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The Potomac River Midair Collision

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

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Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#31

Post by bell-cot »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #22
an_account wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a direct quote taken out of context. The article explains that the helicopter pilot was flying within the poorly defined helicopter route and within expected altitude on the altimeter. Her instructor was the one who made the critical mistake of saying he had visual on the airplane, when he in fact didn’t not. I don’t know how you could have read the article and come to the conclusion that that was the takeaway.…

Can you please try this, as experiment? Feed this URI to Mythos and have a chat about it. You will be surprised to find many things you are ignoring, may be for virtue signalling, may be because you honestly believe so. (If you don't have Mythos – try Gemini 3.1 Pro via API. Other models will refuse to discuss it with you, I mean flat out refuse , especially Fable.)

You might want to read this, for a better sense of local attitudes toward AI:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151933

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#32

Post by mplanchard »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #28
RNCTX wrote: post #27

Pilot here (small / private airplanes, for about 15 years now, instrument rated but that's it). 1. "See and avoid" is BS, always has been, always will be. ADS-B was supposed to end the reliance on it, but the FAA almost immediately started poking holes in it once it was deemed successful by the companies in Alaska that tested it. Good controllers and TCAS stop this stuff from happening all the time despite the FAA's…

+1 on this. So far we have IR pilot, known aviation journalist and yours truly saying same thing: "If the controller doesn't, the pilot should demand instructions from the controller." or / and "It's not the plane, it's the pilot." There are plenty of female aviators, most of them are brilliant (again ref. "Maverick" etc.) In this particular case the highest ranked pilot on board was unqualified and, most dangerous –…

This seems like exactly the kind of attempt to blame a single person rather than the system that the article is arguing against. Yes, the helicopter pilot was a major part of the series of mistakes that led to the crash, but there were many other points where, if someone had done something differently, the crash may never have happened. This includes:

- the instructor who let the helicopter pilot keep flying through dangerous airspace despite her being clearly disoriented, and who ALSO failed to appropriately consider or respond to ATC’s request for visual separation

- the FAA employee who refused the helicopter chart updates to make dangerous areas clearer

- the ATC who failed to respond appropriately to the alarm by giving the helicopter a specific instruction - the supervisor who failed to separate the local and helicopter duties when the level of traffic was high

And that’s just specific individuals, to say nothing of the military bureaucracy that kept aging fleets with poor equipment operating in close proximity to heavy commercial traffic, or the idiocy of the FAA reclassifying reagan as an airport where controllers get paid less despite a heavy workload and thus increasing the incentive for controllers to leave as soon as they could, preventing any building of institutional knowledge.

Assigning all the blame to one individual, no matter how critical their role in the accident, robs us of opportunities to make the system safer. That is always the point of Admiral Cloudberg’s articles, but especially this one.

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#33

Post by mplanchard »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #20
an_account wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very bad tl;dr and is definitely not the main takeaway of the article. Edit: to add details, the article explains that the helicopter pilot was flying within the poorly defined helicopter route and within expected altitude on the altimeter. Her instructor was the one who made the critical mistake of saying he had visual on the airplane, when he in fact didn’t not.

... "While I was working on this article, a well-known aviation journalist said to me that blaming the Potomac River midair collision on an interaction between complex systems is a copout that allows those responsible for the accident to walk free and prevents corrective actions from being taken." (Also my post was direct quote from the article. I understand what you are trying to do. Because of that people already d…

Did you miss the part immediately after this where the author then explains why that journalist’s take is incorrect?

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#34

Post by voakbasda »

stego-tech wrote: post #6

I’ve read NTSB reports before. Studied aviation accidents as a hobby to help me overcome a sudden and irrational fear of flying (thanks Final Destination!). I’m on Chapter 4, and this is, by far the best report I’ve ever read. Each section addressed in depth, historical context included because it’s important rather than omitted as being technically irrelevant. Dirty laundry splayed out on a blank canvas for the view…

> Not since the DC-10 have I been so incensed at an institution for its pettiness, personal vanity, and bureaucracy as I am with Congress, the FAA, the NTSB, and the DoD right now.

Hate to break it to you, but this is just the tip of that particular iceberg.

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#35

Post by jrs235 »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #28
RNCTX wrote: post #27

Pilot here (small / private airplanes, for about 15 years now, instrument rated but that's it). 1. "See and avoid" is BS, always has been, always will be. ADS-B was supposed to end the reliance on it, but the FAA almost immediately started poking holes in it once it was deemed successful by the companies in Alaska that tested it. Good controllers and TCAS stop this stuff from happening all the time despite the FAA's…

+1 on this. So far we have IR pilot, known aviation journalist and yours truly saying same thing: "If the controller doesn't, the pilot should demand instructions from the controller." or / and "It's not the plane, it's the pilot." There are plenty of female aviators, most of them are brilliant (again ref. "Maverick" etc.) In this particular case the highest ranked pilot on board was unqualified and, most dangerous –…

Speaking of great female aviators. Find the video and story of the 20 something pilot that landed on the interstate in Pensacola, FL yesterday (Aug 3, 2026) after engine troubles. The point where she gets down and under an overhead road sign is incredible and something you only imagine ever happens in the movies. Let me see if I can find a link.

https://youtu.be/STFLtiGNqFY?is=yYje_Xj22n5TQcCH

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#36

Post by SR2Z »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #18
kccqzy wrote: post #16

I spent three and a half hours reading the report. It’s well worth a read. It’s scary; I was aware of the Swiss cheese analogy in aviation safety, so it was scary to read how so many people were raising red flags, but due to either ignorance or politics these red flags were ignored; like people were complaining about the size of holes in the Swiss cheese so much but no real action took place. The chapter about the ro…

Any major commercial airport approach and landing is high stress work and it must never be handed to unqualified unexperienced people, especially with ADHD. "It's not the plane, it's the pilot". Always.

What the hell does ADHD have to do with this?

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#37

Post by RNCTX »

jrs235 wrote: post #35
pbgcp2026 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on this. So far we have IR pilot, known aviation journalist and yours truly saying same thing: "If the controller doesn't, the pilot should demand instructions from the controller." or / and "It's not the plane, it's the pilot." There are plenty of female aviators, most of them are brilliant (again ref. "Maverick" etc.) In this particular case the highest ranked pilot on board was unqualified and, most dangerous –…

Speaking of great female aviators. Find the video and story of the 20 something pilot that landed on the interstate in Pensacola, FL yesterday (Aug 3, 2026) after engine troubles. The point where she gets down and under an overhead road sign is incredible and something you only imagine ever happens in the movies. Let me see if I can find a link. https://youtu.be/STFLtiGNqFY?is=yYje_Xj22n5TQcCH

+1 that emergency landing was pure badass.

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#38

Post by RNCTX »

mplanchard wrote: post #32
pbgcp2026 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on this. So far we have IR pilot, known aviation journalist and yours truly saying same thing: "If the controller doesn't, the pilot should demand instructions from the controller." or / and "It's not the plane, it's the pilot." There are plenty of female aviators, most of them are brilliant (again ref. "Maverick" etc.) In this particular case the highest ranked pilot on board was unqualified and, most dangerous –…

This seems like exactly the kind of attempt to blame a single person rather than the system that the article is arguing against . Yes, the helicopter pilot was a major part of the series of mistakes that led to the crash, but there were many other points where, if someone had done something differently, the crash may never have happened. This includes: - the instructor who let the helicopter pilot keep flying through…

I would say all of those things are indicative of the mentality that we're criticizing here.

"If something isn't right, someone has to do something."

The joke in aviation is that "the first two strikes are free." In baseball terms, you get one free screwup per flight, and it'll probably be fine. The second strike... you are pushing your luck. On the third strike you're out.

In this case the pilot continuing to fly while not performing well, ranking officer or not, was strike one.

The more proficient pilot not taking the aircraft away from her was strike two.

The controller not offering more clear instructions and the helicopter crew not demanding more clear instructions despite noticing that the airport was very busy was strike three.

Just because the helicopter crew screwed up does not mean that all of those admin types on the ground didn't also make their own three strikes worth of mistakes.

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#39

Post by serf »

SR2Z wrote: post #36
pbgcp2026 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any major commercial airport approach and landing is high stress work and it must never be handed to unqualified unexperienced people, especially with ADHD. "It's not the plane, it's the pilot". Always.

What the hell does ADHD have to do with this?

These mysteries and more are hidden in the article.

>Despite struggling with what she believed to be undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD, which forced her to study harder and more methodically than other students,[40:41–43] she completed her UH-60 Blackhawk training at Fort Rucker, Alabama without major difficulties despite delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Re: The Potomac River Midair Collision

#40

Post by SR2Z »

serf wrote: post #39
SR2Z wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell does ADHD have to do with this?

These mysteries and more are hidden in the article. >Despite struggling with what she believed to be undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD, which forced her to study harder and more methodically than other students,[40:41–43] she completed her UH-60 Blackhawk training at Fort Rucker, Alabama without major difficulties despite delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

So... she was never diagnosed, never medicated, completed her training without difficulties, and your conclusion is "people with ADHD shouldn't be allowed to fly?"

Seriously?

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