Posts about: "New York Times" [Posts: 15 Page: 1 of 1]¶

I don't see anyone has posted this yet, per NYT live news page.
"Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.

This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and can complicate the job. One reason is that the controllers can use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.Like most of the country’s air traffic control facilities, the tower at Reagan airport has been understaffed for years. The tower there was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels. The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers’ union call for 30.

The shortage — caused by years of employee turnover and tight budgets, among other factors — has forced many controllers to work up to six days a week and 10 hours a day."

Everyone seems to have missed this earlier post. Please take this into consideration before bashing the controller.

The NYT link should work. It shows the helicopter v. Airplane traffic for the week (!) prior. There’s is no way in heck, that much helicopter traffic needs to be integrated with air carrier traffic. The govt hasn’t been in danger of continuity challenges in decades.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ane-crash.html

NYT has attempted a reconstruction of the visual picture from the Blackhawk at the time of the first traffic alert, with the CRJ just south of Wilson Bridge.
They could only later identify the correct light spot by following its trajectory according to their mental image of the approach to 33.

The original NYT article thanks to the Internet Archive (archive.org) .

Thanks for the picture. So three possible light blobs very close together AA5307 (short of landing), AA5342 (the CRJ), AA3130 (which was picked by PAl25 as conflict)

Regarding to the Pavlovian - if PAL25 wouldnt have requested 'visual separation', what "punishment" would they expect from the Tower? Orbit(s)? Vectors? Or somethin wild, considering 200/300' altitude limits along the river and buildings/infrastructure left and right (what diameter would an orbit cost with a Blackhawk, is it feasible over black water at 200')? Therefore I am asking - would a non-request of a 'visual separation' mean major complications to such a helicopter at night? That as well would then be a significant flaw in the design.

+1
I think many pilots would have made a mistake indentifying : seen from the helo, there are 3 aircraft in final, plus 1 on take-off, at the same bearing, how can you tell for sure which is the one "just south of Wilson Bridge" ?

This simulation, if correct, is harrowing. The accident aircraft is actually almost superimposed over the following aircraft AA3130 at exactly the time of the tower's first notification of traffic to the helicopter. The helicopter's response is so quick, so reflexive. Then when the second notification is received, even though PAT25 knows he has just asked for visual separation and been granted he asks again, further suggestion that this is reflexive behavior.

At the same time the accident aircraft peels off to the right to swing around and line up to 33, thus taking his (smaller) lights out of the helicopter's direct line of vision and leaving 3130's (brighter) lights still heading to 01 to decoy the pilot. The reflexive nature of the helicopter's responses suggest to me that the full implication of 'circling to 33' in the tower's first call was missed, and also sort of implies that the helicopter could not conceive that following (nearly) the published heliroute could lead him into conflict with an aircraft on final. Me neither.

I'd push the expiry date of that one out a little.

I think most of the visual presentations made on this forum and elsewhere, are to be taken more as an artist impression, rather than a scientific fact.
For the first NYT simulated helicopter view, there was (is) no reliable/precise tack info publicly available, the MLAT track that has been overly (ab)used, is a very rough indication only. And the planned Route1->4 transition trajectory is a curved one, anyway.

But it was a good attempt to provide a visualization of what the UH60 pilots were (most likely) confronted with, and a very good attempt at countering public reactions as " how can you miss a landing airliner on a clear night "

Read the linked NYT article and I didn\x92t learn any \x93new details,\x94 at least any details relevant to the accident investigation. What I did learn is that the NYT discovered the accident LC\x92s name and decided to badger him for an interview, which he appropriately declined.

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.

Is your compulsion to \x93call out the incompetence of this young female pilot\x94 driven by something in the linked NYT article or something else?

I\x92ll make an assumption that this is the paragraph in the NYT article that you find compelling:

How did the NYT reach such a conclusion? The only authoritative source of what was said between the Blackhawk pilot and IP is (at this point) the NTSB preliminary report, and that was a summary, not a transcription. Here\x92s what that report stated:

From that NTSB statement is it reasonable to conclude that the IP issued a \x93directive\x94 to change course and that the pilot did not comply with said directive (which may or may not have been issued) to change course?

This is the danger of this type of sloppy media reporting.

Looks like the UKs Daily Mail, using the NYT as their source, has sadly gone in (to use a soccer analogy) both feet first, studs up on Captain Lobach in this morning.

\x85and no I\x92m not posting a link.

Yeah, more than 3000 comments on the UK Daily Mail article in less than 12 hours, plenty of readers prepared to pile on, and quickly.

Well, isn't that razor-sharp, incisive, accident cause analysis?

1. So if an "intolerable risk" is identified by the NTSB Chair, your view is that nonethless the pilot flying the helicopter necessarily was incompetent when that risk finally reached occurrence? The Swiss Cheese model requires accounting for all the holes in the block first of all existing somewhere, and then enough of them lining up - but not necessarily all of the holes lining up. The pilot might have been fully competent and might not have been - but the intolerable risk present in the airspace design makes it necessary to know a lot more relevant facts in the record to supoort a logical conclusion.

Or perhaps you'll next assert that Chair Homendy is just covering for DEI.

2. Any second-year associate in a firm of more than three lawyers who has done nothing more than watch five depositions would raiload your argument to the extent it is based on the NYT's twisting of the summary of the CVR about turning left. Directive? Among other things, if the pilot flying was being "directed" then to the extent there is responsibility, it has to be mutual.

3. Whenever I read pieces like the one published in the NYT I wonder if one of the reporters has a close friend working on one of the lawsuits and is just trying to shape public opinion. Even if that speculation is merely a cheap shot, I didn't read anything in the piece which changed the level of "complexity" of the accident. Perhaps it was deeply hidden and required more reading between the lines. Regardless, its publication is a sorry excuse to jump far ahead of the investigations.

((Long pause.....))
1. Facts. The NYT does report the House passed its version of the NDAA. The NYT further reports that the provision at issue does "not appear in the Senate version" of the NDAA which the upper chamber previously passed. Though I have not worked on any Capitol Hill staff, it still is safe to say that there will be a conference between the two bodies to iron out a final version acceptable to majorities in both chambers.
NOTE: the NYT also reports the strong objections of the aviation sector leadership in the Senate, on an actually bipartisan basis. This includes the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee (Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), respectively, and the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee's Aviation Subcommittee (Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D.-Illinois)). Doubtless few need to be reminded that Senator Duckworth, currently the Land of Lincoln's junior United States Senator, flew helicopters in the United States Army in armed conflict and actual combat during which she was severely wounded. I don't want to get bumped into blasting jets but I don't see the provision at issue as a wise legislative manuever or that it is wise to make Sen. Duckworth really angry about an aspect of helicopter operations in Washington, D.C. airspace.

Further, NTSB Chair Homendy, per the NYT: "Nobody actually knows what a commercial aviation compatibility risk assessment is". She also reportedly noted that the legislative measure does not task this assessment, whatever it might be intended to cover or what process it might be intended to utilize, to the FAA. Designation of a service secretary and the Secretary of Transportation as authority for issuing the pertinent waiver is not the same thing as tasking the process to FAA, first, as a strictly legal and legislative matter, and second, as a fact of life in the interagency.

2. Interpretation. Cynically, one could assert that this provision is another instance of the drive toward almost unlimited or, as a practical matter, effectively unlimited executive power.

Presumptuously, one could instead assert that somewhere deep inside the national security or intelligence bureaucracy, there is some as yet undisclosed risk or development which requires the Army or any other service to operate helicopter flights in a manner the same or very similar to the procedures allowed prior to the accident.

It may be poor form to transfer the phrase from its original context, but I think the provision at issue produces shock and awe, except that the awe is in the nature of disgust.