American CRJ and army Black Hawk Mid air - Washington

[Walter105]

Nowhere does anyone confirm where the traffic is. ATC should have said PAT25 Traffic at 10 o' clock CRJ on approach runway 33. PAT25 should have then confirmed Traffic in sight 10 o' clock.

[markII]

Nowhere does anyone confirm where the traffic is. ATC should have said PAT25 Traffic at 10 o' clock CRJ on approach runway 33. PAT25 should have then confirmed Traffic in sight 10 o' clock.

Agree 100%. If you look at the first video the traffic taking of or landing to their right was probably the traffic they thought they where behind and never even looked left as no one told them where the traffic is.

[biffvj]

Interesting take on the politics around this airport where safety concerns were ignored by politicians for their own convenience.

[jimdavis]

Ha ha ha - what political BS. She starts by expressing personal views about Trump's character, and then then tells us how Biden's admin passed a bunch of self-serving bills which made the airport more dangerous.

She has said nothing about the accident - just a string of bitter political crape because her party came second.

jim

[lupedelupe]

Ha ha ha - what political BS. She starts by expressing personal views about Trump's character, and then then tells us how Biden's admin passed a bunch of self-serving bills which made the airport more dangerous.

She has said nothing about the accident - just a string of bitter political crape because her party came second.

jim

It would be a long shot to consider anything on Youtube to have much credibility.

[southside]

Ha ha ha - what political BS. She starts by expressing personal views about Trump's character, and then then tells us how Biden's admin passed a bunch of self-serving bills which made the airport more dangerous.

She has said nothing about the accident - just a string of bitter political crape because her party came second.

jim

It would be a long shot to consider anything on Youtube to have much credibility.

Disagree.

Plenty of people who know what they are talking about.

You just need to know who to listen to or not.

[lupedelupe]

@southside That's stating the obvious. The fact is by and large Youtube remains a look-at-me self-serving platform (allow me to exercise some restraint in the choice of my language).
@AnAV8R Let's see where we are two years down the road.

[Expilot]

They sure know how to create a lot of speculation wrt the crew by only releasing 2 of the 3 names ……

[Patrick AL]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... crash.html


The U.S. Army has identified the third pilot of the H-60 Black Hawk Helicopter that collided with an American Airline CRJ-700 passenger jet on Wednesday as it was on approach to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 people.

Captain Rebecca M. Lobach, 28, from Durham, North Carolina was one of three soldiers aboard the chopper that crashed into the jet just as it was coming into land.

The Army had initially refused to identify Lobach at the request of her family but the decision to release her name came 'at the request of and in coordination with the family,' according to a statement released by the Army.

[Darren Hill]

CVR info released:

[deanvdm]

CVR info released:

Perhaps someone else will find it useful. To make sense of how quickly things happened here is my (paraphrased) transcript from the last 2 mins of the CVR as read on the press briefing:
8:46:01 - Tower radio to PAT25 that CRJ is circling to RWY 33
8:46:29 - Automated callout: 1000 ft
8:46:47 - Tower clears other traffic for departure RWY 01
8:47:29 - Automated callout: 500 ft
8:47:39 - Tower radio to PAT25 ask if CRJ insight
8:47:40 - Automated traffic advisory: Traffic, traffic
8:47:42 - Tower radio to PAT25 to pass behind CRJ
8:47:58 - Crew has a verbal reaction and increased pitch
8:47:59 - Sound of impact

[jimdavis]

Lupedelupe you might like to change your opinion of youtube - this guy really knows what he is talking about.

[Skymaster]

... and what exactly was on the Approach radar screen??
Surely ATC would have seen clearly on the approach Radar Screen that the helicopter and jet were on a collision course and instructed immediate turn the left for the jet and immediate descend and turn to the right for the helicopter.
Apparently one controller left early and there was only one on duty trying to do two jobs!
Expecting pilots to see another aircraft on a dark night when the entire area is lit up with lights everywhere - even reflections in the river - is a bit much. And then cabin lights are dimmed for landing...
The wing and engines of the jet may well have obscured the helicopter if it was only slightly below the jet's altitude.
Is it not a requirement that if ATC is not functioning 100% that the airport should be closed and flights instructed to divert to alternates??
But what was on the approach radar screen and was anyone looking at it?

[flysouth]

I expect that what is shown on the video above is accurate but I see a damning anomaly there.

The part where this is seen starts at:

00:06.25 where the radar screen readout shows "PAT25 002" and "JTA5342 008".

This indicates that the helicopter is at 200 feet and the airliner at 800 feet. All is normal therefore in terms of altitude.

Then at 00:06:57 the readouts show the following:
PAT25 003
JTA5342 005

The helicopter therefore appears to have climbed 100 feet whilst the airliner has continued to descend.

This is followed by video changing to show the presenter speaking until the shot returns to the radar screen view.However due to interruptions in the video presentation, and in terms of aircraft movements, we have no real-time countdown on screen to the point of collision.

So, at 00:09:37 in the video the readout shows:
PAT25 003
JTA5342 005

Finally almost at the point of collision and impact we see at 00:09:55 in the video
PAT25 003
JTS5342 004

The airliner has continued to descend whilst the helicopter has maintained it's altitude of 300 feet. So for a time, without being noticed by the ATC, the helicopter has a) climbed above it's allowed altitude and b) been operating at that prohibited altitude whilst on a clear risk-of-collision-course. Yet the air traffic controller has failed to recognise this climb to a higher altitude, or to immediately instruct the helicopter pilot to at least "right now" change altitude to 200 feet or below and/or immediately change heading? Even though there was no actual collision warning showing until just before impact, surely the "precautionary principle" would have demanded that the ATC took some preventive precautionary action?

Something seriously amiss with ATC and procedures here, in my mind.

[Davidc]