Posts about: "CRJ" [Posts: 363 Page: 4 of 19]¶

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do anything g wrong on purpose, there was o ly one airaft though out of place, a situation ONLY possible through an outdated and potentially dangerous procedure.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?

yes yes, of course, you are right! - some mysterious powerful force other than the state that the airport is actually located in (Va); the state in which the overwhelming majority of the population consider it useful and convenient; and safe (other than an Army helo (evidently) running into a CRJ cleared to land); and overwhelmingly want to keep it open; which has operated well for a lifetime, etc. etc. - despite all of this, there will somehow be an external force from ( perhaps inspired by these fine well-reasoned non-pp posters) which will decide to close this "deathtrap" of an airport real soon. Hmm, ok.

You seem to be pretty sure of that! Well, you know what's so great about the internet gambling boom? , you can get someone to escrow any wager with full faith of both parties ensured? The agreement completely transparent, bonded, and binding. Since your clear that the will of the people of Virginia will be overridden and this is this is going to be shut down as a deathtrap in the next few years, how much do you want to bet that KDCA will remain open in 5 years and operating at the essentially the same capacity ? does US$50k work for you? You're pretty confident that someone is going to ignore what the people who live there want, but just to sweeten it, I'll give you 2:1 odds. Seems like easy money!

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.

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 ???

And the US is the only place where this happens as a matter of routine. Take a look at Europe and see how separation is much more strictly applied.

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".

"Do you see the traffic?" invites the pilot to confirm "yes" if they see something plausible.
It encourages confirmation bias; "I see something so it must be what I'm being told to see".

When teaching young people to drive or ride a motorcycle, I make a point of asking them not to check whether they can see anything coming before pulling out.
I tell them they must be able to see *nothing*.

They must look for and be confident that there is NO THREAT approaching before entering the intersection.
Can they clearly see empty road containing no threats?

"Do you see the CRJ" invites the helicopter pilot to find something out there in the dark, which might or might not even be *a* CRJ in the dark, never mind the right CRJ, then feel he's now identified the threat. It invites him to concentrate on one threat and fail so see others.

Excellent remark . Unfortunately this how TWR controllers are being instructed in academies to do visual separation. In my (old) days visual separation was an exception, today in the US it is a standard method of working to enable more traffic in the system that the standard rules would allow.

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.

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.

There is some audio around on Youtube. Scanner stuff for arrivals at Reagan. CRJ can be heard accepting runway 33.

Arrivals tells PAT25 Heli to keep watch for CRJ. There is no acknowledgment. Arrivals then tells PAT 25 to pass behind CRJ. There is no acknowledgment. Then boom.
Capt Sully responded today. Said dark water gives no indication of height or direction of other aircraft. Put to bed Trumps remarks that it was a clear night so should have seen aircraft but then he now reckons it's the control tower that are the problem.

If this goes to civil litigation, which is quite possible, I wonder if the lawyers will question the ability (not flying ability, but human limitations in the environment) of the helicopter commander to make a safe enough identification of the CRJ under the circumstances and then extrapolate it back down the ATC chain to question the point you make? That I feel, would be difficult to defend against under a 'balance of probability' standard and could be embarrassing to a number of parties.

Rubbish. Listen to the YT video directly above your last post.

Do you have a link to any such video? Because if this is genuinely what you've heard I'd like to know the source and origin. Because there's other content out there which has the helo acknowledging (twice) sight of the aircraft and requesting visual separation. But they then proceed to fly right into the traffic they apparently have sight of. So...

But that isn't the first communication that mentions the CRJ. The heli had previously been told the exact location, altitude, type and which runway the CRJ was positioning for. The heli crew replied that they were visual. It is only later that the controller refers to the CRJ in isolation (with no position) but he is simply querying 'are you still visual with the aircraft that you literally just told me you were visual with?'. There is no need for any night ID skills and even if you don't have a clue what a CRJ looks like, that entire combination of calls still make sense. I agree that if the heli had been made more aware of how proximate the CRJ was then that might have resolved an incorrect SA picture, but the heli had repeatedly told the controller that he was visual. If a procedure is designed that allows a heli to correctly pass under another aircraft by 100-200 feet, at night, is the controller really supposed to be able to judge from the tower whether they are extremely close (as would appear to be the case if they were both on the correct path) or if they were on a collision course?

If that was a hold in the hover, it would likely have been a low hover on a cross runway (or another safe place on the airfield). I would be amazed if Aberdeen asked a heli to hold in the hover, offshore, at height, at night. Aside from the disorientation issues, it isn't a comfortable place for a heli to be in case of a malfunction. If I was coming back to Aberdeen from the North Sea and was asked to hold to the east of Aberdeen, away from the airfield, I would fly a racetrack/orbit.

YouTube version: the CRJ crew appear to start banking left a moment before the collision...

Probably lining up on 33. Remember they diverged off the RWY 01 CL to the right/East, to then turn slightly left for 33.

Yes. Listen to the VAS aviation YT video in post #350.

​​​​​​​That's got Yankee Class E airspace all over it.

In the inevitable "what would we do with 20/20 hindsight" test describing the jet as (e.g.) " Jet on approach, your 10 clock, passing 1200 feet at 2 miles (instead of south of some local bridge) might have been more helpful/ alarming if the Heli pilots were not locals. Moot point as Heli requested/was allowed own lookout (Visual separation) and clearly (rightly) the controller was still worried and checked. .

Talk of it being difficult to pick out aircraft nav lights is a red herring. The heli was, initially, several hundred feet below the CRJ and should have been able to easily see the lights against the night sky.

Blaming the airspace design is also a non starter. Are we really going to say that just because the airspace is poorly designed then I'm just going to fly in to that regional jet over there?

First rule of airmanship anyone? Keep a good lookout. Seems like the helicopter crew failed to do so having been given their requested visual separation. Should have had eyes on stalks.