Posts about: "ATC" [Posts: 614 Page: 6 of 31]¶

No, a visual approach started under IFR remains under IFR unless IFR is explicitly cancelled.

However, note that the airspace class at major US airports is B (rarely used elsewhere). Cancelling IFR in Class B does not relieve ATC of separation responsibility because VFR flights must still be separated from all other flights ( VFR separation standards here ). Separation responsibility only transfers to a pilot when they accept ' visual separation ' and the controller must continue giving separation instructions until that point. Aircraft can be given 'visual separation' against other aircraft, including IFR aircraft as happened here, without the other aircraft needing to have the traffic in sight. The controller must advise the other aircraft that visual separation is being applied if the flight paths are converging .

None of that is necessarily a problem.

The problem is reliance on visual separation at night. The ease with which the eye is drawn to bright lights (which may not be the lights of interest) and inability to perceive depth and distance from a point source of light (made worse by NVG) make it a high risk activity even between combat aircraft. To permit it to be relied upon for protection of airline traffic is madness.

IFR, not VFR, the airliner is circling in VMC. This invalidates the following, with a lack of knowing the distict difference- that said, the conclusion is correct, it was bound to happen, the swiss cheese just had to align.

It's eerily similar to the P-63/B-17 midair- a blind collision that was instantly apparent how flawed the basic plan was, even though it had worked before.

It is not a tightly controlled environment. It should be, but it clearly isn't. The helicopter was allowed to cross through the approach path, while accepting a visual separation, to route at his/her discretion to pass clear of the CRJ. This would never happen in most other countries in the day, let alone at night where identifying other aircraft agaisnt a backdrop of a brightly lit city skyline is close to impossible. The helicopter should have been vectored by ATC to be exactly where they wanted him, when they wanted him. Asking him to visually identify traffic and choose a route around it is just asking for trouble. Whoever designed a helicopter low level corridor that passed through the approach path of a major international airport also needs a psych exam.

sorry if I was not clear. What I am saying is that what you are saying makes zero sense to me. PAT25 was evidently following southbound on helo route 4 midway down the hains point, and then you are saying for some reason they cross over the peninsula a 1/3 mile before it ends, the traverse the peninsula east to west and you claim the turn " was probably done for noise abatement reasons" , . That makes no sense at all. Why would you cross a peninsula to abate noise if you're already over water? Listening to the tower and previous Potomac sector recording they were handed off from, I don't hear any atc instruction to turn/ deviate. . And there's nobody living on the other east side of the river to protect from the noise, it's also military (ft. mcnair, Nat'l War College, etc.) . there's not really anyone living in that part of the District south of SE waterfront.
And it's pretty clear there's no turn at all in the first place, and that since there's no ads-b, this data point is an interpolation error. there's several other PAT ATC tracks from a the last few weeks doing the same training loop and the are all keeping in the rt4 and keeping 300ft msl

It seems pretty clear what happened. The helicopter crew had confirmed they had the CRJ in sight and were happy to remain clear and pass behind. The ATC cleared them to maintain visual separation, the helicopter turned right as presumably this put them on the shortest course to where they wanted to go. At this point the ATC has NO further responsibility for separation, that is now the SOLE responsibility of the helicopter crew who accepted it. Clearly they did not have the CRJ in sight, what they were looking at will only ever be conjecture. Visual separation at night in such a busy piece of airspace is clearly a ridiculous procedure..... but it is a procedure that can currently be used. The ATC did nothing wrong, the CRJ crew did nothing wrong and more than likely the helicopter crew PROBABLY didn't do anything g wrong on purpose, there was o ly one airaft though out of place, a situation ONLY possible through an outdated and potentially dangerous procedure. My airline doesn't allow visual separation either day or night and only allows visual approaches by day, why be GA in Jets with paying passengers?

Just heard that there are meant to be two ATC on duty however on the night of the incident, only one was on duty.

First thing that occurred to me when listening to the ATC tape, the controller advised that the CRJ was at 1200' setting up for R33. In an intense environment such as a night training flight in that airspace, is it possible that the chopper pilot registered the reported altitude as way above his own altitude and somehow failed to comprehend that the CRJ was in fact descending? That might explain why the following aircraft, at more like a 1200' altitude, was possibly misidentified as the CRJ.

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SLF here, so please don't shout.

It doesn't seem "fair" for aircraft like the CRJ, that in busy, complex airspace, another aircraft can request and receive VFR, meaning in broad terms, they're outside of ATC's guardrails. CRJ now have an aircraft in the vicinity that isn't being controlled by ATC.

Doesn't seem like a good process to an outsider.

And everything indicates the controller did their job accurately and competently. It appears a single controller for all traffic would have significantly greater situational awareness than two on different frequencies.

Many years ago, shortly after I got my instrument rating, I flew a friend from St. Paul to St. Louis in a rented C172. Of course I filed IFR, being anxious to get more practice in the system. We were maybe 10-20 miles SW of MSP in level flight when I heard the controller tell a Northwest flight of Cessna traffic somewhere in our direction; there was another Cessna in the area as well. NW called \x93traffic in sight.\x94 Maybe 10 seconds later my passenger pointed very excitedly behind us and to our left. There was a NW 727, maybe 200-300 yards behind us and climbing through our altitude from left to right. Very fast.

I\x92ve always wondered if they really saw us or the other Cessna. It was probably the closest I\x92ve ever been to another aircraft not in the pattern. It felt way too close.

\x93See and avoid\x94 is really not the basis for safe separation of traffic in the air. Depending on it at night in airspace as busy as DC is choosing poorly.

TCAS has mostly solved the separation problem for every phase of flight except very close to the airport or on the ground. If the industry is going to short-staff ATC and keep cramming more traffic into the same airspace, the industry needs to develop and equivalent solution for those phases of flight as well.

About 90% of my flights into DCA have been VFR. Being VFR and being free to do whatever are VERY different things. I was always under positive control VFR or IFR, going where I was sent and the altitude and heading ATC wanted me to use. I'll admit to having about an hour of helicopter time, so I can't say if the helipcopters get the same treatment or just get told to stick to their routes or ???

The whole mechanism of "aircraft in sight" no longer works, when the airspace is crowded: "Which aircraft are you supposed to have in sight" ???????

Yep, the system in place just does not work once the airspace becomes crowded, "IE which airplane are you supposed to have in sight" ?

With only one other airplane, it's clear, with more than 1, it becomes a gamble.


For VFR there is a missed approach procedure: Back into the circuit. Which will be a bit hairy, when the "miss" happens (long) before reaching the runway. Depending on the aircraft type, 2 circuit types may be defined: A small one for slow stuff and a large one for the bigger ones. And as usual with VFR traffic, ATC or self-communication is needed to pick the moment of the next landing attempt.

One can discuss whether this is a procedure or not, though there is at least "something".

My experience is just the opposite from yours. I can't speak about this BlackHawk but I can say that every military aircraft I've ever flown, and there have been many, spoke to civilian controllers on UHF manly because they were not equipped with VHF radios. I've never been helicopter qualified (thank the Lord) but I've ridden in a few military helos and they were also strictly UHF.
Of course, this BlackHawk might be different. I don't know if it had UHF or VHF communication or perhaps both; however, quite a few reports claim that the helo was communicating on UHF so that both the RJ and the helo could hear the same controller, but they couldn't hear each other. That is quite common in my experience, but that is not to say that it's a good thing since it has the potential to reduce situational awareness.

If it was circling they\x91d be expected to join the missed approach of the approach they executed.

In real life they\x91d most likely get vectored.

Funny, I\x92m hearing a lot of professional pilots here say exactly that, one way or another.

I don\x92t like saying this, but reading your posts, my gut feeling is you may be part of the problem.

It\x92s well-known that modern airliners are specifically designed to be flown safely by the average pilot, not the cream. If ATC procedures aren\x92t designed and operated in a similar vein, does it need, a) a professional pilot to infer increased risk, or b) plain common sense?

I would much rather be on the flight that refuses to accept a night visual separation than hope my pilot is above average. Why?

Because hope is a poor hedge (if you like gambling analogies).

Where did this come from? I've flown helis a reasonable amount in the US, and I've always been on the same freq as everyone else, and talking to the same controllers.

As for hovering, I've twice been asked by ATC to hover, once in the traffic pattern at Palo Alto KPAO and once flying the heli transition at Heathrow, both times in an R44.

Interesting viewpoint.
My take is, in order.
5) No, I don't think he was overwhelmed. He was shot through with adrenaline and shocked as anyone would be having just witnessed two aircraft he was talking to seconds before vanish in a fireball, realising his career, reputation, life and future sanity was irrevocably blown to pieces no matter the cause.
No, no and thrice no. Assuming the tapes are in real time there are considerable gaps between transmissions so he most certainly did not 'have' to speak so quickly. He had plenty of time to speak clearly and coherently instead of spouting those eruptions of incoherent, almost incomprehensible babble.
Sadly - reprehensibly, this style of unnecessarily theatrical auctioneer-style unpunctuated babble seems all too frequent in the States. Tower frequencies are usually if not almost invariably much less time-pressurised as they handle fewer aircraft in a well spaced sequence than in a termnal control area.

6) Concur 100%. And they failed miserably to achieve this. I've been flying for several decades and struggle to hear one word in three (and only assume much of the rest because I know what to expect - a human factors disaster) of that controller's outbursts, and the shoddy partial readbacks are shocking to European ears.

7) Once again, NO! Even if super-busy (and I'd argue especially if super busy) it is essential to keep r/t steady, clear and comprehensible; gabbling that fast might save half a second on an exchange, but no frequency is so busy it requires that, least of all a Tower. He only had three or four aircraft to deal with for simple go-arounds, all well spaced out on approach. He pretty much had time to recite half the Lord's Prayer to each.

This crazy r/t seems to be a cultural thing and needs to be changed, as do some fundamental procedures like having helo lanes crossing final approach tracks at essentially the same height instead of with decent vertical separation. Why wasn't the helilane at 800ft or 1000ft as a Heathrow? No aircraft is up there one mile out from finals while every single one is at 300ft. Madness. Just madness. It's like a figure 8 banger race dodging cars at the intersection. If there was a flyover - vertical separation too accidents would be all but eliminated.

And this buisness of "...pass behind the CRJ on finals" when no none can determine whether the lights in sight are a CRJ, a Cessna or the Space Shuttle or in what sequence they are landing. It might work in daylight but imho it assumes unreasonable levels of instant almost head-on aircraft recognition - a disastrous human factors trap quite aside from the additional one of assumption.

I'm not having a go at the poor controller who imho is compleely blameless, he did his job as well as the flawed system that indoctrinated him allowed.

As for 'stopping' helicopters in a free- air hover. This is (in my experience) never ever requested, done or attempted as a traffic avoidance method. I can only assume people suggesting this have absolutely zero knowlege of flying helos and the litany of pitfalls and hazards it would generate, helos simply do not 'stop' in midair unless they have to for SAR, load-lfting ot maybe surveillance. If necessary, as in holding at 'dual taxiways' between the Heathrow runways at 1000ft you'd slow to a sensible speed, maybe 50-60Kts in a tight orbit and even that is 'interesting' in 40Kts of wind. "Are you visual with landing traffic 2 mile final" identifies the traffic far, far better than "the CRJ on finals" when there might be three in a row, not to mention assuming superhuman powers of head-on distant aircraft recognition even in daylight - and impossible at night!!! Crossing clearance is then "cross over the threshold after the landing traffic" where no aeroplane ever is at 1000ft. (bar a g/a when there is enough time to skedaddle and avoid) With any significant wind a hover would have to be into wind, ie more or less tail -on to the conflicting traffic, an utterly absurd concept. Bin this one people, please.

As for the appalling behaviour of the 'president' to instantly apportion blame with no understanding of either the situation or accident investigation in general whatsoever - which anyway is not his job and none of his business, thereby prejudicing any enquiry (what pressure does this put on the investigators and report writers, federal employees, when they are all but directed by their deranged and vindictive boss what they are expected to report? This is a very, very dangerous precedent that smacks more of a shonky third world dictatorship than a western democracy.

Quote from an NTSB report

\x94 The NTSB determines that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the flight crew to comply with the provisions of a maintain visual separation clearance including the requirement to inform the controller when they no longer had the other aircraft in sight.
Contributing to the accident were the air traffic control procedures in effect which authorized the controllers to use visual separation procedures to separate two aircraft on potentially conflicting tracks when the capability was available to provide either lateral or vertical radar separation to either aircraft. \x93

That was of course PSA 182 I\x92m not entirely sure that after a lengthy investigation the report won\x92t say something similar.

This visual separation at night thing is bananas. Heli confirms he is visual with RJ, but ATC is relying on him actually having made visual with the correct aircraft.

This version of the Vasaviation video includes the heli R/T.

At 00:26 ATC informs them about the CRJ, and PAT25 requests visual separation. At 01:08 the conflict alert sounds and ATC instructs them to pass behind. This is not read back; instead PAT25 affirms they have the traffic in sight and asks again for visual separation. ATC seems to approve this request for the second time, but this transmission is not very clear.