Posts about: "Wall Street Journal" [Posts: 5 Page: 1 of 1]¶

From the Wall Street Journal:

Long version of Wall Street Journal article about changing DCA airspace use rules, from WSJ website (summary in print edition Feb. 12):
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Federal air-safety officials want to permanently keep helicopters away from commercial jets taking off and landing at a busy Washington, D.C., airport after the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in more than two decades.

The move, under consideration by senior Federal Aviation Administration officials, would be part of a long-term plan to improve safety at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Helicopters have been temporarily barred from flying in a corridor used by the U.S. Army Black Hawk that collided on Jan. 29 with an American Airlines regional jet, killing 67 people. The chopper routes have been used to ferry senior military officials around the region and to train for a \x93continuity of government\x94 mission in the event American political leaders need rapid evacuation from Washington. Other government agencies have also used the routes.

Federal officials have said they would revisit the helicopter restrictions once the National Transportation Safety Board issues a preliminary report on the accident in the coming weeks. Preliminary indications from the probe point to multiple factors potentially contributing to the crash, including the design of the airspace, as well as actions by the helicopter pilot and air-traffic controller, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The NTSB said it would examine how far apart planes and helicopters are supposed to be while flying in the airspace.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has criticized the Pentagon\x92s operation of helicopters near the airport. \x93If we have generals who are flying in helicopters for convenience through this airspace, that\x92s unacceptable,\x94 he said last week. \x93Get in a damn Suburban and drive. You don\x92t need to take a helicopter.\x94

The Army said it would continue to comply with FAA requirements and restrictions to enhance flight safety. The service said it was reassessing its aircraft operations near the airport and that it gave priority to the safety of the public and military personnel. The current restrictions allow certain critical flights.

Duffy also suggested certain military missions can be done at a different time of night. The Jan. 29 crash occurred around 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Defense officials have assumed that the helicopter routes would be closed in the coming months amid several ongoing investigations, but have privately said that the routes should be reopened. Adjustments under consideration if routes are reopened include limiting hours for training and test missions.

Reagan\x92s convenient location, a few miles from Capitol Hill, has made the nearly 84-year-old airport a favorite among politicians, business executives and tourists.

Space is tight at the airport. Reagan\x92s longest runway, Runway 1, is the nation\x92s busiest, airport officials have said, and it has two smaller runways. Routes into and out of the airport are constrained by no-fly zones around sensitive government buildings.

The FAA has said it is also reviewing airspace around airports aside from Reagan that also have high volumes of helicopter and airplane traffic.

Discussions about Reagan airport have also focused on a small runway known as Runway 33, people familiar with the matter said. The American Airlines regional jet was attempting to land there when it collided with the Army helicopter. Some government and industry aviation officials believe that there isn\x92t a problem with planes using the runway if helicopters aren\x92t near the traffic lanes.

Warning signs existed for years about risks facing commercial passengers, with planes sharing the skies closely with helicopters zipping up and down the Potomac River.

The path the American Airlines regional jet took toward Runway 33 required it to turn toward the right and then bank left to line up for its landing. That route crosses over a lane for helicopters at a relatively low altitude.

There have been at least 35 events involving conflicts between helicopters and flights into and out of the airport that have been flagged since the 1980s, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of anonymous reports to a system overseen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In one instance, in July 2018, a helicopter and small plane came within roughly 580 feet of each other while the plane was approaching Runway 33. The helicopter pilot had to maneuver to avoid the plane and questioned the air-traffic controller about it after, according to an internal FAA report on the incident viewed by the Journal.

Neither aircraft had received traffic advisories or safety alerts, the report said. The helicopter pilot reported the incident as a near midair collision. \x93I\x92m sorry for the confusion,\x94 the controller told the helicopter pilot, according to an audio recording of air-traffic-control communications following the incident.

Nearly two weeks after the deadly crash over the Potomac, the FAA has lifted some of the constraints put on Reagan airport in the wake of the accident.

The FAA on Tuesday boosted the airport\x92s arrival rate from 26 to 28 aircraft an hour, after temporarily reducing it to ease the strain on controllers still dealing with the aftermath of the crash, according to an email viewed by the Journal and earlier reported by other news outlets. The current rate is still lower than the airport\x92s typical maximum of 32 arrivals an hour.

Reagan\x92s two smaller runways, which had been closed due to search and recovery efforts, have been reopened.
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Even a non-pilot, non-engineer (and worse, an SLF/attorney) is able to understand the difficulties created by relying on visual separation at night, and more specifically, relying on it given the facts of runways in use on the night of the accident (i.e., that the clearance to the helicopter did not make it clear that the traffic advisory was meant to refer to an aircraft "circling" for approach and landing to Runway 33).

Reading this thread since the night of the accident, many have noted the "wrong-thinking" (for lack of a better term) underpinning the way traffic was managed by FAA and ATC.

I'm not enthused about the litigation that almost certainly will be intense once it commences. But reading the thread I've started to wonder.....

What would a chronological reconstruction of each incremental decision by FAA about the operation of DCA look like, a chronology that would (of course) include each Congressional enactment requiring or allowing further intensity of operations? The airport did not go from a nominal operational environment, with typically safe procedures and airspace usage rules very similar to or the same as any other major urban airport in the country, to the situation which obtained on January 29, overnight - or so it would seem.

(Yes, reconstructing the facts to build such a chronology would involve quite a lot of discovery activities in the presumably forthcoming lawsuits, but I'm not veering off into any further comment about why that would matter or which party or parties it would help or hurt..... other than to say, very often, cases are won and lost in discovery.)

Some years ago, on a trip to Capitol Hill hoping to find gainful employment on a Congressional staff somewhere, on the return flight from what then was Washington National, the aircraft's cockpit door was open as the boarding process was being completed (it was 1987). I recall being seated close enough to the flight deck - leaning a little into the aisle (a Midway Airlines DC-9 iirc) - to be able to see the pilot in the LHS and part of the D.C. skyline through the cockpit's front windows. Maybe that is why my mind somehow can't quite comprehend the recollections from kidhood of reading about the midair collision over New York City which is featured prominently in the book Collision Course , together with the events of the night of January 29.

Added: Wall Street Journal, March 6: "Air-Traffic Staff Rules Tightened After Crash." Also reports previous "close call" incident. Highly recommended reading (and I didn't see anything to contradict the above post, WR 6-3).

The Senate has passed the legislation with the controversial Section 373 still included. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bill now goes to the President for signature into law. (Also, I should have checked my knowledge of legislative process more thoroughly - my previous post stating a House-Senate conference would follow Senate passage was incorrect.)

But there is other action regarding Section 373. Excerpt from the WSJ article:
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"The bill passed despite concern from federal officials and senators over an airport-related measure in the 3,086-page package. Lawmakers said it was unclear how the provision ended up in the final version, and senators quickly approved a bill that would overrule it. That measure still needs to be passed by the House.
......... [ paragraphs with background re: accident omitted ]......

"Anger at Section 373
Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) led a bipartisan effort to remove Section 373 and replace it with the ROTOR Act, which would require aircraft in controlled airspace to be equipped with ADS-B and would impose stricter oversight of military flights in the area. At a press conference Monday, Cruz, Cantwell and families of victims from the collision denounced the section.

\x93There\x92s no reason to have this language in the National Defense Authorization Act unless you\x92re somebody who wants to continue to see letting the military do whatever they want to do in a congested airspace,\x94 Cantwell said.

Trump administration officials have also criticized the measure. \x93It\x92s a safety whitewash,\x94 said Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, last week. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said that regardless of any legislation passed by Congress, he will ensure that there is no cross traffic between planes and helicopters.

After the vote Wednesday on the NDAA, Cruz took to the floor and passed the ROTOR Act by unanimous consent, a shortcut to quickly approve legislation when no senator objects. A spokesman for the Defense Department said the Pentagon supports the bill."
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Wall Street Journal,
quoting in full (claiming fair use):

The U.S. government accepted fault for a midair collision earlier this year that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., saying it is willing to pay damages to the families in connection with the incident.

The Justice Department\x92s filing in federal court Wednesday said the pilots of an Army Black Hawk helicopter \x93failed to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid\x94 an American Airlines regional jet.

\x93Their failure was a cause-in-fact and proximate cause of the accident,\x94 the department\x92s lawyers wrote.

The filing said that an air-traffic controller didn\x92t comply with a federal order to tell aircraft on converging courses to separate. The government also said the American Airlines pilots should have been alerted to the location of the Black Hawk helicopter by a collision alert system and that the pilots \x93failed to maintain vigilance\x94 to avoid the aircraft.

The American regional jet had been flying from Wichita, Kan., when it collided with the Army helicopter on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29. The military helicopter was conducting a training exercise along the Potomac River, one of the most congested airspaces in the U.S.
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Edit: The court filing in which liability is admitted is the Answer by the United States to the Complaint. It's 209 pages, not a surprise, as the Complaint includes quite detailed allegations, most all of which needed to be addressed point by point.
Notably, the airline is still a defendant and in fact lead counsel for the plaintiffs already has issued a statement to that effect.
I'm not indulging any further law prof mode for now.