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Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
11–20 of 738 posts
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#12The video makes it look like the helicopter crashed into the airplane, not the other way around.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#13Damn. We’ve avoided a US airliner having a fatal crash since 2009.
It's a crazy accomplishment really, unimaginable how safe US commercial airplanes have been in the last two decades
So sad that streak finally ended
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#14Gruesome, in a crash like this, if there were any survivors from the impact, the water would likely have finished them off.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#15Damn. We’ve avoided a US airliner having a fatal crash since 2009.
It's a crazy accomplishment really, unimaginable how safe US commercial airplanes have been in the last two decades So sad that streak finally ended
As someone working in aviation safety, this is heartbreaking and awful to watch. The efforts of CAST and ASIAS in reducing aviation safety accidents have been very successful, but of course we still have so much to do.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#16Obviously it will take some time for the full accident analysis but there have been quite a few near misses lately due to air traffic controller errors. Flight volume has been growing, airspace near airports is more congested, and controllers are overworked. Eventually all of the "Swiss cheese" holes line up. We're going to need to hire more controllers. Also, it appears that one of the aircraft was a military (not p…
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If you listen to the ATC recording, around 15:50, they instruct the helicopter to watch for traffic, specifically this flight, and clears them for virtual separation.
It's the helo's fault. They likely misjudged the plane due to assuming it was a large jet but it was a regional jet, so it was way closer than they thought it was.
It's a tragedy, but I don't see how it would be ATC's fault. But that's just my 2 cents.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#17Obviously it will take some time for the full accident analysis but there have been quite a few near misses lately due to air traffic controller errors. Flight volume has been growing, airspace near airports is more congested, and controllers are overworked. Eventually all of the "Swiss cheese" holes line up. We're going to need to hire more controllers. Also, it appears that one of the aircraft was a military (not p…
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It's way to early to say but one of the threads seemed to indicate the helicopter pilot was told about the airplane and instructed to maintain visual separation. I used to be a military air traffic controller and that was fairly common practice but I wasn't aware this is something that happens in civil aviation where usually the margins should be much higher.
Crazy and sad. I guess we'll learn more over the next few days. Going into the water is maybe better than crashing on land. Hopefully some people make it.
EDIT: Found this: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#18https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-30/washingto... | https://archive.today/n1ark https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was... (CNN live updates) https://old.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1idbkyd/crash_at_dc... https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1idba8i/plane_cra... https://x.com/aletweetsnews/status/1884789306645983…
BBC live updates: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy7kxx74yxlt
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#19It wasn't a police chopper, it was a military VH-60, also known as a "White Hawk" [1]. It's a VIP transport helicopter, the same type that is used to transport the president.
~The flight track of the helicopter [2] starts at a property in McLean, VA (edited to remove likely inaccurate info)~
The chopper was based out of Fort Belvoir, and based on similar past flight tracks, looks like it probably took off from there too. CNN is reporting that there were 3 soldiers onboard, and no VIPs.
1: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_VH-60N_White_Hawk
2: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d&lat=38.952&lon=-...
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#20Does anyone have the flight path for the helicopter? (Tail number PAT25). FlightAware doesn't show it but it might have been tracked by open source ADS-B receivers.
This helicopter was often utilized for VIP transport.