Posts by user "WHBM" [Posts: 8 Total up-votes: 17 Page: 1 of 1]¶

It looks like there was a close sequence of arrivals to runway 1. The accident aircraft was asked late in the process (though normal at DCA) if they would sidestep, right then left, onto runway 33, crossing runway 1 but helping with clearing that for the arrival behind. This doesn't seem to have been specifically passed to the helo crew, who were just asked to "go behind". So from a stream of arrivals in front of them all to their right of the river, suddenly here's one swinging out of the final approach line in the dark towards them, then swinging back.

And the helo was apparently flown by a trainee ...

It wasn't on the ILS, it was doing a circling approach having come down the 01 ILS, then swinging round. They seem to have only been getting aligned with their runway at around 400', at the point of the collision.

The sudden right turn by the helo in the final moments is surprising, but I wonder, given the bland "Can you see the CRJ", followed by "Pass behind the CRJ", whether they were actually looking, in the dark through their night vision goggles, at the aircraft lined up on 01 which was just starting its takeoff run. "Can you see it". There it is, down there. "Pass behind it". OK, let's turn now to pass behind it.

It does seem that the government can afford multi-billion dollar helicopter fleets to shuttle Washington bureaucrats around, but not fund a different branch of government to provide two controller positions to keep watch during a peak time of airline arrivals, departures, and adjacent helicopter traffic.

There were a number of aircraft around in the dark, which makes repeated unqualified reference just to "the CRJ" quite liable to error. I still wonder if the "Can you see the CRJ ... pass behind the CRJ" was being interpreted as the aircraft on the ground lining up on 01, the nearest aircraft to them and just on their right. They could see it, and they turned to pass behind it.

Dulles has been "available" for the last 60 years. Fact is that the passengers do not want to go out there, and despite slots being readily available at one and not the other, there has been constant pressure by carriers to actually leave there and go back to National. This is a commercial reality that can be seen worldwide with remote-versus-close in airports. Montreal, Tokyo, even Gatwick to Heathrow, are examples. The accident flight is a typical example, flights from Wichita, Kansas, would previously have been outside the "perimeter" of permitted operations. American never did a flight from Wichita to Dulles.

The relatively new Metro out to Dulles stops at umpteen stations every mile or less all the way out there, and is normally pretty empty on the last stretch. Like public transport in other USA major cities, it is unusual not to encounter homeless or drugged travellers in the train. Not many inhabitants, and hardly any visitors to the city, would contemplate using it.

I feel it will be most unjust if commercial operations for many passengers are restricted as an outcome of what, to put it obliquely, are questionable operations by the military.

Not quite. They were asked if they were visual with a CRJ. How would they know, at that point still a couple of miles away, which aircraft lights all around them in the dark were "the CRJ" ? In fact there was more than one of this type around.

The accident aircraft was making a sidestep curving manoeuvre, a late change from a straight in to 01. The only message passed about this was it was landing on 33. No comment that it was going to break off the 01 approach. No questioning that the heli crew even understood how an aircraft now approached 33, making this unusual and last-minute change, nor that it would compromise them routing along the river.

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Was it ?

It was first described as a training flight. When this was severely criticised the account changed to a 'continuity of government' flight. When this oblique phrase was questioned it changed again to a recertification flight. As a number above have commented, it seems to have been missing a number of aspects typically done properly on a formal check ride.