> you follow a river downstream (usually) Weird; I don't have that connotation of "follow" at all.
Taking off from runway 18 (now 19) you're pointed essentially down river already though. The Potomac is right there at the end of the runway. That's the most confusing part of the story to me is how he was ambiguously crossing the river after taking off basically straight downstream.
Yeah; this part makes no sense.
Anyone in possession of either a geographic sense of the area (or a VFR sectional) who has departed due south from National and is told to "maintain runway heading and follow the river" would not be confused.
In the present time, there is an air defense network around Washington DC. It uses the NASAMs system. Anything that is determined to be a threat can be engaged with surface launched AIM-120C missiles. https://www.kongsberg.com/kda/what-we-do/defence-and-securit...
A launcher is visible on Google Maps, and is still there. I drove by it today. https://goo.gl/maps/LByxzGzqQ28ETtJb9
That Pentagon shaped pool really caught my eye, then the long covered building, had to look it up. Now I know all about the David Taylor Model Basin and the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Explosive Test Pond.
No the rare and vital skill is to get a map and look at it and figure out which way you are going to go. How come this person didn't know if they have to turn left or right? How come they didn't know from the top of their head the airspace structure around them (including restricted airspaces, especially). This is 101 level stuff.
But at the same time, ATC told him to follow the river, while in its trajectory he was crossing it. Did he do a wrong maneuver that made him go in the wrong direction form the start? Or was ATC that didn't give the information correctly?
The river visual is a published approach for DCA. P-56 (the restricted airspace the pilot almost penetrated) is VERY well known and would top of mind for anyone flying in that airspace - not to mention highlighted on paper charts, EFBs, and panel-mount GPSes.
This is basic preflight planning. The pilot didn't adequately prepare, given the complexity of the airspace they were flying in.
ATC isn't there to micromanage your flight. They don't need to tell you to avoid restricted airspace, it's implied.
If ATC tells you to do something you have to do that (with rare exceptions). Doesn't matter if you want to go some other direction. So even if he wanted to go up the Anacostia, if ATC said go up the Potomac then you go up the Potomac so it doesn't have to do with not knowing where you're going, it's the ambiguity of the instruction. Could he have guessed that the Anacostia would have been a better decision since the…
> Doesn't matter if you want to go some other direction. I'm not talking about wanting to go some other direction. I'm talking about the previous departure clearance he received. Those are the "A very busy air traffic controller spit out departure instructions." followed by the "hectic voice said “we have an amendment to your departure are you ready to copy”". Those are telling him which way to go. And they don't jus…
> I bet that he was not cleared for a visual departure out of DCA.
Why not? DCA has a charted, named visual arrival. A visual departure via pilotage is no different, and is very common for VFR flights. (Yes, they would've been given a departure clearance with a route to follow, but "follow the river" is a valid VFR clearance.)
> What restricted airspaces were there in the vicinity he should be aware of?
That's on the chart. ATC doesn't need to (and usually won't) tell you about those. It's expected the pilot has done adequate preflight planning to be aware of them.
If ATC tells you to do something you have to do that (with rare exceptions). Doesn't matter if you want to go some other direction. So even if he wanted to go up the Anacostia, if ATC said go up the Potomac then you go up the Potomac so it doesn't have to do with not knowing where you're going, it's the ambiguity of the instruction. Could he have guessed that the Anacostia would have been a better decision since the…
> Doesn't matter if you want to go some other direction. I'm not talking about wanting to go some other direction. I'm talking about the previous departure clearance he received. Those are the "A very busy air traffic controller spit out departure instructions." followed by the "hectic voice said “we have an amendment to your departure are you ready to copy”". Those are telling him which way to go. And they don't jus…
You have to do a readback but unless you're familiar with DC geography you might not think to ask which river to follow. You could give the readback correctly and then realize you have follow up questions that can't be addressed conclusively by looking at a map. Correct move by that point was ask for clarification even if it made you sound dumb on the radio.
Taking off from runway 18 (now 19) you're pointed essentially down river already though. The Potomac is right there at the end of the runway. That's the most confusing part of the story to me is how he was ambiguously crossing the river after taking off basically straight downstream.
Yeah; this part makes no sense. Anyone in possession of either a geographic sense of the area (or a VFR sectional) who has departed due south from National and is told to "maintain runway heading and follow the river" would not be confused.
It seems like the FAA guy had at least the core of the right idea that the author wasn't really prepared for flying out of such a busy airport and restricted area. Now afaik access is more restricted and flight plans from people who haven't taken a particular class on flying through Washington National will be denied, but you can still totally fly a small plane into and out of that airport if you really want to.
In addition to everything else, this pilot may have put himself at considerable risk of running into wake turbulence by following behind a 727. Waiting 3 minutes or more for the vortices to dissipate would not have gone down well in this situation.
The 3 minute delay for wake turbulence is required by ATC procedures (when applicable). It can only be waived by the pilot in specific situations, and only by the pilots request.
It's built into the procedures, expected, and is totally acceptable.
Source: FAA JO 7110.65, Chapter 3, Section 10 ("Arrival Procedures and Separation")
Washington National doesn't have any runways that run perpendicular to the Potomac, so if the pilot maintained runway heading on takeoff, he should have already been more or less aligned with the river going north or south. The story says he landed on a 6000 foot runway. There are three runways on the field: 1/19 is 7169 feet, 15/33 is 5204 feet, and 4/22 is 5000 feet. It's possible the runways were configured differ…
Almost certainly he took off northbound, which puts you pretty quickly over DC if you do not turn your plane left to track with the bend in the river just north of the airport.
He mentioned in the piece that he was on 18: "Seat belts fastened, I rolled forward made a right turn and taxied to runway 18..." 18 at the time it was written/recounted, and 19 now most likely due to pole drift.
That does match with the rest of the story. Left turn of of 18/19 to go up river would point him back towards the Whitehouse and Capitol. It does make their mistake a little more egregious though because if they're 'following the river' turning nearly 180 to do that and also not following the flow is much larger change than simply following your current heading and making the small turn to follow the river out to sea…
During flight school, one of the first things we learn on a piston-single aircraft is to apply right rudder and maintain runway heading on takeoff. Small single-engine planes have a tendency to yaw left due to effects of torque, slipstream, and p-factor. I'm guessing the pilot drifted left on climbout due to lack of right rudder. He could have turned 90 degrees by the time he leveled out at 1500 feet and been over the river. Sometimes as pilots, the worst thing we can do is react. It's usually best to take a breath, think about your situation, cross-check, decide, and act intentionally. By rolling the dice, the pilot had a 50/50 chance of making the wrong decision. I don't like those odds.
I've just finished reading, "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" by Carol Leonnig [0]. In that book the author describes an incident on September 12, 1994 [1] in which a pilot landed a small plane in front of the white house. Secret Service members she interviewed were dumfounded that they were asked there to run to the white house roof with rifles to protect the building, and that there were no such…
I have no idea how the Secret Service in particular is doing, but I would kind of expect that any actual anti-aircraft missiles would be owned and operated by some unit of the Army or National Guard or something. They own all of the actual missiles, and repair and maintenance people and gear, and probably training for how to operate it and how to try not to fuck up when you have 15 seconds to determine if an incoming aircraft is hostile and needs to have missiles fired at it.
Also the way they were caught with their pants down on 9/11 kind of suggests that there was no actual military level ordinance readily available around DC at the time. Maybe there is now, but I heard at the time they scrambled some fighter jets with no weapons because there wasn't time to get the weapons out of wherever they were stored and load them up.