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| WillowRun 6-3
March 30, 2025, 23:54:00 GMT permalink Post: 11857615 |
ATC Watcher:
"The primary cause of this collision is airspace design and normalization of deviance over the years. I hope the judges will see that when the trial comes. We should leave the military crew and their grieving families out of this." Which takes the pertinent legal case right back to the question whether the federal government will be protected by sovereign immunity. Sitting in, say, a conference room discussing in the abstract "airspace design" I don't think a single competent aviation attorney would not reply that design of airspace is a discretionary function (so sovereign immunity applies), and perhaps is a classic illustration of such discretion exercised functionally. Normalization of deviance is likely a closer question on the premise that it occurred through numerous small (or perceived as small at the time) changes and revisions of procedures and airspace design. But operation of the airspace when viewed in such a macro frame of reference looks pretty discretionary as a function, too. But abstractions lost their meaning as 67 entirely blameless people lost their lives in this catastrophe. I'm not in this matter - not representing or advising anyone - but my mind can't get off outlining the attack on the discretionary function exception (to avoid doubt, I'm saying the exception needs to be argued against and shown not to apply on these facts). It is with hindsight, true, but the situation which existed in the airspace in question on the night of Wednesday 29 January broke, stomped upon, and otherwise disregarded so many basic rules of the aviation safety mindset that .... like they say, you can take the lawyer out of litigating, but you can't take litigating out of the lawyer. Here's a new thought. In lawsuits (another poster helpfully noted upthread) under the Federal Tort Claims Act - the statute which takes sovereign immunity away but subject to exceptions - claims for punitive damages are not allowed. Think about that for half a minute. Just on the facts, forget the legal technicality under the FTCA, would this not FREAKING be a case warranting punitive damages against the federal government for setting the stage of this accident and then putting the players in motion? So, you're an attorney, part of the team representing any one of the families of victims of this CATASTROPHE in the middle of the air ... or some or even all, of the victims' families. What do you do? I will be neither surprised nor shocked if the lawsuits also name American Airlines, which has no protection obviously under the FTCA. It didn't do anything wrong..... but naming the airline as a defendant gets their insurers involved, and then establishment of a fund and a process to compensate the representatives of the victims can be brought forward and conducted. Skip the courthouse except to get things started, but this matter needs a creative approach. Oh, did I mention, part of the approval for such a fund and compensation process would have to be pretty sweeping reform of how FAA does business and what business it does, and the reform plan had better be down to chapter and verse? WR 6-3 Subjects
ATC
FAA
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| WillowRun 6-3
March 31, 2025, 13:41:00 GMT permalink Post: 11857981 |
"I will be neither surprised nor shocked if the lawsuits also name American Airlines, which has no protection obviously under the FTCA. It didn't do anything wrong ..."
Well presumably any lawsuit naming American Airlines will have to allege they did something to incur liability. The only such theory I can come up with is that the jet pilot should have refused the rerouting to runway 33 because he should have known that would increase the jet's exposure to reckless helicopters. Which is sort of blaming the pilots squared. Is that what you want to go with or do you have an alternative way of dragging American Airlines into this? Of course American Airlines is already involved in that they have a FTCA claim against the government for at least the value of their plane. Beyond that, and because my referring to making the airline a party is not meant to be trivial, the underlying idea is that establishment of a fund and claims process would be one of two main components of an approach to resolving the matter. The other component would have to be some - and I realize this is perhaps too much magical thinking - hard-truth reform and rework of airspace configuration and usage rules, nationwide. I don't wish to preach or pontificate, but this catastrophic accident happened after the Safety Call to Action, after the National Airspace Safety Team report, after the intense public, political, and international attention to and focus upon FAA in the aftermath of Lion Air and Ethiopian. So the underlying and motivating objective is to follow and apply former U.S. Amb. to Japan Rahm Emanuel's aphorism, "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." And yes, though it's hopefully non-frivolous, and despite it being a placeholder claim rather than an entirely direct claim, telling ATC "Unable" in re: Rwy 3-3 given the known airspace complications would appear the most viable option. Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 31st March 2025 at 14:53 . Subjects
ATC
Accountability/Liability
FAA
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| WillowRun 6-3
March 31, 2025, 17:31:00 GMT permalink Post: 11858092 |
Who knows, you may be right. I think AA rocking up at DCA and stating that, as "policy", they'd never ever use the sidestep to 33 due to their own safety assessment flagging it up, esp if based on TCAS evidence, would have led to interesting discussions at senior levels. As you say, how that would have ended is anyone's guess.
Or maybe such a review will, regrettably, require an Act of Congress (it should not require this, but, you know, K Street, campaign donors, the seniority system, and the generally stellar academic and career experience required prior to election to the Congress . . . . too bad elected represenatives are not required to build hours first). Subjects
Circle to Land (Deviate to RWY 33)
DCA
FAA
NTSB
TCAS (All)
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| BugBear
March 31, 2025, 22:18:00 GMT permalink Post: 11858228 |
"There's no one on 2-8-Right but you" 759 in San Francisco in 2017. But not the same as what has issued from NTSB now. Perhaps I missed some salient details but the review which FAA became instructed and/or motivated to conduct would have a total NAS scope.". (WillowRun hat tip,)
Howdy. Are you aware of any interviews the AC pilot did? The video is damning. Besides thinking Charlie was the runway, he missed a direct hit on the tail of a holding aircraft by less than 100 feet. Enjoy your thoughts, and objectivity....bb Last edited by BugBear; 31st March 2025 at 22:28 . Subjects
FAA
NTSB
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| WillowRun 6-3
April 01, 2025, 00:54:00 GMT permalink Post: 11858292 |
"There's no one on 2-8-Right but you" 759 in San Francisco in 2017. But not the same as what has issued from NTSB now. Perhaps I missed some salient details but the review which FAA became instructed and/or motivated to conduct would have a total NAS scope.". (WillowRun hat tip,)
Howdy. Are you aware of any interviews the AC pilot did? The video is damning. Besides thinking Charlie was the runway, he missed a direct hit on the tail of a holding aircraft by less than 100 feet. Enjoy your thoughts, and objectivity....bb Not sure of what video you've referred to about the Air Canada incident. But yes, without a doubt, it was a very close call. Only a slight difference in the height above the taxiway for the Air Canada flight, or slight delay in initiating the go-around . . . and many factors which play into those parameters (reaction time, etc.). I don't recall any interviews of the aviators being published (but I haven't run off to go looking through sources available online). Somewhat more in the direction of drift, the thread on the incident was useful background for trying to follow and understand the Lufthansa diversion occurrence. Edit and slight correction: NTSB Incident Report, NTSB/AIR 18/01, PB2018-101561 (Sept. 25, 2018) does include information from the incident investigation interviews of the pilots (including several quotations) but to my knowledge the transcripts of interviews were not disclosed to the public. Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 1st April 2025 at 01:12 . Subjects
Close Calls
FAA
NTSB
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| Hot 'n' High
April 20, 2025, 21:30:00 GMT permalink Post: 11870704 |
....... Regrets: in my post trying to comment on Sailvi767's observation regarding the RJ crew having the best situational awareness, in retrospect I should have emphasized and explained what I meant by using the the word "imminent". The thread previously did clearly reference factors such as the inhibition of TAs and RAs at specified heights, and the TA alert. What seemed different in the post about the RJ crew's SA was what I, as only SLF/attorney, understood as the suggestion that a different crew with different mindset might have realized before the last second prior to impact that "erring on the side of caution" was the correct action to take. ...........
The baseline is that a TA on it's own is not enough and can even lead to issues if reacted to without knowing exactly where that contact is and what it is doing. You should, if you have the time (hence my comment re workload for the RJ crew at that point), try and get visual on the traffic but, tbh, it's very difficult to do, especially at low level at night against backlighting. You don't even really have time to "debate" a "shall we react (against SOP) to (yet another?) TCAS alert at DCA?" with all else that is going on at that point of a flight. SOP/Training says "fly on"! You need compelling evidence to go against that. I fact, IIR, the NTSB noted that the CRJ had full "up" elevator at the time of impact - that implies the crew finally saw the helo and reacted ..... but with no time to change their flight path. If you want to "do" the airline - I feel a much better case could be made based on the fact the evidence of issues for that approach at DCA was sat in the Safety Databases for anyone who went looking, that maybe even crews had raised the issue themselves through internal reporting in the Airline, and/or there was no process in place within the Airline to review operations into DCA - or any other airport. This is promoted by the FAA who state that "The [airline] SMS promotes a defined structure and a \x93learning culture\x94 within an aviation organization that continually seeks and analyzes information, then turns that information into action that eliminates or mitigates safety risks, before they become unwanted events.". The full ref is here. And that also applies equally to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority who I believe operate DCA as an independent organisation. How the MWAA fit in to US Government - I'm not sure! Anyway, hope this helps. Cheers, H 'n' H Subjects
CRJ
DCA
FAA
NTSB
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
TCAS RA
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| RatherBeFlying
April 21, 2025, 16:55:00 GMT permalink Post: 11871078 |
As earlier mentioned, TAs (Tower and TCAS) may among other incidents and excursions find their way into databases including ASIAS. Once the NTSB dug into the databases, it came up with a long history of losses of separation at a frequency that makes one wonder that such an accident hadn't happened earlier. I suspect that this is not solely a DCA problem.
But who should be watching the data for trends - individual regionals, individual majors, local military, local ATC, individual airport authorities, FAA, NTSB? Subjects
ATC
DCA
FAA
NTSB
Separation (ALL)
TCAS (All)
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| Hot 'n' High
April 21, 2025, 20:06:00 GMT permalink Post: 11871163 |
......... is promoted by the FAA who state that "The [airline or other aviation organisation] SMS promotes a defined structure and a \x93learning culture\x94 within an aviation organization that continually seeks and analyzes information, then turns that information into action that eliminates or mitigates safety risks, before they become unwanted events.". The full ref is
here.
........
Subjects
ATC
FAA
NTSB
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| galaxy flyer
April 21, 2025, 21:23:00 GMT permalink Post: 11871204 |
I know RAs are tracked in FOQA and forwarded to ASIAS. What the FAA or MITRE does with the data is unknown. GE Digital, who did our FOQA crunching had lots of data on the mid-air threat at Teterboro, so I assume data for else where is available. We briefed the mid-air threats for several airports, TEB and LA area at monthly safety meetings. Again, TAs were not recorded.
Subjects
FAA
TCAS RA
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| Hot 'n' High
April 21, 2025, 22:21:00 GMT permalink Post: 11871252 |
As you say
galaxy flyer
, it is down to the individual airline, airfield operator or other "deliverer" in the aviation world what they track and exactly how they do it. Most of my Safety stuff was in the Mil and a while back so I'm not sure what happens today. I did get an MSc out in Safety Engineering for one role I did!
But I'm out of date - tho in my last non-safety related Contract with a major Mil supplier, I was often approached by the Department Safety Officer once he learned of my "safety" past! He just liked to bounce ideas off me as someone with a past involvement!
The issue is that it can be all quite subjective. I'm not sure how prescriptive the likes of the FAA, CAA, EASA et al are when it comes to SMS's these days. Hopefully, such accidents such as this dreadful one cause all those involved to say "Are we doing all we could/should?". I know WR 6-3 naturally concentrates on the legal side - I tend to look to see where the best safety lessons can be learned, acknowledging that all costs \xa3/$/\x80/\xa5. What's that saying? "If you think Safety is expensive, you try having an accident!"!!!!! Subjects
FAA
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| galaxy flyer
April 22, 2025, 03:15:00 GMT permalink Post: 11871332 |
I\x92d add, the FAA and the airlines that operate at KDCA had the data on near-misses, RA\x92s. If the various safety managers pressed crews for reports on TAs, near-misses, ATC failures major or minor; and the FAA brought the stakeholder in a room, the problems would have been identified. Whether action would have been taken OR the risks were deemed acceptable due to no accidents, I cannot say. I suspect inertia would have overcome the group and nothing changed. It\x92s now blindingly obvious the risks that were accepted as either reasonable or just resigned to luck being a strategy.
Subjects
ATC
FAA
KDCA
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| BFSGrad
April 27, 2025, 17:19:00 GMT permalink Post: 11874462 |
This type of reporting does not serve aviation safety well. Apparently the editors at the NYT decided that, since nothing new had been reported about the DCA accident, it would be a good time to sweep together some of the facts currently known, add some informed speculation by \x93experts,\x94 and than \x93humanize\x94 the accident by adding photos and personal information about the people involved in the accident. Add in a bit of fact twisting and you have an article that will generate lots of clicks. One example: The article states, \x93the controller made a request that was permissible but atypical, according to the N.T.S.B. [5342 change from 1 to 33]. That last phrase \x93according to the NTSB\x94 is hyperlinked, with the linked document being the NTSB\x92s AIR-25-01 report. Does the NTSB report describe anything \x93atypical\x94 about changing to land on 33? No. In fact, the report makes this contrary statement: \x93Conducting northbound operations with simultaneous operations to runways 1 and 33 is a routine ATC procedure in compliance with FAA Order 7110.65BB.\x94 Even changing from 1 to 33 relatively late in the approach (which the NYT calls a \x93divert\x94), is routine for DCA. The evening of the accident, several aircraft operating both before and after 5342 were presented with this decision. One declined the switch to 33 and another specifically requeste d a change to 33. These decisions occurred after the aircraft had been handed off from PCT to the DCA LC and the aircraft were established inbound to runway 1. Subjects
ATC
DCA
FAA
NTSB
New York Times
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| RatherBeFlying
April 28, 2025, 17:01:00 GMT permalink Post: 11874923 |
"Incompetence" at many levels
Both crews were set up to fail. Considering the near monthly DCA conflicts between helos and fixed wing over a number of years, the surprise is that a midair didn't happen sooner. The data was accumulating, but nobody caught on in time. Not transmitting ADS-B Out in busy airspace and flying in that airspace with night vision goggles restricting view is a major factor. The lack of ADS-B In in the cockpits is another. Then there's the FAA approval of a helo route with inadequate vertical separation from the 33 approach slope along with a lack of ATC procedure to ensure positive separation between helos and aircraft on approach to 33.
Somehow I doubt that all those responsible for those lapses in oversight were female - quite possibly they were all male. Subjects
ADSB (All)
ADSB In
ADSB Out
ATC
DCA
FAA
Separation (ALL)
Vertical Separation
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| missy
April 29, 2025, 03:55:00 GMT permalink Post: 11875184 |
Both crews were set up to fail. Considering the near monthly DCA conflicts between helos and fixed wing over a number of years, the surprise is that a midair didn't happen sooner. The data was accumulating, but nobody caught on in time. Not transmitting ADS-B Out in busy airspace and flying in that airspace with night vision goggles restricting view is a major factor. The lack of ADS-B In in the cockpits is another. Then there's the FAA approval of a helo route with inadequate vertical separation from the 33 approach slope along with a lack of ATC procedure to ensure positive separation between helos and aircraft on approach to 33.
Somehow I doubt that all those responsible for those lapses in oversight were female - quite possibly they were all male. The CRJ didn't have ADS-B IN, and the ATC Surveillance system (radar) doesn't process the data. DM as required to convince me otherwise. Subjects
ADSB (All)
ADSB In
ADSB Out
ATC
CRJ
DCA
FAA
Radar
Separation (ALL)
Vertical Separation
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| LowObservable
April 29, 2025, 15:34:00 GMT permalink Post: 11875483 |
People here and DEI frothers everywhere need to be asking one question:
If this is about one pilot and one operation, and about a single error 15 seconds before a collision on Route 4, why does Route 5 remain almost completely shut down , and not by the FAA? I have 100% visual and audible on every Route 5 movement from The Lair, even if I'm not at my desk. Seen two operations since the accident. I suspect that the answer is this: someone reporting to DoD leadership, not Army aviation, came in, took one look at the ops and ops standards, screamed WHISKEY THE ALFA FOXTROT and observed that it was sheer blind luck the accident hadn't happened earlier, and possibly on the 15 approach with a dozen or so teenage soccer players added to the casualty list. Last edited by LowObservable; 29th April 2025 at 16:19 . Subjects
DEI
FAA
Route 4
Route 5
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| BFSGrad
April 29, 2025, 17:04:00 GMT permalink Post: 11875527 |
If Route 5 is not being used (and Route 4 is shutdown), how are military helicopters accessing JPN? Prior to the DCA accident, I don\x92t know that I\x92d ever seen a UH-60 out my way on Route 9 in nearly 3 decades. Now PAT UH-60s are almost a daily occurrence on Route 9 (saw/heard 4 yesterday). The ADW-based UH-1Ns are also flying Route 9 more frequently. I maintain the the DC helicopter routes (including Route 4) interior to the Beltway are not inherently unsafe if used with appropriate restrictions and ATC-applied separation. Subjects
DCA
FAA
Route 4
Route 5
Route 9
Separation (ALL)
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| BFSGrad
May 02, 2025, 18:47:00 GMT permalink Post: 11877325 |
Back in my post #1385, I briefly mentioned some new info that the NTSB provided at the 3/27 Senate hearing regarding the NTSB’s investigation of the functionality of the 12th AB UH-60 fleet ADS-B systems. Below is the full transcript of the NTSB’s relevant testimony:
NTSB: One thing I can say on ADS-B Out OFF that’s policy of the Army. We are still looking at installation, programming and potential for equipment malfunction, and the reason that I mention this is because, for this accident helicopter, no ADS-B data had been received from an FAA ground station for 730 days prior to the accident and that was abnormal.
NTSB: So we began looking at the fleet for the battalion [12th AB]. The battalion had 25 helicopters that includes this particular helicopter. Nine of them were Mike models and all were transmitting ADS-B Out when they were turned ON because we have to verify that it’s working. There were 16 Limas including the accident helicopter, which we’re still looking at. Seven were transmitting when ADS-B Out was turned ON; eight were not and stopped doing so something between May and November 2023. We don’t know why. Five of those started transmitting since the NTSB identified the issue and began working with the Army to try to isolate the reason. So I just want to let you know that you can have ADS-B Out ON but you have to also make sure that it’s working. Sen. Moran: You indicated working with the Army, but there’s other participants in this arena. Were you narrowing it to the Army? Is there something necessarily wrong there or is there a problem more broadly in receiving the information? NTSB: For the ADS-B Out we wanted to look at the helicopter fleet for the battalion to see whether ADS-B Out, when turned ON, was actually transmitting data because we did think it was abnormal that, for the helicopter involved in the accident, wasn’t transmitting data for so long. Subjects
ADSB (All)
ADSB Out
DCA
FAA
NTSB
Route 9
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| galaxy flyer
May 03, 2025, 23:08:00 GMT permalink Post: 11877987 |
Can someone explain to me the \x93Training value\x94 of flying in crowded airspace with ADS-B \x93OFF\x94.
A simple training brief \x93 Ok Bloggins\x85.in case of a real event we would, in order to fly covertly \x85when we get to [ Transponder / IFF / ADS -B ] in the checklist we would select [ OFF]. \x85.That would be these switches located here, here and here. Do you require training in how to move a switch to [ OFF ] ? Any questions?\x94 Would not, in the event of a emergency requiring the movement / evacuation of key personnel, the Washington Airspace be closed to civil traffic? During various ME contingencies, I was hailed on Guard by a US Navy warship inquiring on my Mode 4 code. He claimed it was the incorrect code based on his \x93secrets\x94. We verified our paperwork that it was correct for the time and day. Never resolved the discrepancy but I can understand how friendly fire works better. Subjects
ADSB (All)
FAA
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| ORAC
May 05, 2025, 07:49:00 GMT permalink Post: 11878586 |
Seems like neither the transportation secretary nor the FAA assistant administrator were briefed on the traffic pattern discussed above.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...rport-00325195 ‘Take a taxi or Uber’: Duffy blasts Defense Department after incident in DC airspace Subjects
FAA
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| LowObservable
May 05, 2025, 15:34:00 GMT permalink Post: 11878856 |
Seems like neither the transportation secretary nor the FAA assistant administrator were briefed on the traffic pattern discussed above.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...rport-00325195 \x91Take a taxi or Uber\x92: Duffy blasts Defense Department after incident in DC airspace But... Army says it was a training flight. Going off the charts twice on a training flight? At this time? Potential shenanigans detected. Subjects
FAA
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