A week ago, a truck ran off the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which is upriver from DCA. That rescue/recovery effort was complicated by river ice. Even if no visible ice at DCA, the Potomac is frigid.
The AIR might be 42 degrees, last week was very cold, I would be amazed if the river was that warm seeing how much ice was in it.
SubjectsDCA
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CNN reporting generally ATC transmission in which another flight stated that it had witnessed the collision. Will be valuable information for investigation.
Dumbfounded by midair in this airspace.
I used to fly out of KVKX just barely outside the Bravo and was over at KDCA a lot. Everything that moves is tracked there, it is beyond belief that this happened where it did. Just FYI and not sure if this is a factor, but if you fly right over a helicopter you get sucked down.
SubjectsATCCNNKDCA
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They were probably in reception range of the ATIS from DCA on their pad, if not they could just set the pad altitude before they took off. If they are counting on their altimeter to be accurate to the foot to miss traffic something is wrong anyway!
SubjectsDCA
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on Juan video, I did not hear ATC passing traffic info on the Helicopter . something we would normally do in Europe, , something like :
PSA , you have Heli on your right at 300 Ft has you in sight. passing being you
" is that not standard in the US ?
especially with the fact that possibly the 2 were on different frequencies seems odd .
Anyway the whole procedure is very odd to me . Lots of holes in the cheese legally opened here .
Normally I get a call like "Your traffic is at X altitude at your 3 o'clock, they have you in sight" or similar. I have flown into DCA at night and would have been more than highly surprised to have a helicopter directed to fly basically 100 feet under me, in sight or no.
SubjectsATCDCA
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Im not \x93familiar with DCA\x94 but from the Terminal Chart & discussion here it\x92s clear that the heli was following the transit route 4, which would be a normal activity. Though it\x92s also possible their plan was to leave route 4 & cross the river towards the airfield\x85.
I would expect the airliner not to have to take any avoiding action, as it\x92d be IFR on a standard arrival for RW33. I would expect ATC to inform them of the helicopter traffic below them on the east side of the river.
I would expect the helicopter traffic to ultimately be responsible for avoidance, and they\x92d I guess be flying \x91Special VFR\x92*. But as they\x92re in controlled airspace then they should have been warned (which apparently they were) about the arriving civil traffic.
If the helicopter was, indeed, following Route 4 then what led to the discrepancy in position & height is conjecture. Also why they confirmed traffic in sight yet still collided is conjecture (& It\x92s possible they had their own emergency)
*) does \x91Special VFR\x92 exist/ apply for \x91night VMC\x92 ops in US controlled airspace ? it\x92s a long time since my FAA/US flying days\x85\x85
I have flown into DCA many times at night and there was no special VFR, it was either IFR or VFR. The weather was clear, no one would have been calling for special VFR anyway.
Read somewhere the helicopter was a training flight ? If true is a high density , high workload and high threat environment really the place to do training ? I don’t know military training environment but this flight needed good crew crm, one operating , one looking out and working as a team . Full concentration on co ordinating ATC with traffic avoidance . If it was anything than a route famil with good crm and level command gradient it could have added to the outcome ?
When I was working as a CFI out of VKK, literally right outside the DCA Class B, we did training flights at DCA. It was not unusual, how were the students supposed to learn to deal with it if we never went there? One lesson was the "Big 3", going to DCA, IAD, BWI, and back home. ATC was happy enough, they surely didn't want n00bs blundering around there on their own with a fresh license and no clue.
SubjectsATCDCA
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A military training flight does not mean nor imply the aircrew were students, merely that they were not on an assigned task and could have been doing anything from currency flying to pilot upgrade work.
No one checks in as a student pilot when already rated and doing some kind of checkride or currency ride
DCA just wants to know if they have a guy with 15 hours on their hands, not that that would happen post 9/11 anyway.
SubjectsDCA
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It doesn't seem "fair" for aircraft like the CRJ, that in busy, complex airspace, another aircraft can request and receive VFR, meaning in broad terms, they're outside of ATC's guardrails. CRJ now have an aircraft in the vicinity that isn't being controlled by ATC.
Doesn't seem like a good process to an outsider.
About 90% of my flights into DCA have been VFR. Being VFR and being free to do whatever are VERY different things. I was always under positive control VFR or IFR, going where I was sent and the altitude and heading ATC wanted me to use. I'll admit to having about an hour of helicopter time, so I can't say if the helipcopters get the same treatment or just get told to stick to their routes or ???
SubjectsATCCRJDCAIFRVFR
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Funny, I’m hearing a lot of
professional
pilots here say exactly that, one way or another.
I don’t like saying this, but reading your posts, my gut feeling is you may be part of the problem.
It’s well-known that modern airliners are specifically designed to be flown safely by the average pilot, not the cream. If ATC procedures aren’t designed and operated in a similar vein, does it need, a) a professional pilot to infer increased risk, or b) plain common sense?
I would much rather be on the flight that refuses to accept a night visual separation than hope my pilot is above average. Why?
Because hope is a poor hedge (if you like gambling analogies).
The problem isn't YOU (the flight landing at DCA), it is the other guy in the helicopter that says he sees you. You would have to say something like "I don't trust them, I am going around". It beats dying, but sure would get some odd comments from the tower.
It is really like that? Yes, I have seen the map but honestly I don't know how it works in real life. Do they really just fly bellow aircraft on final with vertical separation like 100-200 ft or they have to avoid them, let's say cross behind. What is too close in this case?
The only logical explanation I can come up with here is the last second runway change caused them to be a lot closer than originally thought. Pretending I haven't seen helicopters all over the place for decades now around here and thinking as a newcomer, this sounds bat-s##t crazy, like an airshow stunt, to have traffic crossing like that with a helo ducking under an airplane on short final.
And I have done this a few times in my flying career. The fact that you have a clearance does not require to to follow it if you're not confident that it can be safely flown in the present circumstances. Even an instruction is up for discussion if you have grounds to doubt your safe compliance. Sometimes, being uncomfortable about the situation is a good reason to re-evaluate what you're going to do - just tell ATC as soon as you can about your concerns...
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!
SubjectsATCPass BehindPass Behind (All)
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Agree. Redesigning the Helicopter route or procedure now seems essential.
- but equally describing a fast developing potential collision situation in terms referencing local bridges (was the pilot local ?) is (at least with hindsight) inadequate and something 'far more alarming' could have been said in time.
One of the reasons I took my students to KDCA was the controllers were all about "Go to the Anacostia River, then go to the Masonic Temple, Go to the Roosevelt Bridge, Go to the Wilson Bridge, etc. etc. At least then they seemed to expect everyone to know where all this stuff was day or night. My first time ever going there was at night and they about kicked me out for saying "I have lived here my whole life but am not 100% sure I know what the Anacostia River looks like from the air at night".
They probably assume the Army helo pilots know where every tree and rock is.
SubjectsKDCA
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Unless it has changed (I am very old) ATC are still responsible for separation if an aircraft is making a visual approach. An approach under VFR is different and not allowed in the UK at night. Sorry if I am out of date.
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.
FYI: When positions get combined, the controller hears all the frequencies he is working and can transmit on two or more at once. The aircraft don't hear the other frequencies.
SubjectsATC
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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.
That would defeat the original intent of the separate helo controller herding them around without having to deal with the very busy airplane tower frequency. Obviously this totally fails when there is only one person
SubjectsATCSituational AwarenessTCAS (All)
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While the CRJ is clearly above the horizon from this point of view, it wouldn't have been quite so clearly above it from PAT25's point of view. Position relative to the horizon could in any case be irrelevant if both helo pilots were using NVG, because the night sky is packed with light sources which clutter the background when amplified: distant aircraft, satellites, planets and stars all compete for attention, while the saturation limit of the display prevents the actual nearest threat from being magnified in proportion.
Here's the more likely issue with NVG. Looking through them is often described as akin to looking through a pair of toilet roll tubes. Field of vision is radically reduced and it takes strong, conscious and fatiguing effort to conduct any kind of visual search.
At the start of the radar recording posted to YouTube by AvHerald, AAL3130 is 10 degrees right of the CRJ from PAT25's point of view, and at a similar elevation angle. Its landing lights would be prominent in NVG and if PAT25's pilots were fixated upon it, they would not have seen the CRJ further left unless actively moving their heads to look for it. PAT25 gradually changes heading by 2 degrees right during the course of the radar clip, almost exactly following the bearing to AAL3130, and this makes it even clearer to me that PAT25 was mistakenly holding visual on it.
Given the ground lights and landing lights, my NVGs would be one big blob of blooming lights and pretty much useless. I am sure mine cost about 1% of what the Army ones do, but still they all have technical limitations. A clear night with a bunch of bright lights is not what they are good at!
I think these are the regulations for general aviation (part 91).
Formation flying entails one aircraft following another. Definately not the case here. Also the CRJ was not informed...
On a sidenote: It is very convenient that they found an alternative description for the operations at SFO...
Head on traffic is not remotely related to formation flying, so I have no idea where that idea came from. Since you can't form up with paying passengers, by definition you are flying Part 91 if you do or are in violation.
SubjectsCRJ
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This accident is beginning to look like the authorities/administration/systems/procedures (DoD/FAA/ATC) put these two perfectly airworthy modern aircraft with expensively trained professional aircrew into a scenario that ended up in an accident.
If that\x92s the case it was only a matter of time before this occurred.
From here on it will be interesting to see how the causality factors align. In less polite terms; who\x92s at fault\x85
If you are put in an impossible position by a system\x85. how can the system then expect an impossible recovery? Oh right; it\x92s the system.
Sad BD
If the helicopter had the same displays the airplane down the road I rent has they would have seen that the plane they were looking at farther off (if this is the case) was not the one that was close to them and getting closer. I get a military aircraft may not have felt the need for ADS-B Out, but a portable unit showing traffic IN would seem almost a must-have around DCA.
SubjectsADSB (All)ADSB OutDCA
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DCA just wants to know if they have a guy with 15 hours on their hands, not that that would happen post 9/11 anyway.
