Posts about: "Helicopter Working Group" [Posts: 2 Page: 1 of 1]¶

Originally Posted by WillowRun 6-3

"The NTSB determines that the probable cause of this accident was the FAA's placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path."

The PC statement should be read in its entirety, and at the conscious risk of ripe cliche, context matters. The Board did not assign the probable cause to the intersecting flight routes as such. For one thing, Chair Homendy repeatedly since the early days of the Board investigation has hammered upon the fact that the vertical separation was as little as 75 feet without any procedural separation (such as the helos holding at Haines Point). And also since the start of the investigation, time and again the complexity of the DCA airspace, and the (in my strident opinion) very messed up operation of DCA with regard to - as ATC staff testified - just "making it work", have been emphasized. Plus the refusal of FAA ATO to act upon the input from the helicopter working group several years ago, plus FAA's declining to note "hot spots" on charts. And the staffing issues, and lack of fidelity to SMS on the part of FAA and to some extent the Army as well. And there were, quite obviously, many findings of fact which are necessarily part of the context for reading . . . and understanding, the PC determination.

A person need not be an aeronautical engineer, airspace architect, or civilian or military aviator to understand from the get-go that intersecting flight paths might be found across the NAS. I'll stand to be corrected but I do not think - having watched the entirety of the hearing today - that the criticism of the Probable Cause finding is a valid, fair or accurate assessment of the Board's work in this investigation.
WillowRun 6-3