Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport • Hacker News Board

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#321

Post by junaru » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 12:48 PM UTC

teractiveodular wrote: post #240

To put this in perspective, this is the first fatal crash of a US commercial airliner in 16 years (Colgan Air Flight 3407 on February 12, 2009) and the first fatal commercial airliner crash in the United States in 12 years (since Asiana Airlines Flight 214 on July 6, 2013). We like to throw shade at Boeing, the FAA etc, but this is still an incredible accomplishment, especially given the explosive growth of traffic o…

Why is this being framed as airliners fault to begin with.

When a fishingboat gets rammed by an cruise ship it's not "cruise ship collides with fishingboat", its the reverse.

One is a big civilian aircraft thats being tracked and has no way of making sharp course adjustments the other is a 'VIP' with potentially ADS-B off.

Heads should fly at whatever military branch the hellicopter was operated at... but they wont.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#322

Post by amelius » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

evil-olive wrote: post #207

twoparachute45 wrote: post #19

It 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…

> The flight track of the helicopter starts at a property in McLean, VA that's almost certainly not where the flight started, due to intricacies of how this sort of flight tracking works. if you look at [0] it has tracks of both flights. toggle the right-hand sidebar, if it's not open already, and you'll see a table containing both planes. the helicopter (PAT25) is yellow, the plane (JIA5342) is blue. the legend righ…

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#323

Post by tmountain » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

windowshopping wrote: post #248

The real question, I feel, is whether the current U.S. government as it exists in 2025 is still capable of continuing to improve things, and whether it's still putting all the lessons of the past into practice - or whether we were just coasting on a combination of luck and the vestigial safety left to us by the diligence of the past.

The current administration wants to burn it all down and doesn’t carry any reverence or appreciation for past accomplishments or prior work.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#324

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #201

rayiner wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is propaganda from the same people who brought you the Iraq War. That’s exactly the sort of funding spigot we should be stopping so we can figure out what the hell is going on. Why the hell are we paying for prison guards in Syria? At one point CIA backed militias in Syria were fighting DOD backed militias: https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-... Everyone obviously wants to use cr…

So the LA Times is not part of the propaganda that brought us the Iraq War? And the US must, must at all cost, stop paying for prison guards to figure it out ? There's no other way to just ... figure it out? You know, by studying the situation?

I’m begging you to read Manufacturing Consent.

And when has “studying the situation” ever worked to make the government stop wasting money destroying the Middle East? Obama promised to change this stuff, and he couldn’t do it, because he innately trusted the same people who made the mistakes to “study” how to fix them.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#325

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #89

stall84 wrote: post #62

In any event, unless the weather was IMC, where neither aircraft can see because of weather/cloud, which I'm deducing is not the case if they were allowed to maintain visual separation, the ultimate responsibility for maintaining separation is with the pilot(s) .. But as I posted, we should not have this happen anywhere in the United States in 2025 & much less the nation's capital. Hopefully DOT and FAA get to work,…

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#326

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:05 PM UTC

SenHeng wrote: post #225

jjtheblunt wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone is expecting to be fired regardless of their experience and skill. How do you know this?

Presumably because Trump just offered an 8month severance package to all fed workers. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvqe3le3z4o > US President Donald Trump has offered federal workers the option to resign and receive pay for eight months, in a major effort to shrink and reform the US government.

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#327

Post by freen » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

ty6853 wrote: post #312

throw0101d wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As hinted at by their name, a public servant's first loyalty should to the public/nation rather than their Minister/Master. Maybe the US has a different system? Both systems rely on the people in charge being told okay with being told "no, this is a bad idea". The Ministers/Secretaries/Executive may think their plan(s) are a good idea and the civil service are being obstructionist. (Of course the civil service coul…

The US system relies on them informing the public, or in case of say the ATF they make quasi law through opinions and then arrest the public and put them in tiny cages. The public can decide to elect someone to shit can them. We have voted to liberate many of them from service. Obviously some wont like that, but they are servants to the people not peers.

Yeah, bureaucrat equals evil is an easy position to take:

No one likes following the rules until they are responsible for cleaning up after the people who didn’t follow the rules.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#328

Post by freen » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:16 PM UTC

derektank wrote: post #58

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations are written in blood, which is why it's such a disservice to indiscriminately tear it all down. We will re-learn the same lessons and people will pay for those lessons with their lives.

Some regulations are written and blood but some regulations are written to cover someone's ass and the two should not be treated equally. We shouldn't give equal respect to the Federal Aviation Regulations and to OPM's Qualification Standards for Federal Jobs; doing so deligitamizes the importance of the former.

Ooh… which ones?

Classic Edgerton’s Fence: If you don’t know why someone put up a fence, don’t take it down.

Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#329

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #246

matheweis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA publishes supplemental charts specifically for helicopters in areas with high concentrations of helicopter activity: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/productc... Specifically the Baltimore-Washington route chart was relevant for these flights: https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/10-31-2024/PDFs/Balt-Wash_Hel... If you find the DCA airport on that chart, you’ll find routes 1 and 4 which roughly c…

Right. Helicopter was on Helicopter Route 4, per the map, apparently on course. Aircraft was on approach to Runway 33, apparently on course. That helicopter route crosses the approach to runway 33. That's controlled airspace. How did they both have clearance to be there? We'll know more tomorrow as all the audio and radar recordings are examined.

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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

#330

Post by ty6853 » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

freen wrote: post #327

ty6853 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US system relies on them informing the public, or in case of say the ATF they make quasi law through opinions and then arrest the public and put them in tiny cages. The public can decide to elect someone to shit can them. We have voted to liberate many of them from service. Obviously some wont like that, but they are servants to the people not peers.

Yeah, bureaucrat equals evil is an easy position to take: No one likes following the rules until they are responsible for cleaning up after the people who didn’t follow the rules.

The American people are tired of cleaning up the messes the bureaucracy has made. They've broken the rules, and it is time for the mess to be cleaned up and ejected from their jobs.

Many who have more HN-like peers and communities may not realize this is the opinion of the people, but the awakening is coming when the paychecks stop.