OT: Plane Crash Reagan National Airport

[cajun4life]

"It’s become super in-vogue and “cool” to just blame the helicopter pilots, and then sprinkle some blame on the controller.

But the ridiculous, absurd hodge-podge of procedural waivers and TERPS variances that are required to support an operational volume for which this field was never intended is completely overlooked. We’re trying to run 1,000 operations a day into an airport built before jets. Before Pearl Harbor. It’s almost as if nothing could go wrong having an airliner initiate a 40° turn starting at 500’ AGL, with a descent rate of 760FPM, finishing the turn at 200’ AGL less than 1,000 feet from the runway. Through a helicopter corridor. At night. On a last-minute diversion that previous aircraft declined."

Is this correct? If so, how hasn't an accident like this happened before? Crazy.

It hasn’t happened before because the FW/RW pilots and ATC do an excellent job on a daily basis.

That evening just wasn’t one of them. Critical mistakes in critical phases of flight are catastrophic.

[Bandwagon King]

You are 100% correct. PAT25 is to blame, and I’m a former Blackhawk driver.

https://youtu.be/hfgllf1L9_4

As far as blaming this administration, that a stretch. Blaming the last 4 administrations and how they have shown a complete disregard for the importance of fully funding all aspects of aviation operations is much more accurate.

My opinion on DCA, it should’ve been closed to commercial traffic in 2011 for many reasons.

ATC is vastly overworked and understaffed. But they are not to blame on this one.

It sounds like you have a pretty vast flight time with that helo. Can you tell us why they would be using night vision in such a confined busy airspace. That seems to me to be the number one contributing factor. Also, from what I've seen of the crash, it appears that the helo was at, or around the 200' altitude requirement & began to come up to the jet's level as it was coming in to land, then leveled off almost as if it was trying to play chicken with a civilian aircraft. I hate to say it, but from what I've seen & heard up to this point, it could be a murder suicide, or a dangerous game gone wrong.

How would using night vision as opposed to IFR & not being more, or less handicapped have changed this from a tragedy to an almost routine(?) near miss? Thanks

[JMV JustMyView]

It sounds like you have a pretty vast flight time with that helo. Can you tell us why they would be using night vision in such a confined busy airspace. That seems to me to be the number one contributing factor. Also, from what I've seen of the crash, it appears that the helo was at, or around the 200' altitude requirement & began to come up to the jet's level as it was coming in to land, then leveled off almost as if it was trying to play chicken with a civilian aircraft. I hate to say it, but from what I've seen & heard up to this point, it could be a murder suicide, or a dangerous game gone wrong.

How would using night vision as opposed to IFR & not being more, or less handicapped have changed this from a tragedy to an almost routine(?) near miss? Thanks

Imo this wasn't a murder/suicide. This was an accident waiting to happen.

[HelmutVII]

Juan Brown gives an update on the DC crash

https://youtu.be/n9mAUks0krI?si=YiGP155HzrgH-89d

[cajun4life]

It sounds like you have a pretty vast flight time with that helo. Can you tell us why they would be using night vision in such a confined busy airspace. That seems to me to be the number one contributing factor. Also, from what I've seen of the crash, it appears that the helo was at, or around the 200' altitude requirement & began to come up to the jet's level as it was coming in to land, then leveled off almost as if it was trying to play chicken with a civilian aircraft. I hate to say it, but from what I've seen & heard up to this point, it could be a murder suicide, or a dangerous game gone wrong.

How would using night vision as opposed to IFR & not being more, or less handicapped have changed this from a tragedy to an almost routine(?) near miss? Thanks

I will speak in the most direct generalities I can if that makes sense. I do not know that specific units SOP’s so some of this will be general Army stuff.

The army went to a one unit SOP, meaning that they are trying to standardize procedures throughout the entire army when it comes to aviation. There are variances due to mission and unit tasks. So keep that in mind as I go on.

Also, NVG’s are a godsend to aviation at night. They have limitations and severe cultural lighting makes it pretty difficult at times, but ANVIS-9 goggles are pretty amazing. With that being said there is still drawbacks with that. Night unaided in terrain flight (<200’) would not be approved under the risk assessment. People need to understand that for every 1.5hrs (a normal flight period) of flight there will be 3-4hrs of planning that goes into the flight. Plus crew briefings to discuss contingencies that may come up during the flight. Army aviation, especially the Blackhawk community is planned to the gnats ass and is precision based flying, time on target is stressed.

So to get to what I understand happened on the flight, it was a NVG annual evaluation and the CPT was the one getting the checkride. All of this is normal and a requirement by the army, it’s called and NVG APART, akin to a .293/.297/.299 checkride in the part 135 world. Due to the congested airspace and proximity to DCA the routing is restricted to 200’ AGL and below. The one SOP requires aircraft to fly uncoupled at terrain flight. Hence the altitude increase under NVG’s. Subtle climbing under goggle is really hard to detect, you need very good crew coordination between pilots and crew chiefs. Descending is much easier to detect especially that low. So being 140’ above the expected altitude isn’t uncommon, it’s not acceptable, but not uncommon. Generally we are held to an ATP standard of +/-50’ in deviation.

This was definitely not an intentional act by PAT25. I know people who knew that crew, they would never do such a thing and loved what they did.

The NTSB has stated that military helicopters communicate with DCA tower on UHF while airline traffic communicates on VHF. This is done deliberately because of the high volume of traffic of both FW and RW aircraft. A Blackhawk can monitor 4 radios at a time. 2 multi band radios (programmable for FM, UHF, VHF, Satcom, Havquick, maritime and high frequency FM) as well as 2 other radios that are VHF/UHF capable. So it’s not like they couldn’t monitor both. I do not know if they did or not.

ATC did a very good job giving concise and accurate position reporting of the FW traffic and PAT25 acknowledges the traffic calls twice. Accepts responsibility For maintaining separation. So the legality is taken off of DCA tower and owned by the Blackhawk. I do not feel like they saw the correct aircraft and the NVG Eval took priority and looking out for traffic was a tertiary action when in that instance it should have taken priority.

A lot of media has talked about HTAWS/TAWS/TCAS systems not being on the aircraft and that they should be. Well I can’t get into detail, but those systems are an absolutely liability for what a Blackhawk is designed to do. It’s a war machine and purpose built for combat. There are reasons that it’s not installed, if you get what I’m trying to say.

The FW crew, while not in the wrong, could have executed a go around when they lost sight of the helicopter. But that’s being very nit picky and speculative. I don’t fly FW aircraft and don’t plan on it, I find them boring.

I hope that helps answer some questions regarding the Blackhawk crew and procedures. I may have bounced around a bit, I’m on my phone so I’m trying to answer in the order of questions you’ve asked.

[Bandwagon King]

I will speak in the most direct generalities I can if that makes sense. I do not know that specific units SOP’s so some of this will be general Army stuff.

The army went to a one unit SOP, meaning that they are trying to standardize procedures throughout the entire army when it comes to aviation. There are variances due to mission and unit tasks. So keep that in mind as I go on.

Also, NVG’s are a godsend to aviation at night. They have limitations and severe cultural lighting makes it pretty difficult at times, but ANVIS-9 goggles are pretty amazing. With that being said there is still drawbacks with that. Night unaided in terrain flight (<200’) would not be approved under the risk assessment. People need to understand that for every 1.5hrs (a normal flight period) of flight there will be 3-4hrs of planning that goes into the flight. Plus crew briefings to discuss contingencies that may come up during the flight. Army aviation, especially the Blackhawk community is planned to the gnats ass and is precision based flying, time on target is stressed.

So to get to what I understand happened on the flight, it was a NVG annual evaluation and the CPT was the one getting the checkride. All of this is normal and a requirement by the army, it’s called and NVG APART, akin to a .293/.297/.299 checkride in the part 135 world. Due to the congested airspace and proximity to DCA the routing is restricted to 200’ AGL and below. The one SOP requires aircraft to fly uncoupled at terrain flight. Hence the altitude increase under NVG’s. Subtle climbing under goggle is really hard to detect, you need very good crew coordination between pilots and crew chiefs. Descending is much easier to detect especially that low. So being 140’ above the expected altitude isn’t uncommon, it’s not acceptable, but not uncommon. Generally we are held to an ATP standard of +/-50’ in deviation.

This was definitely not an intentional act by PAT25. I know people who knew that crew, they would never do such a thing and loved what they did.

The NTSB has stated that military helicopters communicate with DCA tower on UHF while airline traffic communicates on VHF. This is done deliberately because of the high volume of traffic of both FW and RW aircraft. A Blackhawk can monitor 4 radios at a time. 2 multi band radios (programmable for FM, UHF, VHF, Satcom, Havquick, maritime and high frequency FM) as well as 2 other radios that are VHF/UHF capable. So it’s not like they couldn’t monitor both. I do not know if they did or not.

ATC did a very good job giving concise and accurate position reporting of the FW traffic and PAT25 acknowledges the traffic calls twice. Accepts responsibility For maintaining separation. So the legality is taken off of DCA tower and owned by the Blackhawk. I do not feel like they saw the correct aircraft and the NVG Eval took priority and looking out for traffic was a tertiary action when in that instance it should have taken priority.

A lot of media has talked about HTAWS/TAWS/TCAS systems not being on the aircraft and that they should be. Well I can’t get into detail, but those systems are an absolutely liability for what a Blackhawk is designed to do. It’s a war machine and purpose built for combat. There are reasons that it’s not installed, if you get what I’m trying to say.

The FW crew, while not in the wrong, could have executed a go around when they lost sight of the helicopter. But that’s being very nit picky and speculative. I don’t fly FW aircraft and don’t plan on it, I find them boring.

I hope that helps answer some questions regarding the Blackhawk crew and procedures. I may have bounced around a bit, I’m on my phone so I’m trying to answer in the order of questions you’ve asked.

Brother, excellent answer. I'm sorry to have to mention the possible murder suicide thing. But in this crazy world with the kind of crap that seems to happen more & more often these days it's something that has to be taken into account. Having said that & reading your response & having the limited use I've had with old school night vision. I would say usage of NVG had to be the number one contributing factor in this mishap.

I've used military night vision gear, all be it decades ago. And I've flown on many a helicopter at night. While I understand the need for military training with night vision to keep troops sharp for combat situations, I have no doubt that there is no way if this crew had just been using their eyes flying VFR they could have missed seeing that jet unless they were blind. My experience with night vision the worst thing you can do is look into lights.

So, while I understand the need for mission training, I think it's insane to be carrying on flying missions under those conditions with NVG in that type of air space. So, it sounds like it wasn't the jet. It wasn't the traffic control. It wasn't the black hawk crew. It wasn't the libs. It wasn't maga. It was the mission itself which caused this tragedy. Military training exercises this complex simply should never be allowed to take place in this close a proximity to a civilian airport ever again.