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Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
101–110 of 738 posts
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#102It 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…
It's a "Gold Top", callsign PAT25
https://helicoptersofdc.com/helicopters/5-us-army-12th-aviat...
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#103I know that everyone crosses all altitudes during landing. But why don't ATC / FAA stratify aircraft type and use by altitude.
Like all commercial traffic is put in even thousands altitudes. And the Military / EMS gets the odd thousands.
Its crazy to have things colliding like this.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In addition, the White House has put a hiring freeze in place, prohibiting the replacement of open government positions or the creation of new ones while the administration evaluates reductions in the workforce. The White House plans to release a memorandum with further guidance within 90 days. This has drawn criticism from lawmakers as the FAA has been ramping up controller hiring. https://www.ainonline.com/aviati…
Is there an actual reason why the control tower work can't be fully automated? For train control lights we almost don't rely on human operators anywhere.
Because things can go from routine to multiple simultaneous life-threatening failures very quickly. Something like one flight declaring a mayday while another one just lost communication, all while the radar just started glitching in a weird way. Human intuition and common sense can sort it out. Deterministic algorithms would not.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile, San Carlos Airport (KSQL, near San Francisco) is going ATC-zero on February 1st. The tower will be unstaffed. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CASMATEO/bulletins/... "The FAA has awarded a new contract for air traffic services at SQL to Robinson Aviation (RVA). However, the contract does not include locality pay to account for the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, RVA’…
Honest question: are air traffic controllers at risk for being replaced with AI systems? My initial thought is no, there is too much complexity, but AI could help ease the load. I'm not really informed about air traffic systems, just curious.
No. We use some deterministic automation on the backend for helping with traffic management and rerouting flight paths, but the communication with aircraft is mostly done via voice. Everything happens too fast to insert a keyboard in the middle (*), and voice recognition would be too error prone for something safety critical.
(* CPDLC does allow ATC to send texts to/from larger aircraft, but this is only used for things that aren't time sensitive. Voice is still the primary method of control.)
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians. DCA is open to the public.
DCA is open to the public. But it has lots of ways for Congressmen to avoid the inconveniences that you and I have to endure. The other airports in the area do not have those.
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Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a truck that crashed on bridge right next to lincoln memorial and then veered off roadway into bridge, and both were deceased. Its very cold in DC right now and an airplane crashing is much more catastrophic.
It was very cold in DC until recently but it's 45°F right now at 11:21. I was walking & biking around in a sports jacket today with a winter coat strapped onto the outside of my bag. Best wishes to the victims.
Potomac is half frozen still.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#108Could be a relevant DEFCON talk: https://youtu.be/KYuBf2HpXJg?si=srOl5T6CY6Lg8HZQ
Sounds like maybe the ADSB was on in this case though.
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#109Anecdotally, the amount of helicopter & air traffic going on around DC has been absurd this month. My house in DC has calmed down some but we had a bunch of low flying fighters jets & helicopters for a bit. It's been wild having the house shaken at noon or 1:00 from pairs of fighter jets! I've had an in-week around Tysons this week, and it's been wild seeing pair after pair after pair of helicopter flying east toward…
Agreed. Why so many heli's to McClean? Are they just too stingy to pay the I66 toll in the afternoon?
Re: Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport
#110[flagged]