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| canigida
January 30, 2025, 17:35:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817451 |
Condolences to the families of the victims - the lives of many changed forever in an instant.
In my opinion, there are way too many issues that contributed to this horrific incident. An outdated airport that exists primarily for the benefit of the governing class. Seriously, take a few minutes to look at the approach plates - a circle to land approach to rwy 33, 5,200 ft, at night - really?? A video I watched this morning described the government priority parking spaces, . I know exactly where the congressional parking lot is (it's under the elevated metro tracks - it's easy to identify since it's the only lot with American cars in it) It's not that great of a location. I went to the U DC A&P school and as a student, I literally had better parking spot. This seems to be a lot of stuff pouring from people's heads totally unrelated to the actual event Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
Circle to Land (Deviate to RWY 33)
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| mahogany bob
January 30, 2025, 18:09:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817487 |
.Night VFR / visual avoidance is difficult - above a lighted city even more difficult
it is easy to become disorientated at night particularly when making turns. .the circling approach to r/w 33 seems demanding and pitot lookout would be focused on the runway not peripheral traffic - turns prevent all round lookout protection . . The helo pilots could have sighted other traffic or moving lights on the ground - things happen very fast. as stated earlier this was an accident waiting to happen - allowing VFR traffic to pass that close to traffic on short finals is crazy with reliable engines,modern glass cockpits and brilliant nav aids flying has become a whole lot safer - mid air collisions in VFR / VMC remain high risk especially at low level if TCAS is unreliable and when weather is marginal. the human eyeball has it\x92s limitations PS are ATC urgent instructions ever misunderstood or not received because of comm faffs or language / regional accent misunderstandings ? Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Circle to Land (Deviate to RWY 33)
TCAS (All)
VFR
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| ATC Watcher
January 30, 2025, 18:16:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817497 |
If that published in AIP route 4 crossing under the final approach path of RWY 33 says max 200 ft and according the calculations made by Luc Lion earlier the altitude of the CRJ was, if not exactly on the PAPI , very close to it at 300 Ft in less than a mile before TDZ. But 100 ft separation is not a normal civil vertical separation standard in controlled airspace, for an IFR flight. it is 500 ft minimum in our books. . One of the roots of the problem is right there : a published route where you need a visual military type separation to make it work . And it may have worked hundreds of times before , sometimes with luck I am sure, but this time it did not and this was just an accident waiting to happen written in the book.
To answer an earlier question , Yes they have CISM , NATCA is good at this , they will take care of the controllers. @ fdr : our posts crossed each other , fully agree with you . Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
CRJ
IFR
Route 4
Separation (ALL)
Vertical Separation
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| Rushed Approach
January 30, 2025, 22:19:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817705 |
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR. The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone. Radar useless as the aircraft are too low. Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data. Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft. It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights. It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground. Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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| alfaman
January 30, 2025, 22:35:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817716 |
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR. The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone. Radar useless as the aircraft are too low. Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data. Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft. It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights. It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground. Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
CRJ
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Separation (ALL)
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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| msbbarratt
January 30, 2025, 22:59:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817733 |
The hardest thing for a regulator to do is to say that something is not possible. The aviation regulators are used to detailed study, careful consideration and high levels of training resulting in a workable set of rules / procedures. However, I wonder if the way they go about it makes it, I dunno, difficult for particpants in the process to say "er, this is not going to work". Maybe the way in which "aviation" decides rules / makes decisions is somewhat blinkered. It's often that way in engineering too. The most valuable engineer in a company is the one that says, "No, don't do it", saving the company billions in not pursuing a dumb idea. Yet there's plenty of companies that do adopt dumb ideas and lose billions in the process. A "can do" culture is a very human thing it seems... Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
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| canigida
January 30, 2025, 23:24:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817756 |
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR. The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone. Radar useless as the aircraft are too low. Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data. Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft. It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights. It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground. Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time. "Radar useless as the aircraft are too low." - It seems there's valid radar returns from both aircraft. the FAA has a good diagram of the Potomac TRACON radar sites, about 10 different radars, and having visited the TRACON several times, they readily explain there's another nearly facility that is a duplicate of their radar feed, but for national security. I assume there's coverage till the river service for security to prevent someone from sneaking up the river with bad ideas "Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. " - I fly in the area and in my experience everyone is on the same VHF, they might be also duped to UHF and can hear everybody on my handheld. You hear AF-1 all the time on freq. "The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic" - Most of the area NE of the airfield in a prohibited area, and there's a lot of military installations within 5 miles of DC that they are shuttling around, so that path seems perfectly acceptable given the numerous constraints. there's nothing wrong with a helo corridor as long as you stay within it and maintain the prescribed altitude. Also, it's not like KDCA is some secret place, the flight paths are pretty well known if that's where you work. It's popular to sit in parks on both ends and watch the planes, there's literally millions of local people that know exactly the planes are coming and going on both directions. so if you're a helo there, you know where the hot spots are. Likewise, its not just any helo in that area, everyone is vetted, fingerprinted in the inner FRZ. " on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone" - The UH-60 was not going to DCA, the assumption was it was using the helo route 4 corridor. All the UH-60Ls I've seen have full glass with moving map and I'm assuming a magenta line for the helo corridor. Fun Fact - Calling it "Reagan" will get you tarred and feathered in the area. Folks refuse to utter the name and for years (decades) the Metro refused to rename the station until legally forced. Last edited by Senior Pilot; 31st January 2025 at 00:05 . Reason: Prescribed/proscribed Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
DCA
FAA
Hot Spots
IFR
KDCA
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Route 4
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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| canigida
January 31, 2025, 00:13:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817786 |
I've had SIDA badges at both (and my cred is current for IAD with the all MWAA blah blah on the reverse - bonus: 10% off overpriced airport food!!!) and i've have sat through every one of MWAA's horrible annual training videos, etc., so I'd like to think I know how the airport auth works pretty well by now after I've been in every crappy admin corner of both facilities in the last 14 years . Thanks for going through all the hard work to c/p wikipedia, but no, unless the people of N. Va (who have most if the votes in Va.) want to close DCA, it's never happening. It's a local decision. This evening, the local news station asked a bunch of people at the DCA "does this change anything for you flying out of here" and every one of them said "nope, not a bit" - they were not members of congress, they were a very cross section of the very diverse local pop Last I heard, DC doesn't have a vote in congress, and to my knowledge, all the changes at DCA in the past 60 years have been the result of a line item change in the 5-year FAA reauth, not from the board. The board MWAA minutes are online, go see for yourself all the power they're throwing down, making their will known /s I don't think any armchair airspace designer on this forum is going to have any impact on this. I can't remember seeing any of them when I worked at MITRE, but I guess they're the experts now . I'm hearing a lot of uninformed people saying 'this was an accident waiting to happen' - well, no it wasn't. Not unless you think all the other helo corridors like Hudson River are. It's a hectic place but no deathtrap. a lot of non-PP nonsense here. Last edited by Senior Pilot; 31st January 2025 at 06:42 . Reason: Uninformed/uniformed Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
DCA
FAA
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| moosepileit
January 31, 2025, 01:18:00 GMT permalink Post: 11817827 |
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR. The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone. Radar useless as the aircraft are too low. Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data. Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft. It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights. It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground. Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time. 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. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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| BearForce One
January 31, 2025, 09:41:00 GMT permalink Post: 11818039 |
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). Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Separation (ALL)
Visual Separation
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| cyrano_de_bergerac
January 31, 2025, 22:33:00 GMT permalink Post: 11818580 |
To provide some context,
The submission dates for the 16 incidents referenced in your post are as follows: 1. April 2024 2. January 2022 3. July 2018 4. July 2015 5. May 2015 6. March 2015 7. June 2013 8. May 2013 9. April 1999 10. February 1997 11. September 1993 12. August 1993 13. July 1993 14. June 1993 15. August 1992 16. April 1991 Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Close Calls
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| Humpmedumpme
February 01, 2025, 23:18:00 GMT permalink Post: 11819370 |
Never have and never will confirm visual with another aircraft in the US just to absolve ATC of responsibility and speed up their traffic flows. As the most litigious country in the world why would I want to take on responsibility for someone else's job. Multiple RAs over many years, all in the US whilst under ATC control. All my MORs stated that this was an accident waiting to happen. An overloaded and increasingly casual system that is too arrogant to realise it. RIP to all, unfortunately you are the victims of an increasingly failed state.
Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
TCAS RA
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| Junkflyer
February 02, 2025, 08:10:00 GMT permalink Post: 11819580 |
See and avoid works well most of the time. It's the rest of the time that needs to be addressed. Normally one tower for fixed wing and another for helo traffic during busy hours at this field. One was apparently released early so the remaining on took on a high workload. That may have been the first hole in the cheese. Stepping back the whole scenario seems to be an accident waiting to happen. The Feds, local authorities or whomever should have dictated a minimum of two tower controllers during these high workload time frames.
Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
See and Avoid
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| NIBEX2A
February 02, 2025, 15:41:00 GMT permalink Post: 11819865 |
Once again, looking at the safety reports below. How many of these may have been caused by the helicopter having the wrong aircraft in sight when applying visual separation?
Safety reports, if assessed and promulgated correctly, act as another line of defence. They identify any deficiencies in procedures which may have been overlooked (or underestimated) in the original procedure safety assessment. Hopefully the crash investigation will delve into these aspects to identify what action was taken on receipt of the reports below by the respective organisations. I found it chilling to read how many factors associated with this accident had repeatedly occurred and been reported over the previous 20+ years. I’ve condensed the reports [see spoiler- mods] and highlighted in bold many of these deficiencies, identified by pilots. Common Themes
Spoiler
Last edited by Saab Dastard; 2nd February 2025 at 17:15 . Reason: Make it legible Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Circle to Land (Deviate to RWY 33)
DCA
FAA
Frequency 119.1
Separation (ALL)
TCAS (All)
TCAS RA
Visual Separation
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| patrickal
February 02, 2025, 23:05:00 GMT permalink Post: 11820185 |
Regarding the collision of American Eagle JIA342 and Army Blackhawk PAT25, I lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of both the FAA and the United States Army Aviation Branch. If the NTSB in any way blame the pilots in the incident, they are not doing their job. Let’s look at all of the holes in this swiss cheese:
1. In an effort to maximize commercial air traffic in and out of DCA, the FAA has created the “deviate to RWY 33 procedure” for air traffic in-bound to RWY 01. This requires a right-hand turn from the RWY 01 approach followed by an immediate hard left-hand turn to line up on RWY 33. FAA criteria for a stabilized approach states that you have to be stable at 500 feet AGL on final in VMC or perform an immediate go-around. But on this particular approach, you will be at or below 400 feet AGL as you come out of the left turn to final. So the FAA has granted an exception to the “stabilized requirements” at DCA to allow for this maneuver. This allows ATC to shorten the distance between arriving and departing aircraft that are utilizing conflicting RWYs. The FAA in essence violates its own safety standards on stabilized approaches for the sake of expediency. 2. The FAA creates the Route 1/4 helicopter route through the DCA airspace as a VFR route with constantly changing altitude requirements. The lowest limit is at 200 ft MSL through the area east of DCA. Any pilot will tell you that flying that low over water at night is a best a tense experience. Try not to break that limit flying at night while also trying to communicate with ATC and simultaneously searching for possible conflicting aircraft. 3. The United States Army Aviation Branch deems it acceptable to allow training missions for Army Reserve pilots with limited flying experience to fly these helicopter routes through this complex and extremely active airspace. Compounding this, training flights at night using night-vision goggles are deemed “safe” in spite of the fact that using said goggles severely limits peripheral vision and makes it difficult if not impossible to perceive any color other than green and white. Picking out particular lights against the background of urban lighting is challenging, as is depth perception. Scanning key cockpit instruments is also made more difficult, making it challenging to accurately maintain altitude. Add to that workload the need to be in constant communication with ATC as well as monitoring all other comms traffic not directed to you but necessary in order to maintain good situational awareness. Given the density of commercial air traffic on this route, common sense would dictate that this route be flown by only the most experienced pilots and only when absolutely necessary. Reasonable logic would understand that conducting training missions should not be using final approach areas with heavy commercial traffic. 4. The Army crew on PAT25 are flying a mission they have been ordered to fly, at night and using night vision goggles. Although they may feel it is difficult and may be anxious about it, their command structure has determined that it is an appropriate training procedure and as such must meet minimum safety requirements. They do not have the authority to question the mission or the orders to fly it. 5. JIA342 is on approach for RWY 01, but is asked at the last minute by ATC to deviate to RWY 33, requiring the “circle to land” maneuver. Therefore, they are now on approach different from what they briefed for. 6. Any aircraft following the “circle to land” approach to RWY 33 will most likely have both pilots focused on RWY 33 as they come out of the left turn to final, especially if it was a last-minute request by ATC. In this case they will be looking to make sure that AA1630, which has just been given clearance to depart from RWY 01, is clear of the intersection with RWY 33 as they complete their final approach, and be ready for a go-around if it is not. In addition, this left bank makes it extremely difficult for the first officer to see any conflicting traffic coming towards them from the 1 to 2 o’clock position, as that traffic will probably be below the right window level. For the pilot, who is on the left side of the cockpit, visibility of such conflicting traffic will be nearly impossible. 7. For whatever reason, ATC is working with “split frequencies while controlling this airspace, so that although the controller hears both the aircraft on approach and the helo traffic south-bound on “Route 1”, the pilots of those respective aircraft only hear information directed at them. Thus they are not aware of all that is going on around them, and as such their situational awareness is limited by factors outside of their control. 8. ATC informs PAT25 of the conflicting aircraft on approach for RWY 33 at 1200 feet MSL, but at the time, PAT25 is heading almost due east towards the Jefferson Memorial on Helo Route 4 while JIA342 (the CRJ) is executing its right turn departing from the RWY 01 approach and is now heading in a northeast direction as it prepares to make a hard left onto the RWY 33 short final approach. From their respective positions, PAT25 in all likelihood sees the landing lights of AA3130 which is trailing JIA342 and whose landing lights are pointed almost directly in his direction, and mistakenly identifies it as the aircraft approaching RWY 33. At no time does it appear that ATC notifies JIA342 of the conflicting helo traffic. They are most likely focused on their approach to RWY 33, which was just handed to them. 9. As JIA342 rolls out of its left hand turn to final on RWY 33, completing the deviation they were just handed and had not briefed for, it is now approaching the 9-11 o’clock position of PAT25. Since the pilot of PAT25 is on the right-hand side of the Blackhawk, visibility of the CRJ may be limited. Both pilots of PAT25 are now most likely visibly fixated on passing to the rear of AA3130, which is in their 1-3 O’clock position, and which is the conflicting aircraft they perceive as the one ATC initially warned them about. 10. ATC, now receiving a conflicting aircraft warning, asks PAT25 if they have JIA342 in sight. In the absence of any obvious difference from the first mid-identification of the conflicting traffic, confirmation bias raises its ugly head. The voice response from the training pilot is calm and confident in stating that they do have it in sight and claim visual separation, probably proving once again that he mistakenly has AA3130 in sight slightly to his right directly in front of him and more than a mile away. Both pilots are totally unaware of JIA342 which is now arriving in front of them from their left. 11. The collision occurs. In my humble opinion, the crews of both aircraft involved were set up by both the FAA and the Army Department of Aviation through a series of poorly based decisions which focused on expediency and departed from any appropriate utilization of a rational use of risk assessment. Consider the following: 1. Approval of the circling to RWY 33 maneuver which violates normal stabilized approach standards. 2. The establishment of a series of complex VFR helicopter track complex and heavily restricted air space as well as through final approach paths. 3. A 200 foot maximum altitude requirement over water and required even at night, which may result in a less than 200 foot vertical separation between aircraft on approach to RWY 33 and those traveling on Helo Route 1/4. 4. The decision to conduct military training missions in this complex and busy airspace with an abundance of commercial passenger traffic either arriving to or departing from DCA. 5. The use of split frequencies by the FAA which negatively impacts the situational awareness of all of the pilots in the airspace. 6. The use of night vision goggles to place even more limitations on the pilots. Granted, all pilots involved may not have had the thousands of hours senior commercial and military pilot possess. But even the most senior individuals when placed in the task saturated environments these two crews faced would have at the very least felt their “pucker factor” increase through this. And there is probably an equal chance that the lack of common sense and appropriate safety design exhibited by the controlling entities would have resulted in a similar outcome. The odds were significantly stacked against these two flight crews, and unfortunately, against the passengers and flight attendants as well. If ever there were an example of an accident waiting to happen, this is it. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Blackhawk (H-60)
CRJ
DCA
FAA
NTSB
PAT25
Route 4
Separation (ALL)
Situational Awareness
VFR
Vertical Separation
Visual Separation
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| 9 lives
February 17, 2025, 02:39:00 GMT permalink Post: 11829597 |
On rare occasion (for my civilian flying) I have been given a VFR clearance at an unusually low altitude (flying along Miami Beach being one example), and occasionally a routing I consider more risky (over water or a built up area with no where to go if the engine quits). Usually, I have accepted and flown the cleared routing, though there have been times I have requested a variation to reduce risk. These have been occasional for me, therefore I treated them as such, and my awareness went up considerably. To me, a situation which deviates from my "normal" requires heightened vigilance I'm a little nervous doing something I would not normally do.
So if the Blackhawk pilots either flew this low altitude route regularly, or it was an operational norm for that pilot group/operation, pilots would begin to relax with it - it's "normal" I opine that it is never normal to fly at 200 feet AGL in a built up area, nor close to the approach path for a busy airport. So if the training and operational norms of this routing lead pilots to think it is normal, they treat it that way, and vigilance goes down. This was an accident waiting to happen, because of normalization of deviance form established norms of flying. I've learned the hard way that when ATC asks if you have X aircraft in sight, once you think you do, mentally map the path of that aircraft, then start looking for the one you have not seen yet - particularly with two pilots! You get a clearance to pass at 200 AGL under the approach path of a busy airport at night - that's unusual, and spidy senses should be tingling lots! This hyper awareness should be being trained into the operation - a preflight briefing from the lead "On this flight, we could expect this routing and clearance. This will be unusual, and we're going to be extra aware by doing the following....". So it's easy to blame the Blackhawk pilots, and yes, they wear some of this, but the military let the pilots down by not categorizing this flight as "high risk", and ATC let the pilots down by clearing a routing which had the potential to provide only a hundreds of feet vertical separation, rather than insisting on both vertical, lateral, and projected path separation, and thereafter, telling the Blackhawk pilots all of the airplanes they should be seeing, not just the one, which seems to have been misunderstood. I have been instructed to orbit to allow for a passing aircraft to clear in front of me, why not this time? Maybe that low altitude air route is too small for a normal orbit? Another red lag about that route not being a good idea! Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Blackhawk (H-60)
Separation (ALL)
VFR
Vertical Separation
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| truckflyer
February 18, 2025, 08:00:00 GMT permalink Post: 11830516 |
Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, if the heliroutes are published for the common sense use of participants, not for the protection of air transport, and we further accept that it is not within the purview of ATC to question the discretion of willing users, I'm afraid we can only fall back on this accident being the sole responsibility of the helicopter. Which I guess is is another way of re-stating your last post.
I wouldn't put it past the FAA to pull a stunt like that, read Mary Schiavo's (ex IG of the Dept. of Transportation) book if you want to know how wily they can be. And Jennifer gave them the perfect lay up in the last briefing. It's way to easy to blame the pilots, over the years there have been incidents due to incorrect QNH settings, were both pilots and ATC have failed to catch the error, in a busy airspace with overworked ATC, late change of runway for airlines, and military helicopters using Night Vision Goggles, altimeter equipment failure/error. Even the Max 200 ft altitude under the approach to a major US airport is an accident waiting to happen, and whoever approved this to be used during normal operations should be investigated. The CRJ was at around 325 ft on a visual/circling approach when it crashed, does anyone really think it's great airmanship to have a Black Hawk helicopter at 200 ft passing under you? That's what made the Swiss Cheese model line up perfectly, a planned approved separation of 125 ft was the "best case" scenario. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Blackhawk (H-60)
CRJ
FAA
QNH
Separation (ALL)
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| WillowRun 6-3
March 23, 2025, 23:02:00 GMT permalink Post: 11852983 |
Nothing in the law is certain but I think a legal theory assigning responsibility to the military has a greater chance of success than one assigning responsibility to the FAA. Of course it is standard practice in such cases to sue everyone who could possibly be held liable.
It seems clear the helicopter crew made mistakes that don't qualify as an exercise of discretion. Under the FTCA the crew is immune from lawsuits but the government is liable for the consequences of any such mistakes they made. As it was the governments responsibility not to assign them missions for which their training was inadequate. I don't see such a case against the FAA. Perhaps if you find some specific regulation that was violated. I think there is a reasonable chance the government will concede liability. The FTCA doesn't allow punitive damages and FTCA cases are not tried by juries. So if the government concedes liability I see no reason there will be any evidence presented about the cause, the remaining issues will be the amount of damages. This all applies to the people on the jet. The helicopter crew can't claim against the military because of the Feres doctrine. Perhaps they have a claim against the FAA but I think their chances are distinctly weaker than those of the people on the jet. Where I continue to view the legal playing field differently is that essentially all the elements of the authorities responsible for construction and management of the airspace in question set it up so this accident could occur even if - in this case - the Army pilots followed every rule and procedure they had been trained to follow. To make the point with some absurdity, the way the Army crew was negligent was in refusing to fly the helicopter routes around DCA absent significant modifications in procedures and rules. What other meaning can reasonable minds give to the by-now cliche: it was an accident waiting to happen? Within the airspace as constructed and operated by both the Army and FAA (and any other users who, at an agency and/or interagency level, participated in management of DCA airspace), the helicopter crew could be said to have acted non-negligently - it was the airspace management system which was negligently designed and operated. As another poster noted, there was normalization of complacency. As I've noted above, I've got no claim for expertise about the DCA airspace (or any airspace) but that does not stop me from asserting that it is hard to understand why you do not see deep liability exposure for FAA in this matter (prior to successful invocation of the discretionary function exception, of course). I had to delve into Feres in some depth for my student law review article many years ago .... though that's not the only reason I hadn't noted its relevance and applicability. In any event, I recall it being pretty largely without exceptions.... probably you're correct about that aspect. The trial lawyers I have met would not easily give up on devising a way to get this case in front of a jury and litigating all issues, including punitive damages. Perhaps a claim against the manufacturer and designer of the NVGs? . . . but then we'll see more posts about legal matters, especially the "government contractor defense" and the Boyle decision by the Supreme Court in 1988 (with some oversimplification, if the defense contractor follows reasonably precise specifications for the design of the military equipemt, it is protected against tort claims by, in effect, an extension of the government's immunity). Conceding liability but without allowance for punitive damages or their equivalent will be tough sledding. Fatalities in this country in airline accidents had, thankfully, become rare. This lends brutal poignancy to descriptions of the lives and imminent futures of passengers on the CRJ. And despite the lingering in American law of the Feres Doctrine, of the Army crew too. Perhaps some fund would be established by the sages and scholars of the United States Congress and an eminence grise (such as the inimitable Mr. K. Feinberg) would hear claims and assign value. Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
Accountability/Liability
CRJ
DCA
FAA
Night Vision Goggles (NVG)
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| RatherBeFlying
September 27, 2025, 16:33:00 GMT permalink Post: 11960646 |
I think the point here is that, had the 5342 pilots followed PSA procedures (i.e., not accepting an approach that wasn’t previously briefed), they would have refused the circle 33 offer by ATC, thereby avoiding the accident.
The plaintiff lawyers would have a better argument against the airline if they had deviated from the approach. Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
Close Calls
PSA Procedures
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| Musician
September 27, 2025, 17:25:00 GMT permalink Post: 11960678 |
The airline lawyers will point to the many ignored near miss reports in arguing that this accident was waiting to happen and that it was just luck that this accident didn't happen sooner.
The plaintiff lawyers would have a better argument against the airline if they had deviated from the approach. Subjects
Accident Waiting to Happen
Close Calls
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