less to do with the ability to fly the helicopter but to perform all other PC duties. I would guess the Captain was in the left seat.
2. Altitude information for low nap of the earth (NOE) routes is typically from the radar altimeter. This instrument is used up to 1200’ AGL (could be 1500’ AGL). The barometric altimeter was probably not used at that altitude.
3. I doubt they were using it, but the NVGs do have a HUD attachment available. The majority of my NVG flights had the HUD installed over the right eyepiece.
4. Lastly, the crew chief station is seated next to one of the sliding passenger doors and can only clear a portion of the airspace. So, one side of the aircraft from either the 3 to 6 or 6 to 9 is not monitored.
Two comments.
1) The pilot undergoing the check ride is said to have 500 hour. At that stage in her career, her ability to fly a helicopter would surely be long established?
2) How can THREE qualified pilots have missed the fact that they were more than 50% off their assigned altitude? That would definitely be enough to get you flunked on a civilian IFR check ride!
Will the instructor pilot or the Captain be PIC?
@ Right now, the nature of the check ride is unknown (at least to me). The check ride could be an initial flight given to new incoming pilots of the unit, a PI or PC check ride, or even for a specific route or prohibited area. During any of these the IP is the PC. The captain would have been a PI even if the check ride was for PC.
@ Here is something interesting about army PC check rides. IP’s (who are not the unit commander) are not authorized to “grant” PC status. After a successful check ride, the IP will tell the commander and the commander will make the decision to sign off on the PC status. The idea is that PC status is based not only on the flight but all aspects of their performance in the unit.
Yeah the fact that the helo utilizes a radioaltimeter makes it even worse that they busted the shelf
I wish every major news channel played this video to educate the general public better about how an accident such as this could have happened. And then also demand the FAA make changes to the procedures for this and similar airspace.
Elon is gutting the FAA. This is not a good thing.
That separation is crazy. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Part of the 7110.65 procedure for visual separation, when “Pilot applied visual separation”, as in this case: “If aircraft are on converging courses, inform the other aircraft of the traffic and that visual separation is being applied”. That would s, to information rm the CRJ of the position of the other aircraft (PAT 25). This was not done and will probably be noted as a contributing factor. That said, probable cause will most likely be the failure of the helicopter to see and avoid.
True. Additionally it also says: Advise the pilots if the targets appear likely to merge.
@@CypherHive With the helo route so close vertically and horizontally to the approach corridor for 33 , they must get targets that appear likely to merge constantly. I wonder how much that played into it as well.
Unfortunately, the ATC also didn’t use the proper phraseology from the beginning for traffic advisory, the result might have been different if the proper direction was given the PAT 25 pilot to correctly identify the traffic.
@@QAnswer At no stage did the controller believe that the helo pilot did NOT have the CRJ in sight. The controller called the helo about 20 seconds before the crash to confirm that it had seen the CRJ, and that call ended about 7 seconds before the crash. In those circumstances, what words would have made any difference to the outcome ?
@@hb1338 There is proper way to do traffic advisory written both in FAA 7110.65 and ICAO manual. In this case, based on current released radio records, ATC had never provided proper information which could have help to clear confusion. For example, “PAT25, Traffic Alert at one o'clock, five miles, Northbound, converging, CRJ, one two thousand.” This could have make sure the pilot looking for traffic at correct direction, even when the ATC got traffic alert, that was his last chance to save this from tragedy, but all he did was ask the PAT25 have the CRJ in sight while the pilot was already looking at wrong aircraft. The phraseology is written there for a reason, I’m not trying to pin this on ATC, but both PAT25 and ATC has contributed to this accident IMO.
It’s interesting that the Army still allows NVG flights below 500’ with a single scanner in the back. The USAF H-60 community used to allow the same, but removed the allowance about 6-7 years ago and now requires two Special Missions Aviators (our version of a crew chief more or less) to serve as scanners to fly that profile. While we still occasionally fly with a crew of three, it’s generally limited to daytime at higher cruise altitudes. We also made it a requirement that our new W-models have displays in the back with moving maps complete with ADSB data that greatly increases the Situational Awareness of the entire crew and allows the pilots to delegate more effectively when faced with high task loads. Even in our old G-models we would routinely carry a Stratus puck linked to foreflight on our EFB’s (iPads) during non-tactical training, which is a low cost and effective solution for legacy aircraft without integrated systems and displays.
I obviously can’t say what happened here with 100% certainty, and there is always a chain of events, but it’s my firm belief that having two dedicated scanners well integrated with tools that build Situational Awareness is good insurance in situations like this where other control methods and procedures may fail. This is obviously very specific to H-60 operations but generally applies to other aircraft as well as control towers, etc.
In a world where we continually try and remove more and more people from cockpits, towers, etc. this will stand as a stark example of why we shouldn’t.
A safety issue so glaringly obvious, and as happens so often, it takes a tragedy to get change. RIP to all those lost.
Indeed, sadly.
The helicopter pilot is supposed to have a clue about crossing the airfield within safety parameters.
Juan, as a European pilot I love to see that your Husky wears an altimeter which displays Hectopascal and Inch of Mercury in parallel. Maybe due to your international experience…
Glad to see a rational coverage of this. Once I saw that there had been CA alerts just 24 hours before with another military helicopter (VAS Aviation covered this) and it looks like the chopper the day before also flew higher then they should have been. Makes me wonder if flying above the max may have been a pattern that built up.
Normalization of deviance is a thing. 😢
A big thing even in my former professions.@@jmacd8817
Makes me wonder if the helo has correct alt setting.
Correct. But higher _than._
Military doest have fear. Look how people drive cars tailgating at 70mph knowing they will be in the hospital or dead if the car in front hits the breaks. Looknat truck drivers from DC down to Florida flying at 75 85 mph I csnt even stay in right lane at 65 and not jave trucks on my ass non stop
Imagine an FAA director who announces "the airspace in DC is a mess and it's dangerous as hell. From now on, military brass and Congresscritters and White House poohbahs are going to have to plan ahead and sometimes - horrors! - wait in line like the rest of us proles. Because yeah you're important and your time is valuable, but not worth killing people for your convenience." There will be a new FAA director within 90 seconds of this announcement.
The movie "Dam Busters" fully explained extreme precision calibration of height readout over water. The main H pilot checkout parameters here seem to involve how crazy fast can you go VFR in the convenient normal evening working hours (+ black night depths) of the winter solstice.
And that's the problem.
I wonder what completely incompetent person will be hired?
@@loosilu you can bet it won't be another metro bus guy
Cheers for keeping me in true facts not media assumptions.
To all you pilots ❤ be safe. Fly safe.
The world mourns 😢
Such a tragedy. Too much traffic and not enough separation. Thanks for the info and straight talk.
Normalization of deviance is the operative phrase
Thank you Downtown Juan Browne, what would we do without you! No fluff, no bs, just the facts plus his incredible experience.
I don’t think the issue is only the helicopter or the layout of that specific airport. There is no other country where visual separation at night is done regularly. It’s clear that safety is not as important to the FAA as throughput.
The route and altitude separations were CRAZY! There must have been multiple near misses over the years, but I doubt that anybody did any sort of monitoring. Stop-gap plan: Set up an anonymous tip procedure where military or civilian flight crews and controllers can report dangerous routine OPs patterns. Any such reports would be investigated by a joint military-civilian team. If questionable routine patterns were noted, a temporary monitoring program would be run to analyze whether changes were needed. Example: I cannot believe that multiple civilian and military pilots found these operations questionable, but they had no "safe" way to report it. Nobody wants to "rat out" others, but how do you report system faults?
As a private pilot and retired air traffic controller, two programs come to mind. General Aviation pilots are probably most familiar with the ASRS (Aviation Safety Reporting System). ATSAP (Air Traffic Safety Action Program), based on ASRS but exclusively for ATC personnel, came into use for controllers just before I retired in 2011. I filed many such reports in both systems in my days.
It would be good if NASA reviewed the reports in those type of databases, as it appears that the overlapping design of fixed-wing arrivals with underlying helicopter routes created an incredible workload for controllers and pilots in that airspace. It is likely that some “canary in the coal mine” reports exist. It is also likely that nobody really reviews those reports. :(
As Juan said, and as I heard on the couple VASaviation videos I watched, the oft repeated phrase “request visual separation” from the helicopter pilots sounded like a “conditioned response” phraseology that was very routinely utilized.
In my opinion, that helicopter route, underlying the close-in final approach to Rwy 33, is the FAA’s equivalent of NASA’s o-ring problem. It was, what is termed, a LATENT ERROR. Normalization of Deviance, Groupthink, and other aspects of our human behavior, allowed it to work…till it spectacularly didn’t.
If the CRJ was at a ground speed of 120 knots, on a 3° glide path, then it would have been descending at around 600 fpm. That means, if the collision happened at 325 ft, then 18 seconds prior, the CRJ would have been at around 500 ft at the time it got the aural “TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC,” pretty much at the aural cutoff AGL height. So it wasn’t necessarily below the aural cutoff height AGL when it got the automated TA.
The precision of the ATC radar altitude data would be a function of the discretization/quantization of the altitude encoding on each aircraft. From the NTSB brief, the CRJ’s encoder quantization sounds to have been 25ft. It’s unclear to date what it was for the Blackhawk’s encoder, but it could potentially be as large as 100ft. Encoder quantifization doesn’t affect what the crews see on their altimeters, but it does affect what is reported as Mode C or Mode S altitude by the aircraft transponders. So the ATC radar may potentially have only had 100ft resolution for the Blackhawk, and 25ft resolution for the CRJ.
I don’t know if you saw it, I thought you might have mentioned it. There was an ATC recording from the day prior to the accident where a crew got a RA due to helicopter conflict and went around because of it
But there was 1000ft of seperation. It was a pilot decision not a TCAS or ATC advisory - so far thats what they have said. But the warning signs were there. It was PAT11 that day.
He’s seen it and said it provides some additional context.
I flew in 2 days before that and we had to go around on our approach. The captain informed us that was a unauthorized flyover on our runway. We went back up and went into a holding pattern. That made me pretty nervous. What is a unauthorized flyover?
@@chuckufarly65 An "unauthorized flyover" is exactly what PAT25 did.
There needs to be a review of the last 10 years of VIP flights for pilot altitude errors and ATC indifference to those errors. Demote or fire all offenders.
1000 open recommendations to the FAA not acted upon. Criminal.
DEI
NTSB REPORTS
The status of NTSB reports and the various categories of actions recommended by them to the FAA, has been known about for years to seasoned observers of aviation, be they pilots or otherwise. It is something that is right there in reading any NTSB report.
Many of the recommendations, although not all of them, are minor in character, whist others are more complex. It is this that gives the FAA the various timelines that it has for implementation. Clearly, costs and downtimes for airplanes, be they commercial operators or otherwise, comes into play, and this is off-set against the needs and requirements for safety in its many guises. Issues of immediate concern and impact upon safety carrying more weight than issues of lesser concern.
it is a sad fact that most of this has only become known to the general public because of this accident, and likely as a consequence of the extra attention being paid to this because it has occured in Washington.
Many recommendations will come out of this accident when the final NTSB report is published, and not the least of these will be calls for changes within the FAA, which is likely to have the spotlight directed at its practices and procedures.
In many respects the report on this accident will be more seminal for US aviation than was the report on the Colgan Air accident.
James Hennighan
Yorkshire, England
NTSB recommendation this time: "PAY ATTENTION to our previous recommendations!"
@litreland764 stop it
The FAA is supposed to keep flying simultaneously safe and profitable. Unsuprisingly, there are often situations when those two goals are in conflict. And in America, people are less important than shareholder value, so most of the time, they side with the airlines and not the NTSB.
Blackhawk was using "Traffic in sight" as "Leave me alone, I don't want to be bothered"
100% this. He wasn't taking the traffic threat seriously at all.
Possibly trying to oversimplify the task when task loaded - focus on the aircraft you can see, don't look for other possible aircraft.
correct! macho and invulnerability meets normalization of deviance: thats paid with blood as we all know
@@BIOHAZARDXXXX. How do you know?
More likely the female pic told the dude “traffic in site”. He was just passing the message along as pilot monitoring.
Hello Ron. I always try to identify risks and look to see how they were managed as part of my investigation. That seems to identify solutions more quickly. In this case, two risks were not managed very well. The use of NVG's in this environment, and the lack of positive control of aircraft that could legally pass within 100 feet of each other. Both are management decisions normally above the pilots and controllers levels. Consider if crossing the extended center line so close to the runway were treated equal to a ground crossing of a runway. If a North and a South hold short line a half mile away over the river, were established, the helo pilots could call the tower approaching the hold short. The tower only says, "Cleared to cross" or "Hold short for landing traffic". This one simple positive control feature almost completely eliminates all the other risk factors. Who is flying. Level of qualifications. On or off route or altitude. See or don't see the right aircraft. How many are in the tower... To me, the ones who caused this mishap were not there. This is a management caused mishap that pilots and controllers are obliged to fix on the spot. There is no reason for this risk to exist.
I really love your videos. you explain it so clearly that even a non-pilot can understand and you don't sugarcoat anything. I really enjoy your channel and watching your videos. thank you very much ❤
I watched the press conference. They said the tower saw the helo at 200 feet. But you can clearly see that yes they were at 200 after the bridge, but just before the impact they suddenly go up to 300 feet. Maybe the ATC didn’t notice it. It’s really a mystery why the helo did that, especially when they were told to go behind the CRJ
That's weird? Extremely...
Why didn't the NTSB state what altitude the tower radar showed for the CRJ? Several reporters tried to get at this answer but they were cut off before they could ask the question.
One possible explanation is that the helicopter pilot misidentified a different set of lights in the night vision and actively separated from it.
Seems obvious that they thought they saw the CRJ and were cutting the corner of the route to get past before the next jet hence the drift over the river. Climbing to over 300’ was a fail on her check ride on that section anyway. More disappointing is the CWO didn’t say to her get down to 200’ as it was an active safety limit or take control himself.
Thanks!
Why can’t any of the mainstream news be even half as good as this!?
You expect talking heads to have expert levels of knowledge on aviation? haha Good one. They're paid to smile and babble incessantly to ensure they never break the cardinal rule of broadcasting - No Dead Air.
And now one of them is Secretary of Defense.
In all honesty? Because this type of broadcast mostly appeals to flight dorks like I imagine a lot of us here are. News reports may not always have the time in a broadcast to go this deep.
The news does have detailed dives into stuff like this frequently, but it's usually in the longer form documentary variety, and those usually don't happen until after accidents have been thoroughly investigated.
Think about how incompetent the mainstream media is with this particular event. Now I want everyone to come to the realization they are this incompetent with EVERY single event they cover.
As the song goes "DIRTY LAUNDRY"
We have similar VFR (edit: VFR but controlled) specific routes here to get all the helos and float planes going to and from Vancouver Island directly over YVR, or under the approach path out over the ocean. It's really cool to fly over a busy international airport in a beaver with airliners crossing underneath to take off and land, and it's even cooler flying literally 50 feet off the waves to skirt under them. I've never been worried, but I hope this incident makes everyone everywhere re-think these kinds of routes and interactions.
cheers for Harbour Air
Have you forgotten the recent plane vs boat accident in the harbor? What you call cool sounds really risky to me.
Thanks for putting the Black Hawk pilots’ hours into perspective. I’ve seen a bit of talk regarding this so I’m grateful to have it explained.
In the Navy, at sea, we were taught that a constant bearing means you are on a collision course. Whenever we were in traffic, we used visual and radar sightings to confirm changing bearings, which meant we would be passing by. Ships, like aircraft, have marking lights on both port (left) and starboard (right) sides, red port, green starboard. White light aft meant a following meeting course, again I believe aircraft are the same. The significance of these lights is proximity and relative bearing change. On a collision course at night, the collision object remains (in relation to you) perfectly steady, and simply magnifies as the range closes. I say again, the other ship (or airplane) looks motionless, steady in time space. Now put this into perspective at night, with night vision goggles and no depth perception. There is no relative motion to grab your visual attention. This is on top of sea wave clutter glare, distant city light "noise" and other aircraft, with the instructor pilot communicating with the tower while monitoring the female pilot trainee ("in control"), while simultaneously looking out his side, the helo left, for the oncoming traffic lights, which would on the CRJ be descending.
It is difficult and unnatural to be focused looking up, especially under these conditions. Even so, it would be difficult to track the descending traffic due to the relative angle and position of the lights: no landing lights, port red light, or white tail light would show. I personally believe it was virtually impossible for the CWO instructor to be doing all these things while monitoring the CRJ. The chopper crew was set up and will now carry the public's blame, over a situation they had very little opportunity to control. Any other thoughts? Only the informed experience of the tower or senior instructor pilot was likely to have saved this situation, "sometimes the better part of valor." To blame anyone, much less the female pilot, in my mind is utterly absurd!
The helo crew had a huge amount of freedom to choose what they wanted to do.
Hey, I agree with the frustration in your voice at 10:15, however, all PAT flights are supposed to request visual if the visibility meets VFR rules, which it did, and the ATC is supposed to approve their request for visual barring something extreme. This is because PAT flights, are continuity of Government flights - which means they are practicing a situation where the VP, or Speaker, or Senate Maj leader, etc are being removed from the capital to a bunker due to an imminent threat. So they are supposed to go very fast, and always ask for visual for deconfliction. I think this a very bad idea indeed. The 2 things conspiring against the helo were 1) it was 100+ feet above its assigned route, and 2) They were mid river - the route is to hug the eastern bank (the PATS left bank). If you look at the approach plate, had PAT 25 been at 200' on the EASTERN bank, the CRJ on the glidepath would be at 450 - 500' (3 degree glidepath) which means 250' - 300' separation, which is STILL too close. But by being 100+ feet too high, and 0.33 miles too far right (west) of their route, this separation did not exist. The further west they went the more they would intrude on the glidepath of an ILS flight into runway 33. The ATC told them traffic was a CRJ at 1200' on approach to 33. So 1) If you have ever flown at night with unlimited vis, they would easily have been able to see the CRJ at 6 miles; and 2) they knew the CRJ was inbound for 33, not 01 so they knew they would not be parallel, but cross flightpaths, and 3) Once they passed the reflecting pool, they did drop to 200" on the radar data, but at the same time they started drifting right (west) of their route, you see they also clime back to 300'. Very sad, but I would bet the cause will be the military pilots, not the tower of CRJ crews. =( Also - friends in that same base told me it was a UH-60M, whatever that means. And because the BWs have FBW stabilators, at cruise speed the nose would NOT be pitched down. ALSO above the altimeter, is the radar altimeter which works from 0 - 700', which is very precise and does not need to be set like the barometric altimeter, so they had precise altitude information under 700', even if the main altimeter was not functioning, and it is NOT calibrated with pressure readings - it is actual measured altitude as measured by radar and not related to pressure. THAT is what they use on PAT flights below 700'.
@OutdoorLifeandLiberty-t8f NTSB said in their news conference that the helicopter was within the lateral limits of their corridor. That doesn't imply that they should not have kept to the left bank, of course - but if they should, and if the corridor allows mid-river, the corridor is wrong and is one more lined-up hole in the swiss cheese model.
UH60M means it's the latest model of the Blackhawk - more powerful engines, glass cockpit, improved avionics compared to the preceding model UH60L, which still has the analog instrument panel.
Hi, I am a complete layman in avionics but I like to think my ability to apply logic is sound.
With regards to the flight being practice for the transportation of VP, Speaker or major VIP, I would suggest that this practice is being conducted under totally unrealistic conditions. Surely, any situation that was so dire that the aforementioned VIPs had to be evacuated, would also include the grounding or diversion of all civil flights. Meaning that no civil aircraft would be sharing the same airspace as the military aircraft at the time.
Ergo, understanding that there is a need for pilots to practice these runs, they need to be conducted at a time when the situation best simulates real conditions. If that means that the pilots have to do their practice runs at some ungodly hour of the night, when civil air traffic is at its lowest, then so be it.
@@tassie7325I also feel there is a conflict of authority. PATs should be able to order the tower to force civil aircraft to go around. They should NOT be asking for permission to do anything, even if it is a practice flight. In a real scenario, VIPs will get that kind of priority barring there being an emergency aircraft coming in to land. Practice flights should be a test for the entire airspace, including the tower.
The logic doesn't make any sense. A helicopter is one of the worst places to be. They've been taken down by drones and has basically zero radiation protection. Meanwhile there are (supposedly) deep tunnels connecting the government buildings to multiple different bunkers many miles away.
I think they're just riding them for everyday convenience.
Juan, pretty sure the UH60s all have Radar Altimeters. On those you can set both Lo and Hi bugs, so they would light up to let you know. Ex Army Crewchief, 84-94. UH1V. Medevac and Slicks in the OH ANG after active duty. If we were flying goggles, altitude was always referenced RADAR first, and if near facilities, then local altimeter setting.
Your expertise, and explanation of what happened here is outstanding. Thank you.
A clever military observer on You Tube noted the CRJ turned left and pulled up in the last second...This banked the left wing downward and in to the helicopter rotor where it was cut off...The intact right wing with the green navigation light did one and a half barrel rolls with the CRJ ending up on its back in the shallow Potomac...
I wanted to fly over my childhood home one time that is about 3 miles north of Luke AFB. I contacted the tower to get permission to enter their airspace and I have no idea what they did in the tower but I could suddenly hear all the military traffic for the tower over my radio. When I left their airspace and released by the tower the military traffic on the radio also disappeared.
I'm still struck by the tragic waste of human life. How many ppl must die before the FAA changes are made. I've followed both you & the NTSB for several years. Both offer clear & concise facts, no speculation. Thanks for all you do, Juan. I've shared your channel with others, too.
Juan, Thanks for all that you do man. I can come here and get the facts and professional commentary that has no political bias and no b/s. You're a breath of fresh air.
Very clear explanation of current understanding Juan.
Obviously more will be established in the coming days, weeks and months.
However, two really important points.
1. The "normalisation of deviance" point about parroting "traffic in sight" when it so clearly cannot be the case (6 miles at night), then again just before impact.
2. The madness of having such small separation between the two routes at the critical crossing point.
When we flew SOLL missions in the C-141 and use NVGs, one pilots was focused for flying outside while the other pilot was focused on the gages. So, yes, if one was on NVGs, everyone was on NVGs, the scanner would sit jump seat when low to the ground or in high traffic
Victor at VASAviation has an incredible video taken just 24 hours prior to accident depicting several TCAS warnings on River Visual RWY19 between Approaching traffic and Helo operation. Including one Go Around due to TCAS. It seems that ignoring TCAS onboard and at Tower was just normal procedure.
A Blackhawk instructor who has overseen checkrides on this route, has stated on another RUclips video that the criteria of the route requires Visual Separation on this part of the checkride for this route. If ATC had NOT approved VS, it would not be a fail, but a scrub - checkride terminated due to circumstances not under the pilot's control - and the checkride would be repeated on another date (if the PIC was not "timed out" for the date when this check must be completed). However, the same instructor also said that being above 200 feet at this point on the route is a hard fail. So several seconds before the collision, Rebecca was experiencing the frustration of knowing that she had failed the checkride.
Interesting. You'd think that with a requirement of "not above 200 feet" at this point that Blackhawks would be operating at say 150 feet and build in a bit of buffer...50 feet is nothing and can be gained in the blink of an eye.
This NA200ft implies that if you go even 1 foot above 200 ft it's an instant fail.
That's what I have been thinking. The ATC knew that he had to approve VS and *couldn't* give vectors or whatever once he Okayed VS. That's why the helo used the PAT call sign. The ATC's hands were tied.
@@SArnold-kg5jy I believe ATC could have replied "negative", but knew that this would incur the wrath of the Army.
@@KennethAGrimm Exactly. The controller didn't want to be the squeaky wheel. Also, it was going to be a close call, regardless, which I believe goes against your record. No reason to escalate it to another violation by giving IFR instructions to a VFR. You could hear the exasperation in the controller's voice, wanting to do more but feeling hamstrung. In a way, the system was setup to rely far too much on the professionalism of the helo pilot... at the expense of a plane full of innocent passengers just trying to get home.
This is confusing. If out of position and already failed, why wouldn't the senior officer take over? Seems curious.
The “normalization of deviance”may be spot on. Exactly what I thought the first time I heard the transmissions. Almost like an automated response without really seeing the aircraft in sight.
Or they see it, but ignore it. Or try something else, for example, passing in front instead of the back.
But I think both are dangerous.
I hope the CVR from the helicopter gives us some answers on where the pilots were looking and what they were doing prior to the collision.
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist BUT, I hope the NTSB got the CVR direct from the Helo, and not via the military. Cause I can feel a "unfortunately, the CVR had stopped working 60 seconds before the collision" coming on.
The helicopter CVR will obviously be a crucial piece of evidence, indeed.
Do army blackhawks have cvr?