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Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

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

#271

Post by neilv »

duxup wrote: post #82

I sometimes wonder about the value of these news stories on forums and social media. It's all pretty much wild speculation with several potential causes already mentioned on this forum. News important yes, every rando with a few shreds of factoids speculating, not so much.

Yes, tons of speculation, and very little clear basic facts.

When I clicked, I expected to find the comments interesting (since I worked in a small corner of flight safety), but, skimming through, I kept feeling aversion to threads.

Most modern news organizations aren't much better.

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

#273

Post by Dalewyn »

modriano wrote: post #272

[flagged]

I'm going to head this off right now: This was between the pilots of the American Airlines flight and the Blackhawk, and the ATC at Reagan. Short of the controllers being literally understaffed, which I assume is not the case, the focus of this investigation should be what the sincere hell happened in the air there.

This was a wholly preventable incident, hell this should have not happened period. Something likely very basic and fundamental failed catastrophically, and we need to figure out what and why. Bringing politics into this at this stage is unnecessary and deleterious noise unless findings implicating politics come to light.

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

#275

Post by matwood »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #126
stouset wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains run on fixed tracks with fixed intersections, and one track might see a handful of them per day. Planes around airports come in from all directions in three dimensions, and there can be hundreds of arrivals per hour. These are vastly different scales of problem domain.

> there can be hundreds of arrivals per hour I Googled about this. London Heathrow is widely regarded as the busiest two runway airport in the world. They allow less than 50 arrival per hour. Are there any airports in the world that can have "hundreds of arrivals per hour"? Conservatively, 200 can be considered "hundreds", then you would need 8x runways operating at max capacity. That seems hard to imagine. Google al…

It's not just a 3D problem. It's all of the management in the air and on the ground. Could a computer eventually do it autonomously? I would think eventually, but the problem is handling exceptions. The Navy has been experimenting for years with a digital replacement of their Ouija board analog flight deck management tool for carriers [1]. And even then, people are still making most of the decisions.

And ATL is a crazy busy airport (there's an old doc on Netflix I think which is interesting). To confirm your question, ATL can run 5 runways nearly continuously[2]. It would be interesting to know what they peak at during a busy Monday morning, but my guess is they are more constrained by gate space at this point.

[1] https://newatlas.com/us-navy-ouija-board/50087/ [2] https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-econom...

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

#276

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #168
int0x29 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a strong sense that they don't actually know what they cut as they stopped paying to guard ISIL prisoners. I could very easily see ATC getting hit by accident. Generally this administration neither thinks nor plans before acting https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily...

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…

I don't know what was going on with Syria, sounds real bad, but your claim about the administration having clear plans they're executing from day 1 is clearly false. This is sourced reporting, not analysis:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/omb-whi...

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

#277

Post by Dalewyn »

mvdtnz wrote: post #220
NaOH wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring controllers is not easy. A friend's daughter just went through the hiring process. She graduated from college with an appropriate degree right as COVID hit. Her FAA application wasn't accepted for four years. This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Agai…

[flagged]

Practically all laws, rules, and regulations in aviation were written with the blood of those who, well, sadly had to embrace the Earth so to speak.

On the face of it they may look discriminatory, especially the age restrictions, but the FAA will be more than happy to cite objective and scientific evidence supporting them which were, again, written in blood.

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

#278

Post by whataguy »

user_7832 wrote: post #245

It’s probably really early to ask, but in case anyone here is knowledgeable and has any idea: why didn’t TCAS help avoid the accident? Isn’t it designed for such situations where 2 aircrafts collide? Do military crafts not have it or something?

It’s likely both the helicopter and the jet received a TCAS warning. In dense airspaces, those alerts tend to trigger frequently, so there’s a strong chance they may have dismissed it. The CRJ crew might have been aware of the Blackhawk’s presence, but if the other crew had visual contact with the approaching traffic (the CRJ), they might not have felt the need to take further action.

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

#279

Post by mapt »

sarcasmatwork wrote: post #232
SenHeng wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

"A reality check"?

FAA-employed ATCs are like any other non-appointed federal employees - politics should have no impact on their employment and this arrangement is protected by federal civil service laws.

Which Trump is roundly ignoring because he wants to appoint every agency with burrowed MAGA loyalists, top to bottom.

If you haven't been following what this administration has said and done with a painful degree of critical focus, it's probably bleaker than you imagine.

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

#280

Post by likeabatterycar »

tptacek wrote: post #276
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…

I don't know what was going on with Syria, sounds real bad, but your claim about the administration having clear plans they're executing from day 1 is clearly false. This is sourced reporting, not analysis: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/omb-whi...

[flagged]
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