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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

#361

Post by rayiner »

jonstewart wrote: post #191
rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing, but is there something particularly wrong with DCA?

DCA is great to fly in and out of (I live in DC proper), as it's close, isn't hard to get to, and has a Metro (our subway) station right in front of the terminal, and the airport is fairly easy to navigate once you're in. Dulles now has a Metro station, but it's still far away from the terminal and it's hard to navigate, with gates very far away from the terminal; other than the Saarinen architecture, everything else…

Thank's for the detailed explanation! I have a warm spot in my heart for Dulles, because it's my first memory of American (we flew into Dulles from Bangladesh in 1989). It's really convenient if you live in Great Falls or Reston. And I loved what was then the semi-rural Virginia around the airport. But agreed, it's a huge pain in the butt to navigate.

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

#362

Post by [deleted] »

ty6853 wrote: post #330
freen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#363

Post by datadrivenangel »

NaOH wrote: post #135
nradov wrote: post #7

Obviously 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…

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…

And current controllers are often working 60-70+ weeks because of the understaffing...

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

#364

Post by ketanmaheshwari »

mlyle wrote: post #194
wyldfire wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the video from the webcam there's another plane which is much easier to see. Could they have asked about "the aircraft" and the helicopter pilot mistook which one they referred to? "yes I can see the plane flying much higher"

It's pretty dang easy to misjudge distances and closing rates in a plane or helicopter, especially at night.

Is this true for the trained pilots as well?

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

#365

Post by perihelions »

UltraSane wrote: post #335
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…

Not being allowed to re-enter the program is just insane.

Isn't it a reasonable filter? I'd (naively) assume that all things being equal, a person who passes a test on the first attempt, is more likely to have a higher innate ability than one who doesn't.

Is this wrong?

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

#366

Post by datadrivenangel »

whycome wrote: post #32
drcode wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There have been incidents that were just saved by luck (eg losing door in flight). And Too many near misses.

Better a near miss than a catastrophic incident.

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

#368

Post by liontwist »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #153
Jtsummers wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness to the current administration, while the hiring freeze may have impacted ATC hiring, that is not causal here. No one hired last week would have been running things today (if they were hit with the freeze).

> not causal here but it does illustrate the type of future incident that it _could_ be causal of

But we don’t know what the future of the policy is either.

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

#369

Post by contravariant »

venusenvy47 wrote: post #357
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.

Considering that the head of the FAA and TSA were forced to resign, and a hiring freeze on air traffic controllers is suddenly in effect, I don't think the current government wants to improve flight safety. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2025-0...

Honestly I'm expecting an executive order banning left wings at this rate.

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

#370

Post by lupusreal »

addicted wrote: post #186
derektank wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why don’t you identify all these easily found regulations then? There’s a whole YIMBY movement, for example, that has identified specific regulations that are no longer valid and have made tremendous strides in proving and changing these regulations for almost universally better outcomes. So where are all these specific regulations that are so terrible and the evidence that they are indeed net negatives. I absolutely…

Okay, what blood was the NOAA regulations concerning earth-observing satellites written in? The national security justification is quite flimsy when you remember that China, Russia, etc are not bound to those regulations, only satellites from the US.
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