Posts about: "Pass Behind" [Posts: 111 Page: 2 of 6]¶

IFR, not VFR, the airliner is circling in VMC. This invalidates the following, with a lack of knowing the distict difference- that said, the conclusion is correct, it was bound to happen, the swiss cheese just had to align.

It's eerily similar to the P-63/B-17 midair- a blind collision that was instantly apparent how flawed the basic plan was, even though it had worked before.

What sudden right turn?

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do anything g wrong on purpose, there was o ly one airaft though out of place, a situation ONLY possible through an outdated and potentially dangerous procedure.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

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".

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.

Is there any audio suggesting the heli acknowledged the instruction to pass behind ?

it seems fairly obvious where the blame lies but more interesting is the systematic failures that lead to them being there .

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.

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...

Does it seem obvious where the blame lies? I don\x92t see a great deal of consensus here.

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 hindsight there are times I should have done that. Landing at KMTN I was told to land a little long and be easy on the brakes, they had C-310 traffic close behind. I should have gone around, but I didn't and landed my C-182 a little fast and long and just let it roll instead of braking. I thought the 310 would be like a quarter or half mile back, but when I looked out the back window there it was, rolling about 100 feet behind me
* I always taught my students to say UNABLE if they were unsure they could do something, but I honestly never thought through a scenario where X has you in sight and will pass behind where you decide you don't believe them. I maybe should have!

In the USA VFR at night is fine, there is no rule against it. Some maybe EU based posters here seem to equate VFR with no traffic services. Landing at any Class B you get separation services IFR or VFR. The helos running around at 200 feet is a very odd thing, I guess I never realized how odd until this crash.
I expect the current system will not last, at the very least they'll go back to a dedicated helicopter controller that could have devoted his full attention to vectoring the Black Hawk somewhere else. I expect an overloaded controller will mentally dump a helo pilot that says he sees the other traffic and will go behind it from his top worry if he has airplanes too to deal with as well.

That's because the military helicopter was on a different assigned frequency, per the protocols.
He acknowledged, the VASaviation stitch-up makes that clear.

But, it is a problem that other commercial traffic (including the CRJ) could only hear the LC's side of the radio traffic.
That will undoubtedly be surfaced in the report.

The world is not that black and white.
DCA, and others nornalize collision alerts in the background of a significant % of ATC transmssions.

TCAS RA heights show mandatory Day, VMC go arounds the day prior- but how close was the helicopter to the 737 not going around 2 minutes earlier the day prior, so low TCAS TA only height below 900' allows continuing?

You think the CRJ crew, below 500', rolling out of a left turn to 33 sees the helicopter to their right or even notices the TCAS TA display? Maybe it gets a glance IF the short final is wired. Problem is the Traffic aural is already expected in the airspace, same as hearing the ATC collision alarms in their transmission background.

There will be line of sight recreations in the reports. The CRJ will not have but a scant chance to have seen the PAT25, with caveats- the CVR has to be heard.

Pat25 likely had a 500 hour pic getting a checkride in the right, distant seat and the radio PM/1000 hour pilot in left seat, seeing only AAL3130 and trying to figure out how to pass behind, cognitive dissonance with what is seen..

3 seconds later, all ends.

James Reason, Diane Vaughan, NASA, et al...

In defence of the helo crew: operating in class B (VFR, IFR no matter), who could have expected that when LC asked them to spot the CRJ and pass behind, they would be already so terribly close and closing in rapidly.....

Indeed, and from what others have shown here, very easy for them to have focussed on the AA aircraft which was on approach to runway 1.

I was also a little surprised at the suggestion that the helicopter crew may have been using NVGs. Perhaps someone with knowledge of this sort of thing might comment? Would that be normal - it seems that on a fine bright night, in a busy tight environment, as well lit as it is NVGs would seriously add risk. Whjy not fly out normally then go to NVGs once out of the high intensity area? It sounds as if NVGs add flare, reduce SA and make scan much harder. I guess that is an acceptable trade of when dealing with typical military operations at night, but it rather surprises me they might be used in this emvironment.

Any comment or enlightenment welcomed !

What do you consider 'so terribly close'?

When the CRJ traffic was first called to the heli, and the heli acknowledged that they were visual, the CRJ looks to have been around 4NM south of the field.

NVGs probably aren't ideal in that environment and I haven't seen any factual statement that they were using them. Even if they were wearing them it doesn't mean they were actively using them (it is usually possible to lift them up out of the way). My only concern would be flying below 200ft, at night, across multiple bridges in an environment where there may be obstructions (not knowing the specifics of that portion of airspace). It may (or may not) have been advantageous to have one person using NVGs for ground collision avoidance, but it's a balancing act that depends on the conditions on the specific night.

You need to go further back in the ATC playbacks. The helicopter crew had previously reported visual contact with the CRJ and requested (yes - requested) and been given responsibility for visual separation. The exchange you are referring to is the one which followed the collision alert and the controller's subsequent questioning of the helicopter crew as to whether they really did have the CRJ in sight.