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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

#401

Post by pirate787 »

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.

The program needs to have high standards and I imagine some of the reasons for failing are related to ability under pressure.

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

#402

Post by paulddraper »

ketanmaheshwari wrote: post #364
mlyle wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's next to impossible to know at night.

The only thing you have visually is direction / angular velocity.

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

#403

Post by ty6853 »

llamaimperative wrote: post #386
ty6853 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This Waco? --- PBS: > Rumors about Koresh's sexual practices with girls persisted for years prior to the ATF raid. > Koresh acknowledged on a videotape sent out of the compound during the standoff that he had fathered more than 12 children by several "wives" who were as young as 12 or 13 when they became pregnant. --- Seattle Times: > Children who left the Branch Davidian cult compound said David Koresh gave girls as…

The ATF was raiding for their purview, firearms/explosives.

As for the fires, they happened after incendiary tear gas was deployed by the government. They also sent a tank like vehicle to destroy the building. That's not overruled by some sketchy milk carton audio of who knows who.

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

#404

Post by edm0nd »

llamaimperative wrote: post #386
ty6853 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This Waco? --- PBS: > Rumors about Koresh's sexual practices with girls persisted for years prior to the ATF raid. > Koresh acknowledged on a videotape sent out of the compound during the standoff that he had fathered more than 12 children by several "wives" who were as young as 12 or 13 when they became pregnant. --- Seattle Times: > Children who left the Branch Davidian cult compound said David Koresh gave girls as…

I think it's more about the fact that the feds could have easily taken Koresh into custody when he left the compound to run errands. Instead they chose to send a message and it ended in tragedy.

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

#405

Post by michaelt »

perihelions wrote: post #365
UltraSane wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That depends on the test, and the training surrounding it.

If I'm hiring for a job where there's a strict requirement to be 6 feet tall and there's nothing candidates can do to get taller - then once you've measured under 6 feet there's no point in re-testing you.

If I'm hiring for a job where there's a strict requirement that you be able to lift a 90 lbs weight, a lot of people will fail - but if they hit the gym, in a month or two they'll be able to pass easily.

If I'm hiring for a job where there's a strict requirement that you be able to lift a 90 lbs weight, but before the test every applicant goes through a 6 month strength training program, so we test them at absolute peak strength? Re-testing would be a waste of time, except in a few cases like if someone had a loved one die just before the final test.

If I'm hiring for a job with a written test, the test draws a random selection of questions from a question bank, and some questions are much easier than others? There might be a substantial random element to the results. If re-testing people produces substantially different scores, probably that indicates I need to improve the design of my test.

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

#406

Post by 83457 »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #287
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-30/washingto... | https://archive.today/n1ark https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was... (CNN live updates) https://old.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1idbkyd/crash_at_dc... https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1idba8i/plane_cra... https://x.com/aletweetsnews/status/1884789306645983…

https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200... contains the ATC feed in addition to the PAT-25 (helo) radio. ~5:41 mark 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33. ~6:45 mark PAT-25 reports Memorial ~7:06 mark tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation ~8:12 mark tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT-25 again rep…

Any takeaways from this? ATC not responding with separation but Blackhawk continuing anyway?

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

#407

Post by paulddraper »

AdamN wrote: post #382
venusenvy47 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Reagan fired the ATCs when they tried to assert their rights - can't be good if they think they may be the next in line for DOGEing.

[flagged]

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

#408

Post by duxup »

justinspace wrote: post #215
fortran77 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you know? If a person can program in Rust and Kotlin, that makes him an expert in every other field, too.

I've seen at least one "why don't you just " upthread already. Can't believe this flavor of tech hubris is running the country now. No wonder the goddamn planes are falling out of the sky...

Arguably we have that with the current US executive branch.

We had a hubub about the right way to power an aircraft carrier catapult for a while the first go around with these fools ...

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

#409

Post by paulddraper »

happytoexplain wrote: post #373
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…

There is simply no reason to use the statistical safety of air travel to excuse incidents. We can appreciate the incredible feats of engineering and logistics that make air travel so safe without letting the bar dip down or throwing up our hands and saying "well it can't be perfect, don't throw shade" when a specific organization has a specific incident. Edit: To be clear, I'm referring to what you said, not to the c…

Well it is objectively true that it can't be perfect.

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

#410

Post by CamperBob2 »

thowawatp302 wrote: post #295
CamperBob2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind that could land an atomic-powered vehicle on Mars, eight light-minutes from human contact? In 2012? It's utterly ridiculous to expect humans to do this job for much longer. It's what computers are for .

Oh you mean the kind that has no conflicting traffic in 0.5 to 2.5 AU?

Really? There were 3 aircraft involved. Game AI in the 1980s was good enough to handle the amount of "conflicting traffic" involved here. You're arguing in favor of automation, not against it.

For that matter, next time you visit the Bay Area, drop by the CHM in Mountain View and take a look at what SAGE could already do in the 1960s.

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