Posts about: "Blackhawk (H-60)" [Posts: 170 Page: 9 of 9]¶

Thank you, I'd missed that. And on re-reading the preliminary report, I see that the NTSB described the routes using amsl. So I stand corrected on the route definition. That brings altimetry errors into play for erosion of the "designed" separation margin, which makes the design even more unsafe. But the point remains that PAT25's 78 foot deviation above the route maximum altitude is within the FAA's tolerance for commercial and instrument flying accuracy by helicopter pilots.

None. That would obviously be unsafe, so the helicopter would be expected to use lateral separation. (e.g. "Pass behind the CRJ.")

The 200 ft altitude restriction seems to have given some the impression that helicopters were routinely passing directly below the approach traffic, but that's not the case. And even if it was, it wouldn't really be relevant to this accident. The Blackhawk pilots weren't trying to duck underneath the plane, they never even saw it.

The reason I brought this up was the contention by some earlier posters that there was an obvious case for negligence on the part of the Army pilots. I took that to be based on their 78ft breach of the route maximum altitude, which would obviously be an easy thing to prove (notwithstanding my point that the FAA only requires pilots to fly to an accuracy of 100ft). However if, as you say, the altitude restriction wasn't relevant to the accident then a case for Army pilot negligence would have to be based on their failure to see the CRJ, and that would be much harder to make out. It was argued much earlier in the thread that they probably saw the AAL aircraft on final to 1 and misidentified it as the CRJ. I think that would be difficult to argue as negligent.

I agree with you, by the way - my point being that the case for Army pilot negligence isn't as obvious as it might first appear.

Visual Flight Rules aren't a local procedure.

I agree. The prudent thing to do would be to not call traffic in sight and let the controller give you a hold. But first you'd have to know the plane is there.

If that was/is happening, that's a huge problem. But I don't understand how the FAA would be responsible. Visual separation is initiated by the pilot, when they say "traffic in sight." Controllers sometimes prompt it (e.g. "Do you have that traffic in sight?"), but that didn't happen in this case. A pilot should never call traffic in sight unless they truly have it in sight and are completely confident that they can maintain safe separation. I do get the impression that the Blackhawk pilots may not have fully understood that. Both from the NTSB hearings and the ATC recordings (the way they don't even wait for the controller to finish speaking before shouting "traffic in sight request visual separation!")

NTSB Chairwoman speaks out about legislation to again allow uncontrolled military helicopter flights through Washington D.C. From the New York Times https://archive.ph/7YCHK

Wall Street Journal,
quoting in full (claiming fair use):

The U.S. government accepted fault for a midair collision earlier this year that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., saying it is willing to pay damages to the families in connection with the incident.

The Justice Department\x92s filing in federal court Wednesday said the pilots of an Army Black Hawk helicopter \x93failed to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid\x94 an American Airlines regional jet.

\x93Their failure was a cause-in-fact and proximate cause of the accident,\x94 the department\x92s lawyers wrote.

The filing said that an air-traffic controller didn\x92t comply with a federal order to tell aircraft on converging courses to separate. The government also said the American Airlines pilots should have been alerted to the location of the Black Hawk helicopter by a collision alert system and that the pilots \x93failed to maintain vigilance\x94 to avoid the aircraft.

The American regional jet had been flying from Wichita, Kan., when it collided with the Army helicopter on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29. The military helicopter was conducting a training exercise along the Potomac River, one of the most congested airspaces in the U.S.
_________
Edit: The court filing in which liability is admitted is the Answer by the United States to the Complaint. It's 209 pages, not a surprise, as the Complaint includes quite detailed allegations, most all of which needed to be addressed point by point.
Notably, the airline is still a defendant and in fact lead counsel for the plaintiffs already has issued a statement to that effect.
I'm not indulging any further law prof mode for now.

Yes , there was a choice : recognizing the procedures were flawed , the Helo i routes map was unsafe , the local training and local way of working were not following the "order" for decades and for the FAA to take the blame for all this , not singling out the operators of those local procedures. It is a systemic failure , not an individual controller error.
Then : At 300 ft on short final ??? same BS. I will not be surprised if they will also be carrying part of the blame in the end for accepting a non previously briefed visual APP as per their SOPs. How many hundred times this side step procedure was made to avoid delays will likely bear zero bearing in the end. .

weird that they don\x92t even mention the Blackhawk PF\x92s straying from altitude constraints, the IP repeatedly tells her about her deviations multiple times as per the transcript, baro altitude limitations or not they were both aware she wasn\x92t meeting the limits of the corridor (that the margins are so fine in that airspace is absurd of course)

Additionally this would\x92ve been sapping the IP/PM\x92s capacity to an extent no doubt as he had to monitor her deviations

wasn\x92t this a currency flight for her and she\x92s already blown a segment of it? Clearly her recency/skill level is at least a factor?

ditto they don\x92t mention the limitations of VFR separation under night vision

Those are addressed in some of the 75-odd Findings statements.

But all of those deficiencies arguably added up to the stated Probable Cause: "the lack of effective pilot applied visual separation by the helicopter crew, which resulted in a mid-air collision"

They did say this