Posts by user "ATC Watcher" [Posts: 68 Total up-votes: 161 Page: 4 of 4]¶

Big speculation . Have you experience with an ADS-B-in CDTI display ? I have one in my glider . It is not a TCAS display , TCAS ( or FLARM in my case) display the altitude relative to you ( e,g + 13 ot - 5 ) while ADS-B gives the barometric altitude . (e.g 05 ) not that easy to differentiate and it takes a second or 2 make the mental calculations and ADS-B also does not give alerts , ( at least on the CDTIs I saw ) it is just displaying traffic , and in our case here all pilots in both aircrfat were looking outside at this point , not focusing on displays inside the cockpit ..My guess at least. So yes maybe it would have helped but am not so sure it would have made a difference in here .
Absolutely ! .and even more so at night

The 78 feet deviation by the Mil Heli is not the cause of this accident . I hope the lawyers during the trial do not focus on that and minimize the rest .

Bit of historical background : when designing this route decades ago they must have followed basic ICAO/ FAA principles . separation IFR-VFR is 500 feet . allowed deviation then was 100 ft either way , so even if one a/c is 100ft above and the other 100ft too low , there would still be 300 ft separation preventing a collision ,
When that was introduced decades ago I bet you a bottle of (real) Champagne that the procedure was use of that route 4 was restricted during RWY 33 arrivals and RWY 15 departures. It was one or the other but not both simultaneously .
How , when and why , over time , did it degraded to the point that this restriction could be disregarded would be interested to investigate and unveil . The why I think we know, i.e. enabling to move more and more traffic, but when and by who we don't. How and on who's pressure did the numerous previous incidents got disregarded is another question worth asking . Not why the Heli pilot was flying 78 ft too high .

Throwing the Heli pilot (and perhaps also the controller on duty) "under the bus" as you say in your country, would be so wrong as it would prevent getting to the truth and learn the real lessons of this accident .

Thanks WR-6-3 for the legal perspective , Extremely enlightening for a non-law savvy person like me .I like the " hot dog-warm puppy" analogy between a trial and the truth . Looking forward to the actual trial and your comments on it when the day will come .
@ IgnorantAndroid : I am aware of that as this is what the controllers hang on to since the beginning , since they were trained like that and thought they were just following the rules . . However we are a safety business ,. It is not because it is legal than it is safe

Which safety assessment was made and validated ( and by who) which allowed visual separation for an helicopter at 200ft to pass below the approach path of an aircrfat at 3 or 400 feet ?, resulting in a 100-200ft separation ?
That is the question I would be asking first.
How about which actions were taken after the previous incidents , and possibly acting on the normalization of deviance , would be the next .

From the Ops group :
The key words are " potential mandate " and " by 2031 , so as we say in French :this is more to "amuse the gallery "( i.e. please the onlookers , appearing to do something ) than to address a safety issue .

You mean no SA was made because this scenario was not even considered ? That makes things worse for the FAA if this local "visual " procedure was written down somewhere or even just tolerated , because as I understood, it was standard practice .I am not sure if you know how safety assessments are made , but you must consider every possible scenario when designing procedures.


From a European / EASA perspective :
Re the "Lateral separation" you mention : in that scenario so close to the Runway threshold it would mean only a left turn is possible, i.e. away from the thresholds of both runways , it would mean flying over build up areas , and doing so at 200ft above buildings with possible antennas on top , etc.. ,not really safe , and definitively not at night . As to \x93pass behind\x94 , the standard wake turbulence separation criteria would not be met , especially passing behind/below and I would not even try that at 200ft under a large jet..

So , applying standard safety assessment criteria , allowing visual separation to aircraft on that route, even less at night where danger of mis identification is increased . would definitively not be considered \x93 Safe\x94 .

During the interviews, one Heli pilot from that same group ,mentioned that asking for visual separation was a routine request , even if you did not see the traffic at time of the request . That fact alone, if really proven to be systematically the case , would also add to the normalization of deviance case and put full responsibility on the regulator, not the pilots

Indeed but Visual Flight rules (VFR) and visual separations are two very different things . Visual separation can be ( and are) locally restricted , and even Airlines restricted ( think Lufthansa and the SFO incident) . My point is , with hindsight of course, that here, in this route in DCA it should have been restricted , even more so at night..

That is why you have a controller and procedures in place If the procedure says no simultaneous use, no traffic needs to be passed and no request for visual made , unless you allow the normalization of deviance
When you say FAA you mean the regulator right ? because here we have the service provider ( making the local procedures) and the Regulator certifying them being the same entity The "regulator " part should make a safety assessment of the procedures and approve them . In this case they were not safe , and, as I said earlier , especially after the numerous incidents a local restriction should have been in place : no visual separation allowed on those portions of the airspace , or no simultaneous use of that portion of the route when 15/33 is in use.

I strongly suspect this is what will come up anyway in the NTSB report .

Oh Boy , that is not going to go down well in the ATC community , , throwing the individual controller under the bus , as was feared , and no mention of this "best practice" used and enforced well before this particular controller came to work in that facility and on which he was trained on , . Just throwing the FAA regulations "Federal order " book at him ?
If this will be In my country , there will be an immediate call for " work to rules " in that airport .," I know it is illegal in the US to call for that , but it starts to look like we are going back to 1981, building another perfect storm ..

Yes , there was a choice : recognizing the procedures were flawed , the Helo i routes map was unsafe , the local training and local way of working were not following the "order" for decades and for the FAA to take the blame for all this , not singling out the operators of those local procedures. It is a systemic failure , not an individual controller error.
Then : At 300 ft on short final ??? same BS. I will not be surprised if they will also be carrying part of the blame in the end for accepting a non previously briefed visual APP as per their SOPs. How many hundred times this side step procedure was made to avoid delays will likely bear zero bearing in the end. .