Posts about: "CRJ" [Posts: 363 Page: 15 of 19]¶

Extremely interesting . thanks for posting that .2 points worth mentioning , the LEDs versus "normal" lighting visibility on IR ( minute 3 ) , a very interesting fact that got overlooked when introducing them , also hardly visible when you are not directly looking ta them ,. A real issue when using cameras in ATC Remote tower operations .I do not know if that CRJ was using LEDs, many GA manufacturers are installing , and operators retrofit due savings in both consumption and reliability.

The second point of interest for me is the discussion on the previous incident with the RA the day before ( min 34 ) where the Helo crew only learned of this when it was raised on the media a few days after the accident ,as the Heli crew was on a different frequency and did not heard the RA and the go around as a consequences., raising the issue that there might have been far more such incidents as they were all not reported to the helicopters operators.

Sure.

At 8:46:01 ATC called the helicopter with information about the CRJ, 1200’ over Wilson Bridge, circling to runway 33. The information about ‘…circling to…’ was not on the CVR of the helicopter. Inference is that part was missed (but not explicit). No requirement to read back traffic info, just acknowledge it.

At 8:47:42 the helicopter pilot stepped on the latter part of ATC’s transmission to the Blackhawk which was an instruction to ‘…pass behind the…’ The helicopter crew could not possibly have heard that instruction because they stepped on it themselves. Read back is required to an en-route clearance. Afterwards there was an intercom discussion between the helicopter pilots about whether they were to move further east.

Seems that two consecutive radio calls to the helicopter got corrupted which led to a breakdown in SA onboard the helicopter. Probably they had no idea that they needed to look left over the city lights to see the CRJ and were convinced their traffic was in the line up of jets on 01 extended centreline and therefore no factor.

I am just a lowly multi/commercial pilot who flies mostly for recreation. Since the advent of ADS-B, we have had much more precise information on what traffic is around us, what type they are, and exactly what they are doing heading/altitude/speed-wise. With that data, I've noted that even when I know EXACTLY where to look for a specific type of traffic during daylight hours, for example over an easy to identify landmark, I generally need to be within 3 miles or so to be able to reliably spot it amongst ground clutter and terrain. I'd need to be considerably closer in order to identify a specific type. At night you might be able spot some traffic from further away, but as you note it s even more difficult to determine the type. In the past you might be able to know you were looking for a CRJ and therefore eliminate the Cessna Skyhawk with a single PAR36 incandescent bulb. But these days I have a friend with a Skyhawk that has a LED in the nose, wig-wag LEDs in the wingtips, and Airbus style double flash strobes, and that thing looks like a much larger aircraft at night now. Or maybe like a UFO.

IMO the fact that the helo crew didn't readback/acknowledge "pass behind" is irrelevant. Twice before, they told the LC that they had the CRJ in sight and requested visual sep, which was granted. Surely you don't specifically need to be told to not hit the CRJ after you've reported it in sight?

I think the LC saw what was unfolding and said that because he had concerns that the chopper didn't actually have the CRJ. He was right.

LC says, “PAT25, do you have the CRJ in sight?”

PAT25 says (for the second time), “Traffic visual, request visual separation”,
which is not true, evidently they were not visual at all because they crashed into the CRJ.

LC responds, “Visual separation approved, [pass behind the] CRJ,”
which clearance was issued on the false premise that PAT25 was visual. But PAT 25 only hears, “Visual separation approved…[pause]…CRJ,” because they briefly stepped on the LC’s transmission themselves. No read back is forthcoming; the LC should be expecting one but he fails to chase it up, because he’s too busy.

If PAT 25 realised he’s stepped on the middle part of the LC’s transmission to himself (which likely could have included an instruction) then he ought to be professional enough to say, “Stepped on, say again,” etc and make absolutely sure he knows what the clearance may have been. That was standard practice a long time ago, but no longer, it seems.

My original point was that in the Mover/Gonky video (post #1228) it was suggested that it’s perfectly OK to second guess what ATC might have said to you, reply to that, and then if no correction is forthcoming you can comply with your guess. As others have pointed out implicitly, that works if there’s only one error involved, but here there were three: an untrue statement, leading to a wrongly issued clearance, and a missing read back.

System broken.

Good points, especially the first, Keep in mind that no readback was required, and that type of instruction doesn't require a readback and according to the AIM is not even a type that "should" be read back, so the controller wouldn't be surprised if he didn't get one. Agree with Capn Bloggs;even if PAT25 didn't get the particular "pass behind" transmission, visual separation, which came up twice, carries the implicit instruction "Don't hit the other aircraft" ( no sarcasm intended), regardless of the method employed.

In this scenario, there is zero information in the call to "pass behind" that indicates any imminent danger. All it does is further legitimise the previous two approvals for visual separation.
Now if the controller had said "you look to be tracking very close to the CRJ are you sure you can pass behind?" or similar, then maybe the helo crew would have got excited. A call like that might have even triggered a "holy sh1t" moment about the TCAS "Traffic". But as far as they were concerned, they knew they had the traffic in sight and could do the visual sep thing and even if they had heard "pass behind" they would have said/thought "well, obviously". Except they had the wrong aircraft. ATC had an idea they had the wrong aircraft but didn't get the message across.

As for the reference, same thing. The helo crew could have read-back "pass behind" but it wouldn't have achieved anything.

Yes, the RT added no more traffic information than before and completely failed to get the imminent danger across to the IP on the helicopter. However someone may have got a hint because there was a subsequent conversation between crew members about whether they should move further east. But we don’t know yet if that conversation was actually about traffic deconfliction. It could just be about accurate tracking of the left bank of the Potomac or something else entirely.

Without question. With it the helo would never have turned to starboard. Never. Also "No, you cannot leave the tower...." From ATC supervisor
By the time the H60 realized the lights on the CRJ were too high too fast and too bright to be on final for #1, it was a half second too late... does the tail on the helo seem to drop just before impact, ?? Think they wanted to climb?

Congressional perks in this case make me "see" red. All of Congress should be made to Uber from DCA for a full year or until changes are made. By FAA, not by Congress.

...selfish dolts.

My posting history in this thread shows that I agree with you 100% on irrelevance of the altitude discussion. I was simply correcting a false statement which, left unchallenged, was undermining a good point that the Army had issued orders which were incompatible with the FAA's. That's indicative of organisational failings, which are really what this is all about.

As for "do not cross final 33 before CRJ"... that'd still have given too much responsibility to the helo crew, in my opinion. They'd have suffered a crushing breakdown of their mental model as it became clear the lights ahead of them weren't going to land on 33 before they crossed the approach. Would that dawning reality have caused then to widen their search and see the CRJ? Possibly. But I doubt it. Human nature in high pressure situations, like NVG flying over a dark river in a city, is to keep pressing on with a flawed mental model.

"Hold at Hains Point", from a second controller with capacity to keep watch over two converging tracks, was what was needed to save the day here - and to cover up the underlying organisational failings for a while longer.

H & H:
". . . was the strategy to use Route 4 while 33 was active something ATCers at DCA, over time, started in an effort to cut down radio traffic and speed things up? If so, had it been assessed and then monitored for adverse safety? While anecdotally, it seemed people were aware of "close calls", had any analysis taken place looking at the Databases?"

To start, no apology whatsoever needed with regard to this dialogue. I try to respect the decorum required on this forum generally (meaning as SLF/attorney something has to be pretty severe or awful to warrant apologizing to me). And although I might not explain my sense of this with enough clarity - the FAA is conducting a review (according to Secretary Duffy) of airspace management and usage rules at other airports. The explanations in your posts, including very particularly the procedures when crossing approach corridors for London City, should be read and studied by the presumably well-informed professional ATO (Air Traffic Organization) staff assigned to conduct the review. (If it seems way presumptuous for an SLF/attorney to assert what resources ATO should be considering for the review noted by Sec. Duffy, I would suggest that ATO's reputation at the moment for upholding the much-touted "gold standard" set by FAA and United States aviation in general for the rest of the world ... well, like we used to say in trial practice, it takes the other side only about three minutes in court to stain the draperies, but it will take us all afternoon even to try to clean them. Reputation lost, same deal getting it back.)

On ASIAS, actually I entirely agree with your description of where it fits into the so-called "aviation safety ecosystem" (there simply has got to be a better term). The point I'm stuck on is one that (apologies, once more) comes from litigating in U.S. courts (especially federal District Courts around the country) employment law cases. Specifically, at the start, the main task for defense counsel is to construct the "chronology". Who did and said what to whom, when, and for what reason(s). I've asserted in an earlier post that in what I see as the inevitable litigation arising from this accident, there will be teams of significant lawyers constructing, or attempting to construct, such a chronology, although it won't be about an individual employee's hiring, performance reviews, promotion grants or denials and so on. It will be how it happened that the situation which obtained in the DCA airspace, in the cockpits of the Blackhawk helicopter and the CRJ, and ATC, came to exist.

(And I say "significant lawyers" because the attorneys who handle the big and significant aviation crash lawsuits for the families of victims are kind of the polar opposite of the stereotype ambulance chaser; to the contrary, their work is opposed by big-time big-law firm skyhigh hourly rate legally privileged sharks. The lawyers suing on behalf of these crash victims - if they are the same as the legal specialists I have met and discussed stuff with in various settings - are vindicating the need to bring the truth to light. "Aviation is the safest form of transportation": it is incanted over and over to the point of making anyone who utters it now sound quite seriously performative. Yet if it is so safe, how and why did those 67 people die over and in the Potomac? So with a kind of intense ruthlessness, the lawyers who will represent the families and other loved ones of the crash victims will unearth every little sequential act and omission which led to the situation which obtained on the fateful night of Wednesday, 29 January 2025. Exactly as the quoted language above from your post asks, what indeed was the strategy, if there even was one, as opposed to little incremental changes, accelerated of course by increasing airline flight lengths under the perimeter rule.)

On this basis, I would not concur with the idea that whether immunity is available for the defendants (both the Army and FAA/DoT) depends on whether the ATCO's specific conduct on Jan. 29 was "ordered" from on-high. The "on-high" is the development, over time, of the situation that obtained that night at DCA, despite safety imperatives in the NAS and aviation sector in general - and not a specific order or instruction given on that night.

The question behind the discretionary function exception is whether the act or omission by the defendant either (1) was negligent because it failed to follow a specific rule or statutory provision (if so, no immunity), or (2) was negligent in the usual sense of the word but will nevertheless still be protected by immunity because the act or omission was based on a decision about a policy matter or question. The decision on the policy matter or question is "discretionary" on the part of the government and hence the name of the exception protecting it. The courts are reluctant, and sometimes loath, to second-guess policy decisions made by the Executive Branch (I know, irony neither intended or not intended, given certain prominent flight- and aircraft-related matters in federal court at the moment). Under the first variety of negligence, there was no policy matter being decided, just failure to do something there was a legal duty to do (basic definition of negligence). Under the second variety, there would be a valid case to be made that there was negligence - but the immunity provided by the exception for discretionary functions prevents the case going forward.

So back to January 29, the assertion I've been making here is that no, there was not a specific rule or procedure that said to do things much like you describe the procedure - de facto (unwritten, informal) though it was - for transiting across the approach path. But there certainly were higher-order rules by which FAA and its ATC functions were required to observe in consistent performance, and not merely in repeated incantation that "aviation is the safest form of transportation." In fact, I wonder if clever lawyers might take that slogan and deploy it as a bludgeon. "You're at greater risk driving your car to the airport", they always say. Oh, really? Then let's talk about the equivalent scenario on the streets of Chicago with intersecting traffic lanes (obviously not at different altitudes), similarly difficult visibility conditions at night, compounded by NVGs. possibly compounded by a training or check ride in the vehicle, and then make the case that the Chicago PD cop directing traffic, and the motorist without the right-of-way, were acting on the basis of interpreting policies about driving on public roadways. No, there is no policy matter involved - there are strict rules of the road and over-riding principles for safe driving, and the failure to observe these is negligence.

It's simplistic but it might be sufficiently illustrative. Is "see and avoid" a procedure which involves making decisions on matters of policy? or is it a higher-order safety rule which must be observed at all times?

(Not meaning to slight the point about ANSP and regulatory functions needing to be separate - entirely agree, and yet, this will be an extraordinarily heavy lift to get done in the United States. That being said, I might know some lawyer-types who are fired up about efforts to make it happen this time around.)
WillowRun 6-3

The discretion involved in the defense against availability of tort claims would not focus on acts or omissions of the Army crew. It would focus on the discretion which went into decisions about construction of the airspace, rules for its usage, and how these changed over time, and this defense could be developed on behalf of both the FAA and Army. Presumably the Army, not just FAA, had significant involvement in airspace management decisions, such as where the helicopter routes were drawn. And how the helicopter aviators are trained certainly involves discretionary judgments.

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.

I think it's also important to recall from way upthread that at the point of being called as the factor traffic by ATC, the CRJ and the AAL aircraft behind it in the stream were extremely close together in the helo pilots' field of view, because the circling manoeuvre had barely begun. A very illustrative diagram was composed by a YouTube contributor (not one of the usual aviation commentators) which made the point very well. I'm mildly surprised the NTSB didn't produce such a diagram of its own at the initial report stage.

Taking that concept a bit further, it is unlikely that one or both helo pilots maintained continuous visual on the called traffic after the initial \x93traffic in sight\x94 confirmation given their high visual workload (other traffic scan, visual navigation, maintaining altitude). A possible scenario is that one or both of the helo pilots did visually acquire the CRJ on the initial traffic call, briefly broke visual contact, and then subsequently acquired visual on the wrong traffic, maintaining that incorrect traffic contact until the collision. My recollection when I ran some geometry from the initial CRJ traffic call is that CRJ and AAL (or other traffic in the stack) would have differed in azimuth by about 3 degrees.

Indeed but that does not explain the right turn , on the contrary , turning right was putting them in direct conflict with both the CRJ and the AA , or any other on finals 01. Turning left was the only option to stay clear laterally . Cannot understand what they saw that made them turn right

Not sure what right turn you\x92re referring to. Figures 2 and 3 of the NSTB preliminary report show PAT25 tracking parallel to the eastern shore of the Potomac River at the time of the collision. Because this shoreline tracks a line about 200/020 true, PAT25 had to turn to the right after passing Hains Point track Route 4 and that\x92s what the track shows.

I don’t think the radar track shows a last-minute right turn turn by the helo (I looked at the post #848 image). The NTSB preliminary report states the helo had a 1.6 deg left bank at the time of the impact. Although the report notes the evasive maneuver by the CRJ (elevator, pitch), there’s no mention of evasive maneuver by the helo. I think you might be biased by some of the early but inaccurate MLAT tracks that showed a significant right turn by the helo prior to impact.

Dumbo Question 2

Given the extraordinary level of interest in the US Army Blackhawk carriage, activation and transmission of ADSB Out information in the US Congress in the last couple of days, do you think the NTSB could have confirmed (facts) how that information would have been displayed in the cockpit of the CRJ and the ATC TWR cab at Washington DC Reagan?

The small elephant in the room.

Not sure that I'm following this focus on ADSB. Unless the PSA CRJ had ADSB-IN, then the absence of ADSB-OUT in the Army helicopter is irrelevant to the accident.

In recent investigations ATSB (Australia) has been pushing the merits of ADSB-IN. NTSB's (and ATSB's) remit is rather broad and can be used to push a particular agenda.

FAA (and CASA) can mandate ADSB-IN in all powered aircraft, and the US (and AU) Governments could easily fund the fitment from the Government coffers. Every billionaire in the Forbes Top 200 Richest People in America could easily afford to fund ADSB fitment. Would certainly improve their Philanthropy scores.

Be interesting to see whether PSA Airlines tick the ADSB-IN option with their next fleet order, or retrofit their fleet with ADSB-IN.

The Collins Proline 4 avionics system found on the CRJ has no provision for ADSB-IN, and knowing how the system works at a low level, I don\x92t think there is any way it could be added. It would probably require the addition of a dedicated display unit such as the Garmin GI-275, which is capable of displaying ADSB-IN when operating in MFD mode.

Adding the mandated ADSB-OUT capability to the Proline 4 was a simpler exercise as it mainly required upgrading the TDR-94 transponders and making use of already-available ARINC-429 data from the Air Data Computers, AHRS/IRS and GPS