January 30, 2025, 09:18:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817034
Putting humans in situations where failing to notice something results in catastrophic consequences is bad engineering, not human error. I am very glad that no-one is pointing at one, or either, pilot or flight-crew's actions or inactions and saying pilot/human error.
The human visual system is good at picking up movement across the visual field. As other have pointed out, if the two aircraft were on intersecting vectors, there would be no relative movement to be picked up. Bright(er) lights don't help: if anything, they make it harder to make out the source from the background, as the bright light makes the local background look like a uniform dark field.
From a 'human factors' point of view, if you have an incorrect situational awareness model in your consciousness, it is difficult to remain flexible enough to recognise you might be wrong - misidentifying the next in sequence, AAL3130, landing runway 1, as the CRJ (IF that is what happened) is hard to recover from.
We should not blame the flight-crews. We should not engineer them into situations where incorrect interpretation of what were likely inputs that were easy to interpret in more than one way become catastrophic. The problem is not restricted to air-navigation. One of the many reasons Norway lost the frigate Helge Ingstad in a collision was misidentification of a moving object (a brightly lit oil tanker) as a stationary object (an oil terminal), and incorrectly ascribing radio transmissions as coming from other moving ships in the vicinity,
We should look at how to engineer things better to avoid this happening: this does not mean 'more training', 'brighter lights', or putting additional human-operated steps in already complex procedures.
The human visual system is good at picking up movement across the visual field. As other have pointed out, if the two aircraft were on intersecting vectors, there would be no relative movement to be picked up. Bright(er) lights don't help: if anything, they make it harder to make out the source from the background, as the bright light makes the local background look like a uniform dark field.
From a 'human factors' point of view, if you have an incorrect situational awareness model in your consciousness, it is difficult to remain flexible enough to recognise you might be wrong - misidentifying the next in sequence, AAL3130, landing runway 1, as the CRJ (IF that is what happened) is hard to recover from.
We should not blame the flight-crews. We should not engineer them into situations where incorrect interpretation of what were likely inputs that were easy to interpret in more than one way become catastrophic. The problem is not restricted to air-navigation. One of the many reasons Norway lost the frigate Helge Ingstad in a collision was misidentification of a moving object (a brightly lit oil tanker) as a stationary object (an oil terminal), and incorrectly ascribing radio transmissions as coming from other moving ships in the vicinity,
The personnel on the bridge of
Helge Ingstad
both before and after the change of watch 20 minutes before the accident were of the opinion that the lights they saw from
Sola TS
were from a stationary object in connection with the
Sture Terminal
, and not from an oncoming ship. Contrary to the
International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea
,
[60]
"Sola TS" had the same deck lights on after the ship left as when they were still at the terminal. The personnel on the bridge of
Helge Ingstad
were of the opinion that the radio call just before the accident was from one of the three other oncoming ships.
Subjects
CRJ
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 10:10:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817083
Frequencies in use. It is not clear to me if everyone was on the tower frequency.
I suspect possibly not.
We also have a VHF helicopter TAC and UHF Mil Aero frequencies possible..
Can this lead to less information or SA, perhaps.
I suspect possibly not.
We also have a VHF helicopter TAC and UHF Mil Aero frequencies possible..
Can this lead to less information or SA, perhaps.
Subjects
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 10:18:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817090
I had a very nasty encounter at V1 with an underslung shipping container dangling below a USN CH53 that was masked by a dust cloud.
He had been cleared to depart 5 minutes previously on the MIL frequency, but used those minutes stabilising his load.
Meanwhile, unaware of this, the civilian tower frequency cleared us for takeoff.
It was not pretty.
Subjects
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 17:22:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817431
Condolences to the families of the victims - the lives of many changed forever in an instant.
In my opinion, there are way too many issues that contributed to this horrific incident.
An outdated airport that exists primarily for the benefit of the governing class. Seriously, take a few minutes to look at the approach plates - a circle to land approach to rwy 33, 5,200 ft, at night - really??
A video I watched this morning described the government priority parking spaces, special hotline to the airlines to hold planes for last minute departing bureaucrats. As noted above, for several years the destinations from KDCA were tightly controlled to limit the number of operations, yet this has been compromised by bureaucrats utilizing special privileges to lobby airlines to obtain direct flights to their home cities. After all, it\x92s a far longer drive to KIAD.
Apparently there was some talk years ago to utilize KADW, which is also close to the center of government as a replacement to KDCA, but the neighborhood didn\x92t want the noise.
I think the fact the helo was communicating with the KDCA tower on UHF, (SOP in that area) complicates the SA of all involved. Use of the NVG in the helo with a crew of 3 restricted the SA of the crew. An additional crew member on the helo may have helped.
As mentioned, USA ATC hasn\x92t been up to the usual standards but have some empathy for these folks as staffing levels have significantly degraded and they are being asked to do more with less and I think all aircrew operating in the US are aware of this.
Trumps press conference never should have involved the political aspect, it really degrades the message to the victims families. This is an opportunity to fix the problems in the system, invest money in upgrading staffing levels and equipment and changing poor practices that have been accepted into the norm.
In my opinion, there are way too many issues that contributed to this horrific incident.
An outdated airport that exists primarily for the benefit of the governing class. Seriously, take a few minutes to look at the approach plates - a circle to land approach to rwy 33, 5,200 ft, at night - really??
A video I watched this morning described the government priority parking spaces, special hotline to the airlines to hold planes for last minute departing bureaucrats. As noted above, for several years the destinations from KDCA were tightly controlled to limit the number of operations, yet this has been compromised by bureaucrats utilizing special privileges to lobby airlines to obtain direct flights to their home cities. After all, it\x92s a far longer drive to KIAD.
Apparently there was some talk years ago to utilize KADW, which is also close to the center of government as a replacement to KDCA, but the neighborhood didn\x92t want the noise.
I think the fact the helo was communicating with the KDCA tower on UHF, (SOP in that area) complicates the SA of all involved. Use of the NVG in the helo with a crew of 3 restricted the SA of the crew. An additional crew member on the helo may have helped.
As mentioned, USA ATC hasn\x92t been up to the usual standards but have some empathy for these folks as staffing levels have significantly degraded and they are being asked to do more with less and I think all aircrew operating in the US are aware of this.
Trumps press conference never should have involved the political aspect, it really degrades the message to the victims families. This is an opportunity to fix the problems in the system, invest money in upgrading staffing levels and equipment and changing poor practices that have been accepted into the norm.
Subjects
ATC
Circle to Land (Deviate to RWY 33)
KDCA
Night Vision Goggles (NVG)
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 20:39:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817633
Comms
Since the Blackhawk pilot was on a different (military) band is it possible he thought AA5342 was landing on 1, not 33?
He may have missed the landing permission to 33 for 5342, even as he lost SA being focused on a plane further out on approach to 1.
He clearly heard the instructions of the LC and responded to the LC, but was badly out of position WRT the approach to 33.
The recreation makes it appear that he was staying parallel to the 1 approach, probably waiting for the "next in line", the landing lights he probably was fixated on.
He may have missed the landing permission to 33 for 5342, even as he lost SA being focused on a plane further out on approach to 1.
He clearly heard the instructions of the LC and responded to the LC, but was badly out of position WRT the approach to 33.
The recreation makes it appear that he was staying parallel to the 1 approach, probably waiting for the "next in line", the landing lights he probably was fixated on.
Subjects
AA5342
Blackhawk (H-60)
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 21:42:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817677
Since the Blackhawk pilot was on a different (military) band is it possible he thought AA5342 was landing on 1, not 33?
He may have missed the landing permission to 33 for 5342, even as he lost SA being focused on a plane further out on approach to 1.
He clearly heard the instructions of the LC and responded to the LC, but was badly out of position WRT the approach to 33.
The recreation makes it appear that he was staying parallel to the 1 approach, probably waiting for the "next in line", the landing lights he probably was fixated on.
He may have missed the landing permission to 33 for 5342, even as he lost SA being focused on a plane further out on approach to 1.
He clearly heard the instructions of the LC and responded to the LC, but was badly out of position WRT the approach to 33.
The recreation makes it appear that he was staying parallel to the 1 approach, probably waiting for the "next in line", the landing lights he probably was fixated on.
Subjects
AA5342
Blackhawk (H-60)
Situational Awareness
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January 30, 2025, 22:19:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817705
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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January 30, 2025, 22:35:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817716
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
CRJ
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Separation (ALL)
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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January 30, 2025, 23:24:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817756
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
"Radar useless as the aircraft are too low." - It seems there's valid radar returns from both aircraft. the FAA has a good diagram of the Potomac TRACON radar sites, about 10 different radars, and having visited the TRACON several times, they readily explain there's another nearly facility that is a duplicate of their radar feed, but for national security. I assume there's coverage till the river service for security to prevent someone from sneaking up the river with bad ideas
"Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. " - I fly in the area and in my experience everyone is on the same VHF, they might be also duped to UHF and can hear everybody on my handheld. You hear AF-1 all the time on freq.
"The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic" - Most of the area NE of the airfield in a prohibited area, and there's a lot of military installations within 5 miles of DC that they are shuttling around, so that path seems perfectly acceptable given the numerous constraints. there's nothing wrong with a helo corridor as long as you stay within it and maintain the prescribed altitude. Also, it's not like KDCA is some secret place, the flight paths are pretty well known if that's where you work. It's popular to sit in parks on both ends and watch the planes, there's literally millions of local people that know exactly the planes are coming and going on both directions. so if you're a helo there, you know where the hot spots are. Likewise, its not just any helo in that area, everyone is vetted, fingerprinted in the inner FRZ.
" on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone" - The UH-60 was not going to DCA, the assumption was it was using the helo route 4 corridor. All the UH-60Ls I've seen have full glass with moving map and I'm assuming a magenta line for the helo corridor.
Fun Fact - Calling it "Reagan" will get you tarred and feathered in the area. Folks refuse to utter the name and for years (decades) the Metro refused to rename the station until legally forced.
Last edited by Senior Pilot; 31st January 2025 at 00:05 . Reason: Prescribed/proscribed
Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
DCA
FAA
Hot Spots
IFR
KDCA
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Route 4
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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January 31, 2025, 01:18:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817827
OK so what's your interpretation of the rules here then?
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
The airliner is under IFR rules on its flight plan until it gets changed to a different runway, when it's then VFR.
The chopper is under VFR, stooging along a river at 200 ft and avoiding traffic on approach to Reagan by visual clues alone.
Radar useless as the aircraft are too low.
Airliner TCAS useless as inhibited, even if it can decode the military transponder's data.
Radio situational awareness compromised as chopper on UHF, airliner on VHF. So each aircraft can neither hear the other nor the ATC instructions to that aircraft.
It's difficult to see aircraft at night against a backdrop of a city with thousands of lights. And when you're gonna hit something, as others have said, that light doesn't move relative to you, so you don't notice it - it just blends into the background lights.
It only takes the chopper to misidentify the aircraft it's supposed to go behind and to therefore turn into the path of the airliner it was supposed to avoid - draw the map with the vectors and it all makes sense. These two aircraft ended up in the Potomac, but they could have ended up in much worse places in terms of loss of life on the ground.
Seems to me it's been an accident waiting to happen for some time.
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.
Subjects
ATC
Accident Waiting to Happen
IFR
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Radar
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
VFR
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January 31, 2025, 01:37:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817836
I've seen plenty of mention of VHF / UHF mix in the thread. Does DCA have the ability to cross couple their frequencies? This helps immensely in maintaining situational awareness for the crews, and also helps preventing two transmissions at once.
Subjects
DCA
Situational Awareness
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January 31, 2025, 03:37:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817886
Last edited by Senior Pilot; 31st January 2025 at 06:37 . Reason: Remove political diatribe: what part of ‘No Politics in this thread’ didn’t you understand?
Subjects
ATC
Situational Awareness
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January 31, 2025, 05:18:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817928
Of course, this BlackHawk might be different. I don't know if it had UHF or VHF communication or perhaps both; however, quite a few reports claim that the helo was communicating on UHF so that both the RJ and the helo could hear the same controller, but they couldn't hear each other. That is quite common in my experience, but that is not to say that it's a good thing since it has the potential to reduce situational awareness.
Subjects
ATC
Blackhawk (H-60)
Situational Awareness
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January 31, 2025, 12:24:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818163
I fully agree with
Return_2_Stand
To ask somebody if he is visual with a specific aircraft type at night is almost worthy of a Monty Python sketch.
I am old, but 20 years ago - that type of question would be more like:
- "..confirm you are visual with the aircraft at your 12'o clock - 1 Nautical Mile - same altitude - heading your way...." or
- " ..confirm you have traffic on 1 mile final Rwy 33 in sight"
So they will probably crucify the heli pilot or the controller or both.
But in reality these guys had one leg in the grave and the other one in prison, operating in this area under the procedures that were proposed and agreed by the authorities.
To ask somebody if he is visual with a specific aircraft type at night is almost worthy of a Monty Python sketch.
I am old, but 20 years ago - that type of question would be more like:
- "..confirm you are visual with the aircraft at your 12'o clock - 1 Nautical Mile - same altitude - heading your way...." or
- " ..confirm you have traffic on 1 mile final Rwy 33 in sight"
So they will probably crucify the heli pilot or the controller or both.
But in reality these guys had one leg in the grave and the other one in prison, operating in this area under the procedures that were proposed and agreed by the authorities.
Subjects
ATC
CRJ
Hover
Situational Awareness
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January 31, 2025, 13:31:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818201
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?
.....
.....
Last edited by Jetstream67; 31st January 2025 at 13:37 . Reason: clarity
Subjects
ATC
CRJ
Separation (ALL)
Situational Awareness
Visual Separation
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January 31, 2025, 15:37:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818300
His first video had responses from the helo, just not all of them... The civ ATC is sending to the helo on VHF and receiving on UHF? Is that mentioned anywhere on the VAS Aviation channel? Because the LiveATC recordings page has clips which include all the audio with no mention of splices being made.
Cross-coupling, whereby aircraft transmissions are re-broadcast on the other frequency being used is a mandatory requirement at civil ATC units in UK. This being done to facilitate situational awareness of other traffic by all crews.
Subjects
ATC
Situational Awareness
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January 31, 2025, 15:55:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818313
Which could indicate that the controller was simultaneously transmitting on two frequencies (VHF+UHF) and the frequencies were not cross-coupled, resulting in the traffic on VHF not being able to hear the traffic on UHF, and vice-versa.
Cross-coupling, whereby aircraft transmissions are re-broadcast on the other frequency being used is a mandatory requirement at civil ATC units in UK. This being done to facilitate situational awareness of other traffic by all crews.
Cross-coupling, whereby aircraft transmissions are re-broadcast on the other frequency being used is a mandatory requirement at civil ATC units in UK. This being done to facilitate situational awareness of other traffic by all crews.
Subjects
ATC
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
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January 31, 2025, 17:45:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818407
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 !
Subjects
CRJ
IFR
Night Vision Goggles (NVG)
Pass Behind
Pass Behind (All)
Situational Awareness
VFR
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February 01, 2025, 14:45:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11819065
Which could indicate that the controller was simultaneously transmitting on two frequencies (VHF+UHF) and the frequencies were not cross-coupled, resulting in the traffic on VHF not being able to hear the traffic on UHF, and vice-versa.
Cross-coupling, whereby aircraft transmissions are re-broadcast on the other frequency being used is a mandatory requirement at civil ATC units in UK. This being done to facilitate situational awareness of other traffic by all crews.
Cross-coupling, whereby aircraft transmissions are re-broadcast on the other frequency being used is a mandatory requirement at civil ATC units in UK. This being done to facilitate situational awareness of other traffic by all crews.
It\x92s pretty common in Canada, both at Tower and enroute IFR sectors.
It\x92s not just for situational awareness, also to prevent overlapping transmissions from aircraft on the two frequencies. So you don\x92t have to try to listen to both as the controller.
Even without that the controllers here almost always transmit on all their frequencies rather than just the one the aircraft is on.
Subjects
ATC
IFR
Situational Awareness
TCAS (All)
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February 02, 2025, 03:33:00 GMT
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I’m not in job of defending the US system, but there needs to be some perspective. The US airspace operates about 40%-50% of all global aviation. Only half of daily flights are air carrier. For lot of reasons outside this discussion, air carriers are the default transport, trains and buses are a tiny fraction of long distance transport. Apply EASA aviation standards and the US network would grind to halt or create huge gaps in service. We’ve gone 16 years without a fatal US carrier major accident, which isn’t different than the rest of the world, especially when the US has a 50% share. Our economy would suffer greatly and passengers revolt at what would required.
All that said, the plan for DCA, particularly the helicopter ops, were hazardous in the extreme. The Route 4/33 operations is just plain dangerous, nothing less. The politics of DCA are going to drive a band-aid fix is my prediction. Visual separation won’t go away. FAA will get crucified over manning. DCA may lose some significant service, if we closed 33 permanently. If I read the NOTAM correctly, closing 4 and 33, the pain will become known, interestingly, I read elsewhere that the helicopter altitudes were raised to 200’ in 2023 due to noise complaints.
All that said, the plan for DCA, particularly the helicopter ops, were hazardous in the extreme. The Route 4/33 operations is just plain dangerous, nothing less. The politics of DCA are going to drive a band-aid fix is my prediction. Visual separation won’t go away. FAA will get crucified over manning. DCA may lose some significant service, if we closed 33 permanently. If I read the NOTAM correctly, closing 4 and 33, the pain will become known, interestingly, I read elsewhere that the helicopter altitudes were raised to 200’ in 2023 due to noise complaints.
And yes, trying to do EU IFR for everything all the time would create some epic traffic jams.
* IMHO they need the dedicated helicopter controller on at ALL times the helicopters are flying and they need to be held for crossing traffic. They also all need ADS-B, no private pilot that wasn't totally skint would be running around with the lack of situational awareness the helos seem to have in an area like that.
Subjects
ADSB (All)
ATC
DCA
FAA
IFR
Separation (ALL)
Situational Awareness
Visual Separation
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