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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

#531

Post by kube-system »

hattmall wrote: post #111
jonathanlb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: are air traffic controllers at risk for being replaced with AI systems? My initial thought is no, there is too much complexity, but AI could help ease the load. I'm not really informed about air traffic systems, just curious.

Why would it need to even be AI? Why not just regular software? Couldn't airplanes just send a message that they want to land and the Air Traffic Control software sees where they are and what other aircraft are around and sends everyone the appropriate messages?

Another system could hypothetically exist, but for practical use it is a huge migration issue. There are just too many planes in use that only support voice. The average airplane in general aviation usage is 50 years old.

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

#532

Post by AnimalMuppet »

CivBase wrote: post #527
throw0101c wrote: post #481

"FAA Got Rid of Its Leader Before D.C. Plane Crash—Thanks to Elon Musk": * https://newrepublic.com/post/190942/faa-no-leader-dc-plane-c... "FAA Administrator Quit on Jan. 20 After Elon Musk Told Him to Resign": * https://www.thedailybeast.com/faa-chief-michael-whitaker-qui... "The FAA is facing a major crisis without a leader because Elon Musk pushed him out* * https://www.theverge.com/news/603113/faa-chief-musk-dc-p…

Gotta find a way to blame every tragedy on the politicians we don't like, huh? Trump is out there blaming Biden's administration for hiring bad ATC under the banner of DEI. Meanwhile, his detractors blame him and Musk for letting go of some FAA administrator. But of couse neither of those explanations are likely to hold water. The sad, mundane reality is these people probably lost their lives due to a miscommunicatio…

No, the political mudslinging is not yet at the level where it will interfere with the methodological investigation of the circumstances, and making and implementing recommendations so that it does not happen again.

The political mudslinging will distract the general population from that process, but that's all right - they weren't involved in it anyway.

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

#533

Post by RandomBacon »

gepardi wrote: post #506

Why is a Blackhawk helicopter Performing a “training flight” at night very close to DCA?

Presumably because they might have to fly a regular flight at night very close to DCA?

Imagine if there was VIP onboard, especially if it was foreign VIP.

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

#534

Post by tristor »

talldayo wrote: post #523
tristor wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's shocking and disturbing, and is pretty much a textbook example of exactly the type of thing opponents to DEI have been referring to for how DEI and Affirmative Action result in a lowering of the bar. They explicitly structured things so that ATC hiring was pre-restricted for non-cognitive (e.g. merit) reasons, and failed out candidates that scored a perfect score on the cognitive test on the basis of their dem…

ATC (as well as most government jobs) are a real case of "you get what you pay for". When you bring wages down so low that educated engineers don't want to work your job, your options are to lower the qualifications or leave empty seats. DEI might have contributed to this, but we wouldn't be hiring unqualified people in the first place if America could naturally compete for talent. The lesson learned seems to be less…

Did you read the link that I replied to? Because in that link, what I am responding to, it EXPLICITLY says that the FAA changed the ATC selection process to exclude candidates based on demographics (being not diverse) regardless of their aptitude as tested using a standardized and validated cognitive assessment. These were candidates who had already completed multiple years of schooling and explicitly wanted to be ATCs, so you are talking about a pipeline problem which may or may not exist but is irrelevant to the article I am responding to in the link above my comment.

Per that article, candidates who accepted the pay terms and wanted to become ATCs were /rejected/ explicitly because they were not minorities or otherwise able to produce a biographical or demographic reason for acceptance, even when they scored a perfect score on the standardized aptitude assessment.

If you have something to refute the article the person above me linked, I'd love to see it because I'm incredibly disappointed in what I read about in that article.

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

#535

Post by wildzzz »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #100
bsder wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DCA is open to the public. But it has lots of ways for Congressmen to avoid the inconveniences that you and I have to endure. The other airports in the area do not have those.

Please expand. I fly out of DCA and IAD frequently (and JFK and LGA). I’ve gone through the process next to politicians, though I’ve never recognized any highly ranked ones (e.g. Pelosi, McConnell, etc.). What’s the difference they experience?

I watched Warren and some of her staff cut the entire pre-check line at BOS. They still had to walk through the metal detectors but without any bags, they whisked through.

I got to cut the line at security once because I was on the job, I was completely embarrassed.

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

#536

Post by aklemm »

RHSeeger wrote: post #342
addicted wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why don’t you identify all these easily found regulations then? That was rude, and didn't at all speak to OP's point. They indicated that not all regulations are equal. Some are important and put into place because people died without them. Others are put into place for less important reasons. And the fact that _some_ regulations were removed doesn't mean that "ones written in blood" necessarily were. There are def…

Not as rude as ignorant indiscriminate knee-jerk criticism of government work.

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

#537

Post by insane_dreamer »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #254
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.

[flagged]

nothing new there

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

#538

Post by lawlessone »

blantonl wrote: post #182
sib301 wrote: post #37

I just listened to the ATC recording from immediately before the collision. ATC instructs the helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. I’m fairly certain a few minutes before that, ATC instructed the helicopter to maintain visual separation, which is common. They typically ask, “do you have the aircraft in sight” and if you respond in the affirmative they rely on you to maintain safe distance. I should mention that in the…

Here is the ATC audio between the Tower and PAT-25. Helos that transition DCA's airspace use a separate VHF frequency from traffic landing and departing, but talk to the same tower controller. https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200... * At 5:41 - 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33. * At 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial * At 7:06 - tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-2…

I think the crash was at 8:22 or 8:21, you can hear sudden commotion at that time.

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

#539

Post by jumpman_miya »

venusenvy47 wrote: post #511
neuronexmachina wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Considering that the head of the FAA and TSA were forced to resign For context, the heads of the FAA and TSA are supposed to serve 5-year terms. The FAA Admin (Michael Whitaker) who was forced out started serving in Oct 2023. The TSA Admin (David Pekoske) was first appointed in 2017, and then nominated for another 5-year term in 2022. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time those positions have ever been told t…

I've been avoiding the typical outrageous statements from the current POTUS for many years, but his comments at his press conference today, about how DEI hiring could be responsible for this accident, are just unbelievable. And all of a sudden it seems to have made him to decide that the FAA needs a director today.

[flagged]

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

#540

Post by apical_dendrite »

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 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.

I think you're only listening to a selected part of the recording.

> Tower: "PAT25 traffic just south of (unclear) bridge is a CRJ at 1,200ft turning for Runway 33"

> PAT25: PAT25 has the Traffic in sight, request visual separation

> Tower: Visual separation approved.

Then a minute later he asks again if PAT25 has the CRJ in sight, which I think is what you're referring to.

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