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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

#421

Post by hammock »

I was a controller at DCA for 8 years and this is a normal operation with Helicopters using the Helicopter routes.

The problem I see is the controller asked the Helicopter if they had the CRJ in sight, but he never said WHERE HE WAS OR WHAT HE WAS DOING! The controller should have told the Helicopter that the CRJ was circling to RWY 33. The helicopter said he had him in sight, but he really had the Jet in sight that was landing on RWY 1.

Had the controller told him: Traffic ahead and to your left landing runway 33 is a CRJ report him in sight, then the helicopter crew would have LOOKED to their left and saw him. They unfortunately were looking straight ahead at a different plane.

The controller is going to take a major blame for this one unfortunately for not being more detailed. Those Helicopters literally fly directly in the path of those RWY 33 arrivals so as a controller you have to be EXACT!!!!

Another problem I see is the expectation bias. As controllers in that scenario, we want to hear the Helicopter say "traffic in sight and we will maintain Visual Separation. These Helicopter Pilots know we need to hear them say that (it's required), so they will say this just because even though they might not really have the aircraft in sight. They are just saying what we want to hear. If they don't, then we stop their forward progress or make them turn out. Comment from instagram

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

#422

Post by GlenTheMachine »

I work at a Navy installation on the Potomac just south of DCA. As of 10 am EST today there was a moderate police and rescue presence on the water. There is a significant amount of debris visible floating in the river, and the boats are fishing it out piece by piece. The only things in the air are a handful of helicopters, presumably related to the search operation.

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

#423

Post by kemayo »

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.

Particularly not for the last reason mentioned -- declining an offered position because it's not in a place you want to live.

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

#424

Post by alistairSH »

addandsubtract wrote: post #416
ghaff wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people here like to go on about security. I agree there's a certain amount of theater, and I try to avoid really peak times, but with pre-check I do tend to arrive early because I don't want stress but, as you say, it's rarely more than a few minute wait and I pretty much toss my bag on the carousel and walk through the metal detector. It's really not a big deal if you're prepared.

What's pre-check?

TSA pre-check is a pre-screening program that air travelers can use to bypass the normal security line.

It's not a huge time-saver (any more, used to be more) but gets you out of a few annoyances like removing shoes, unpacking toiletries, and a few other things. And the lines are usually a bit shorter and the ratio of regular traveller to new traveller is a bit better (less likely to get caught behind somebody who doesn't know the process and wastes everybody's time).

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

#425

Post by UltraSane »

pirate787 wrote: post #401
UltraSane wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine if they only let people take the bar exam once.

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

#426

Post by naasking »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #396
cjaybo wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also live here but that doesn’t give me crystal ball-like insight into what every single fed and fed-adjacent employee is feeling. It’s a fairly big city! Do you work in the federal space? I have acquaintances who do and their mood doesn’t quite match the hysteria you see on e.g. the regional subreddits.

I live far away from DC, but my friends in two different federal agencies (stationed outside of DC) are partly bemused and partly shocked at how unprofessional the emails and new directives they are receiving from this new administration are. All of their colleagues are expressing the same sentiment (and my friends usually do not fraternize after work with their colleagues, but they have all been doing that after wor…

[flagged]

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

#427

Post by [deleted] »

jfengel wrote: post #340
sarcasmatwork wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That had always been the case. The new administration has already done a lot of things differently from previous administrations. It was largely a matter of precedent, rather than law. It's unclear how much of the current path is legal. And, of course, whether it's good judgment is completely orthogonal to whether it's legal.

[deleted]

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

#429

Post by deadbabe »

hammock wrote: post #421

I was a controller at DCA for 8 years and this is a normal operation with Helicopters using the Helicopter routes. The problem I see is the controller asked the Helicopter if they had the CRJ in sight, but he never said WHERE HE WAS OR WHAT HE WAS DOING! The controller should have told the Helicopter that the CRJ was circling to RWY 33. The helicopter said he had him in sight, but he really had the Jet in sight that…

The controller will not take blame. It is a blameless culture where mistakes are expected and analyzed and learned from.

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

#430

Post by alistairSH »

evil-olive wrote: post #207
twoparachute45 wrote: post #19

It 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…

> The flight track of the helicopter starts at a property in McLean, VA that's almost certainly not where the flight started, due to intricacies of how this sort of flight tracking works. if you look at [0] it has tracks of both flights. toggle the right-hand sidebar, if it's not open already, and you'll see a table containing both planes. the helicopter (PAT25) is yellow, the plane (JIA5342) is blue. the legend righ…

And just to be clear, the POTUS/super-special VIP transport is run by the USMC out of Quantico[1], a bit further to the south along the Potomac. Belvoir is US Army, and does have VIP heelicopters (obviously), but it's not the same group that lands at the White House.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMX-1 They have some Ospreys and other things as well, but HMX-1 is the most famous and recognizable.

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