Lascaille Page: 1 of 1

Lascaille
January 30, 2025, 15:44:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817336

Because presumably military helicopters are sometimes going to do what they need to do and may not be able to check in with ATC.

Providing a conflict-free path for them to do that is the most consistent solution.

However the ultimate issue is traffic density, and the control workarounds (that have been discussed at great length upthread) that the US has normalised to shoehorn huge movement numbers into tiny spaces.

This is probably one of those situations where there should be a military/very limited commercial use airport in the current location and the 'real' airport should be hanging off the end of a high-speed rail line about 50 miles away q.v. Hong Kong.

Subjects ATC

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Lascaille
January 30, 2025, 15:54:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11817351

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veteran

Why do so many recent air crashes involve "highly experienced" crews that are on training flights? Too much emphasis on what's happening inside the cockpit, and not enough concentration on what's happening outside?

Training flights are always accident prone. Either you're training something new and cockpit workload is increased and less attention is given to normal procedures, or you're conducting remedial training in which case a concern was already raised. Then there's the CRM concerns and anxiety/supervision factor, people perform more inconsistently under unusual circumstances or supervision, etc etc etc.

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
January 31, 2025, 12:07:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818151

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoWest

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.

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...

Subjects CRJ PAT25 Pass Behind Pass Behind (All) Pass Behind (PAT25) Separation (ALL) Visual Separation

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Lascaille
January 31, 2025, 13:14:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818191

Quote:

Originally Posted by skwdenyer

Does it seem obvious where the blame lies? I don’t see a great deal of consensus here.

The airspace procedures are to blame, you have an inherent conflict / near miss scenario where a helo route almost perfectly intersects an approach and a very minimal altitude differential (~150ft between the helo route ceiling and approximate altitude of the approach path at the intersection point) ensures separation.

I doubt the helo pilot deliberately flew into the jet so he must have had something in sight and was confident he was avoiding it. Arguably they're more to blame as their movement is less constrained than the jet (in transit vs landing, plus inherent maneuverability characteristics of their aircraft.)

Assigning blame is rarely helpful though. Especially to the deceased.

Subjects Close Calls Separation (ALL)

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Lascaille
January 31, 2025, 14:49:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818266

Quote:

Originally Posted by slfool

I've heard conflicting reports about whether the collision was head on, or the helicopter hit the RHS, do we know which it was? I'm asking because there's also been comments about the difficulty of picking out lights from an aircraft that's approaching head on against a background of city lights.

Based on the videos there should have been no difficulty picking out the lights of the CRJ, the helo is approaching it not quite head-on but definitely in the right front quadrant. And the CRJ is above all the city lights.

It is genuinely odd how they flew directly into this thing which must literally have been lighting up the interior of their cockpit. Also, why were they above the 200ft route ceiling?

(Still from the video referenced above by ORAC.)

Helo on the left

Subjects CRJ

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Lascaille
January 31, 2025, 14:56:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818271

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50

Since that Black Hawk Battalion does VIP flights in the DC area a lot, I seriously doubt that they do not have VHF radios equipped.

They're audible on the ATC radio transcript ergo of course they are equipped with (and are using) standard VHF radios to communicate with civ ATC and are audible to other aircraft. Unless you think someone's spliced different radio channels together to make a youtube video. Which is, you know, a reach.

Noticed a few 'they weren't using standard radio frequencies' comments upstream of this.

Let's fix in our minds that they were clearly audible on the civilian ATC frequency and routinely communicating with civilian ATC - to avoid being misled.

Subjects ATC Blackhawk (H-60)

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Lascaille
January 31, 2025, 15:15:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818283

Quote:

Originally Posted by kap'n krunch

My understanding is the helo involved was UHF and that the audio presented on various internet sites was manually combined with the normal Live ATC VHF communications.

What's your source on that?

You're suggesting that the civilian ATC controller was talking to the helo on UHF and separately talking to the civ traffic on VHF?

Because it's clearly the same controller voice. What's the published UHF frequency for the civ traffic controller to use?

Quote:

Originally Posted by adnoid

That is exactly what VAS Aviation did for the SECOND Youtube video - spliced together the VHF and UHF recordings. His first video only had the VHF.

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.

Subjects ATC

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Lascaille
February 01, 2025, 07:11:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11818819

Quote:

Originally Posted by SASless

Continuity of Government helicopter flight operations have been on-going since the days of piston powered helicopters such as the H-21 and H-34 beginning as seen necessary during the Cold War.

The mission continues till today and shall continue as it is an essential national security concern.

https://whitehouse.gov1.info/continuity-plan/

It's worth remembering that legitimate government websites end in .gov and that - anyone can buy a .info domain and a site such as this is almost certainly not anything official. Regardless of what it says or claims to be.

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
February 01, 2025, 14:16:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11819056

Quote:

Originally Posted by YRP

Many of the liveatc.net feeds do in fact monitor more than one frequency. So there are overlaps and missed traffic.

That’s why using their recordings leads to comments on pprune that the controller was cut off or didn’t say something or the aircraft didn’t acknowledge. It can be just the scanner not picking it up, because it focuses on one transmission at a time.

That’s not to comment on whether they had VHF or not.

I guess - as the culprit here - I should clarify that I was wrong; both the VASAviation youtube video and the LiveATC recordings were two different radio channels spliced together, the helo was transmitting on a separate frequency.

The tower was transmitting on both frequencies - I believe - simultaneously.

So the CRJ would have heard only the tower's transmissions to the helo ('visual separation approved' x 2) and not the helo's transmissions.

Subjects ATC CRJ Separation (ALL) Visual Separation

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Lascaille
February 01, 2025, 14:46:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11819066

Quote:

Originally Posted by YRP

But the airspace & procedure seems to not tolerate mistakes. There ought to be some safety margin. While not the primary fault, it could be improved.

Surprised you say that; to me the airspace design and procedures are absolutely the primary fault. TCAS was literally invented because intersections with crossing traffic occur at cruise level even though airway separation / quadrantal rule should keep you out of each other's way.

This airspace literally has an intersection with crossing traffic designed into it. You can't hit something you're not close to.

Subjects Separation (ALL) TCAS (All)

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Lascaille
February 16, 2025, 11:15:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11829163

Quote:

Originally Posted by MPN11

Sad to see the NTSB reporting PAT25 was between 278" and 313' in the seconds before the collision instead of 'at or below' 200' OK, PAT25 seems to attract much of the blame for the impact, but that doesn't detract from the unsuitability of Route 4 in the broader sense.

The route doesn't provide safe clearance, is the answer. Even if they didn't collide, I can't imagine the ride being particularly gentle after something that size passes ~50ft overhead. Even the near miss might have resulted in a critical loss of control.

Subjects Close Calls NTSB PAT25 Route 4

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Lascaille
February 17, 2025, 13:29:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11829899

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wide Mouth Frog

This one got deleted because it was connected to a previous post that was deleted. I do think it's an important part of the record so I've reposted it here with appropriate modifications. Hope that's OK.

Sure it has a nice image and lots of lines and figures but is it correct? It's implying the CRJ was significantly above the glideslope. Is that accurate? Or is the image inaccurate? And what value does it really add?

Subjects CRJ

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Lascaille
February 17, 2025, 19:15:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11830082

I think that compensation will almost certainly be made available one way or another, as to how, well, I don't know whether it really matters much. There's plenty of precedent for a 'we're not admitting fault but we're paying anyway' type of deal q.v. Iran 655

I very strongly doubt that the US govt would do a 'technically we're immune so tough luck' here. The optics would be dire.

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
February 21, 2025, 10:32:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11832858

I don't think most transport category aircraft are rated for excessive descent profiles - aren't the airbuses that operate(d) into City specially certified? I seem to recall some discussion of software, in the same way that high latitude navigation is a 'optional extra' feature that you have to request and obtain per aircraft...

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
February 26, 2025, 12:31:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11836357

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobraguy

to ask if there ever was a quantitative analysis ... the possible errors in the helicopter-borne equipment, the Static ports could be subject to some biases ... the approach without benefit of a Glide Slope, the VASI or PAPI is visual and thus "probably" more challenging ... be better than "10 to the minus nine". Need to have data from both low-hour and high-hour pilots on a non-coupled approach.

Next quasi- related thought::: when the CVR recorded a verbal disparity of 100 feet between pilot and examiner, shouldn't that have raised questions of "Why"- especially when at low altitudes MSL? As I understand it, there would be 3 or 4 places where Baro Alt was displayed; the two mechanical bar alt indicators, AND the altitude display(s) on the pilot(s) NVG HUDS. If the pilot under evaluation was fully on the ANVIS HUD, and if that pilot failed to set the Bar Alt "correction" in terms go In-Hg, then the pilot could readily be seeing inaccurate Bar Alt digits on the HUD.

I like healthy food but this much word salad would choke a horse.

Helo is going to be using radalt. Everything is radalt when the heights are below ~1000ft because the alternative is often fatal. This has been covered extensively. As to the rest... Wat?

Subjects HUD Night Vision Goggles (NVG)

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Lascaille
February 26, 2025, 16:35:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11836479

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stagformation

Interesting and quite shocking, coming from a former standards/instructor pilot, re— normalisation of deviance.
eg. If you don’t catch all of a radio call meant for you, just reply with what you think the controller wants to hear you say and then comply with that

But that's actually the correct flow of events. If you weren't 100% sure but you readback what you think you heard and you don't get a correction then you did, actually, hear it correctly.

Also is 'normalisation of deviance' written down on a whiteboard somewhere? People keep saying it. It doesn't seem very organic.

Subjects ATC

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Lascaille
February 26, 2025, 17:03:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11836496

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stagformation

Really, what if your reply gets trampled on too?

Are you genuinely asking for an elaboration of standard RT procedures?

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
February 26, 2025, 17:43:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11836527

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stagformation

It was a completely missed part of the clearance, not a misheard part that could be second guessed.

When you say 'it' can you please be specific about what you're talking about? Because this discussion started with a theoretical ('If you don’t catch all of a radio call meant for you') i.e. a general case of 'people' replying with 'what they want to hear' but you seem to be now talking about a specific occurrence...?

Subjects: None

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Lascaille
February 26, 2025, 20:18:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11836612

Ah okay, understood. Good summary too.

Subjects: None

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Posts by user "Lascaille" [Posts: 19 Total up-votes: 24 Page: 1 of 1]¶