DCA - American Airlines passenger plane collides with Blackhawk over the Potomac River, all 67 on both dead, 29 Jan 2025

[justtrish]

The Black Hawk has two full pilots. Helicopters have the opposite seat orientation of fixed wing, in the UH60 the pilot in the right seat and copilot in the left.
Transfer of full control takes this long, saying "I have the controls"

Pilots get shot in LZs, thats why there are two.

MOO The idea that one of the pilot is at fault in this situation is incorrect.
I would say this if the female pilot was the evaluator and the male being evaluated.
Both are involved in watching instruments, situation and tower communication.
No one was a trainee, the female pilot was getting her night hours ongoing requirements that pilots' need every year.

I agree 100%.. trainee is not the right word here.

I also am curious about the last minute switch to runway 33. I know it's done, but what are the protocols for switching like was done here? Did the ATC see the helo coming right up along the path of where the plane would fly to land on runway 33? I would think yes so why is it is the protocol to just ask the helo to pass behind it? Why not let the helo pass by before allowing the plane to land? Whis it the job of the helo to avoid the plane when runway 1 would have prevented this entirely. It seems runway 1 allows the plane to come in at this point a bit higher and further away from the known flight path the helo was on.

Also it seems even at 200 ft vs 300 or 350 feet the helo would have been way to close to the plane landing even if they didn't collide. The goal is a much larger separation as I understand it. So even allowing them to come within 200 feet of one another seems risky.

 

[Charlot123]

This is such a tragic and sad situation no matter what occurred.

I am not a pilot or aviation expert…. and was confused by something I thought I read or heard earlier. IIUC there was a supposed ‘ceiling’ for a helicopter if traveling in or through that area? Is that true?

If so though, with incoming commercial flights and outgoing flights departing not certain how supposed ceiling or window might, or might not have helped in a situation like this. MOO

There are decent videos on YouTube with the maps of Reagan airport. Truth is, it is small and there is no room to grow. My feeling is, the ATCs have to be experienced and able to work there. Probably, there is more pressure on the small airport. When the military says, he have to use it because of VPs and, you know, there are important points around, no one says no. But then, at night, when traffic is high, the airport, still open, one ATC managing all the traffic and then, on top of this, the helicopter from Fort Belvoir appears, it creates chaos.

If they need to train, they have to train at night when the airport is closed.

 

[branmuffin]

If a trainee is making an error, does the training pilot have the ability to take complete control and correct the situation?
(I am just trying to wrap my head around the logistics, not point blame)

From what I've read it's the pilot who is in command of the plane or helicopter. In this situation where the instructor pilot was Eaves and the training pilot was RL then at all times, Eaves had command of the helicopter. It wasn't RL who was interacting with the ATC, it was Eaves.

So I presume that's why it's a male who responded to the ATC who asked them if they saw the CRJ. If RL was piloting the helo why did a male respond? And both times the ATC asked the BH pilot if they could see the passenger jet, the pilot responded in the affirmative. Here's a transcript.

• ATC: "PAT-25, do you have the CRJ in sight? PAT-25, pass behind the CRJ."
• PAT-25: "PAT25 has the traffic in sight [unintelligible], request visual separation."
• ATC: "Confirmed."

The male pilot again asked for confirmation.

• ATC: "PAT-25, there's traffic just south of the Wilson Bridge, CRJ is at 1,200ft setting up for Runway 33."
• PAT-25: "Requesting visual separation."
• ATC: "Visual separation approved."

The second request even explains that the CRJ in question was setting up to land on runway 33 which means if the instructor pilot was assuming the CRJ that was taking off was the plane in question, he really got it wrong.

At this point in time, I don't think we know who was actually piloting the helicopter.

Here's the link to the transcript and the audio.

Washington plane crash: What air traffic audio tells us about helicopter pilot's actions moments before mid-air collision

The mid-air collision came just 24 hours after another passenger jet narrowly avoided hitting a helicopter when landing at the airport.

news.sky.com

 

[Herat]

One thing that the FAA does have is a website for air flight notifications under the heading of NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) which is a site all pilots and ATC review for current flight planing.

tfrweb

```bash # install dependencies $ npm install

tfr.faa.gov

Here is the NOTAM officially shutting down helicopter traffic near the KDCA corridor:

5/9030 NOTAM Details

Ironically, it was just down today for some unknown reason (!) I'm not seeing the NOTAM outage on the NOTAM report page.

F.A.A.’s Main Warning System for Pilots Is Restored After Outage

The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said the Federal Aviation Administration had used a backup system while it addressed the problem.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Herat]

This is what some AI bot tells me about reporting Go Arounds to the FAA.

But first, of all, it is NOT mandatory to report all Go Arounds to the FAA, it is optional and confidential, but not mandatory. It is mandatory, however, to report it to the local ATC, which seems obvious.

Here is the process: My bolding and enlarged print for the comment that it is not mandatory.

"To report a "go around" to the FAA, you can use the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which is a voluntary, confidential system designed to report potential safety issues, including incidents like go-arounds, without fear of punishment; you can access it through the FAA website or by phone.

Key points about reporting go-arounds to the FAA:

• Use ASRS:
  The primary method for reporting go-arounds is through the ASRS, which allows pilots to report incidents without fear of repercussions, encouraging open communication about safety concerns.
  
  
• When to report:
  While not every go-around needs to be reported, situations like unexpected weather conditions, mechanical issues, or close calls during the go-around should be considered for reporting.
  • Online: Access the ASRS portal on the FAA website.
    
    
  • Phone: Call the ASRS hotline.
• Information to include:
  When reporting a go-around, be sure to provide detailed information about the flight, the circumstances leading to the go-around, the actions taken, and any relevant factors like weather or aircraft conditions."

 

[Charlot123]

Military aircraft do not have WiFi, and while I haven't ridden a dragonfly machine in almost 15 years it's difficult to imagine the crew chief being on his phone in flight. Even if it weren't an egregious violation of protocol, the amount of light the screen generates makes viewing it through an image intensifier a losing game.

Thank you! It wasn’t an attempt to jab at the pilots, but came out of profound lack of knowledge. I don’t like flying in a helicopter. So while we have friends who are rescue helicopter pilots, bought helicopters (very expensive) and have sport degrees (flew around the world), I never got into their cabins. I guess to understand what they see, I have to get inside.

BTW, a self-disclosure: I understand now that to me, three young heli pilots might have felt as teenagers in a car during peak traffic time. However, I was wrong. Here is a piece of trivia. The average age of helicopter pilots during the Vietnam War was 22 years, and they saved many lives, so young pilots are the norm.

That the pilot was a woman should mean absolutely nothing. In old times when car drivers were mostly men, there was a negative attitude to “women driving”, but as the numbers became equal, statistically, now it appears that women are better drivers if you look at accidents.

When aviation was a male profession, women pilots were involved in more accidents, but now as more women get into civil aviation, the numbers are equal, too. They equalized by end of the 90es.

I think the lack of women army pilots has to do with the attitude prohibiting to use women in combats. But, here is where we have to look at what women wish. Some never want to get married or have kids. We have to open the combat path to women who don’t plan to become mothers and want to be full-fledged members of the military. I know women who are drawn to the military, and if they don’t get there, they’d get engaged in something high-risk anyhow, like sailing around the world. Open the military path to them without restrictions. JMO.

 

[Charlot123]

Curious on what the fully deserved finished quote is that you are referencing

Oh, “earned her place” in the heading was exceptionally bad choice of words. Think of where she ended with 66 other people. I wonder if AI wrote that nonsense. We have to think of the crew and passengers of the JCR and their families. The young kids. I am positive that Captain Lobach was a wonderful person but it is just wrong day and time.

That we say “thank you for your service” to the military and they have certain benefits is OK. That the military takes care of own fallen comrades-in-arms is great. Normal people don’t question her gender. And, we know that catastrophes happen in military aviation. The heli pilots bad luck is where it happened, and what was the result. Whoever decided that it is OK to train there in airport peak hours should be responsible. And it was not these three.

I hope that Ryan O’Hara and Andrew Eaves, too, get the deserved spotlight, both left families and kids.

 

[Charlot123]

They are victims.....

So it seems. Now we need to know what didn’t work well. Increase the safety. For all of us. Plus, whoever made that Route 4, and it was not these three pilots, did not have any ability to think into the future.

P. S. Let us discuss this.

Washington DC crash: Data from plane's black boxes gives conflicting information on altitudes

Preliminary data from the Washington DC air collision that killed 67 people gives conflicting information about the altitudes of the plane and military helicopter at the time of the crash.

news.sky.com

 

[Boxer]

I agree 100%.. trainee is not the right word here.

I also am curious about the last minute switch to runway 33. I know it's done, but what are the protocols for switching like was done here? Did the ATC see the helo coming right up along the path of where the plane would fly to land on runway 33? I would think yes so why is it is the protocol to just ask the helo to pass behind it? Why not let the helo pass by before allowing the plane to land? Whis it the job of the helo to avoid the plane when runway 1 would have prevented this entirely. It seems runway 1 allows the plane to come in at this point a bit higher and further away from the known flight path the helo was on.

Also it seems even at 200 ft vs 300 or 350 feet the helo would have been way to close to the plane landing even if they didn't collide. The goal is a much larger separation as I understand it. So even allowing them to come within 200 feet of one another seems risky.

So risky. It is so unreal that they have the seperation of helicopters from landing jets by only the height of a control control tower.

198 ft.
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport Control Tower

 

[Charlot123]

One thing that the FAA does have is a website for air flight notifications under the heading of NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) which is a site all pilots and ATC review for current flight planing.

tfrweb

```bash # install dependencies $ npm install

tfr.faa.gov

Here is the NOTAM officially shutting down helicopter traffic near the KDCA corridor:

5/9030 NOTAM Details

Ironically, it was just down today for some unknown reason (!) I'm not seeing the NOTAM outage on the NOTAM report page.

F.A.A.’s Main Warning System for Pilots Is Restored After Outage

The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said the Federal Aviation Administration had used a backup system while it addressed the problem.

www.nytimes.com

This is probably our horrible electric grid. We had an outage in WA in November and it was a catastrophe although it shouldn’t have been. And then I went to India - they don’t hide electric cables underground- but the construction is more solid. I think our electric grid is a separate issue. And it needs discussion.

 

[Boxer]

Given all the speculation, I wonder what was CW2 Eaves class rank was? Need a cartesian grid to keep track of the flying debris in the socials spaces.

 

[Charlot123]

Given all the speculation, I wonder what was WO2 Eaves class rank was? Need a cartesian grid to keep track of the flying debris in the socials spaces.

Here is an article about him he was CW2
Medals and all
2 kids

Who is Andrew Loyd Eaves? Pilot believed dead in Black Hawk crash

Here's what we know about Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, one of the Black Hawk pilots presumed dead in Wednesday's crash.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Boxer]

Here is an article about him he was CW2
Medals and all
2 kids

Who is Andrew Loyd Eaves? Pilot believed dead in Black Hawk crash

Here's what we know about Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, one of the Black Hawk pilots presumed dead in Wednesday's crash.

www.newsweek.com

Two great soldiers who were pilots then.

 

[Charlot123]

Two great soldiers who were pilots then.

Yes.

Here is the information about the third. He, too, left a young kid.

Who is Ryan Austin O'Hara? Soldier killed in Black Hawk crash

Here's what we know about Ryan Austin O'Hara, one of the soldiers aboard the helicopter presumed dead in Wednesday's crash.

www.newsweek.com

 

[indicolite22]

From what I've read it's the pilot who is in command of the plane or helicopter. In this situation where the instructor pilot was Eaves and the training pilot was RL then at all times, Eaves had command of the helicopter. It wasn't RL who was interacting with the ATC, it was Eaves.

So I presume that's why it's a male who responded to the ATC who asked them if they saw the CRJ. If RL was piloting the helo why did a male respond? And both times the ATC asked the BH pilot if they could see the passenger jet, the pilot responded in the affirmative. Here's a transcript.

• ATC: "PAT-25, do you have the CRJ in sight? PAT-25, pass behind the CRJ."
• PAT-25: "PAT25 has the traffic in sight [unintelligible], request visual separation."
• ATC: "Confirmed."

The male pilot again asked for confirmation.

• ATC: "PAT-25, there's traffic just south of the Wilson Bridge, CRJ is at 1,200ft setting up for Runway 33."
• PAT-25: "Requesting visual separation."
• ATC: "Visual separation approved."

The second request even explains that the CRJ in question was setting up to land on runway 33 which means if the instructor pilot was assuming the CRJ that was taking off was the plane in question, he really got it wrong.

At this point in time, I don't think we know who was actually piloting the helicopter.

Here's the link to the transcript and the audio.

Washington plane crash: What air traffic audio tells us about helicopter pilot's actions moments before mid-air collision

The mid-air collision came just 24 hours after another passenger jet narrowly avoided hitting a helicopter when landing at the airport.

news.sky.com

I think the two exchanges are in reverse order. First the helicopter pilot was informed about the CRJ coming in to land on Runway 33, after which he asked to use visual separation. Shortly before the collision the second exchange took place in which the ATC tried to confirm the helicopter pilot had the CRJ in sight, because they were getting closer.

 

[mickey2942]

I was thinking the other day, at my job, how everything continues to get more complicated, and I don't even fly a Black Hawk helicopter.

Has technology, created a "sensory overload"? That as jobs become more dependent on AI, how much more complicated processes are? And how much needs to be kept track of? In my job, they have said since AI is making the job "so much easier", now I am basically doing 5x the workload. Than workers 25 years ago.

Where is the limit?!

This also applies to Air Traffic controllers. I wonder how they have decided to overload people because the "computer" is doing all of the work now. Which is DEFINITELY not the case INMO.

 

[Charlot123]

This also applies to Air Traffic controllers. I wonder how they have decided to overload people because the "computer" is doing all of the work now. Which is DEFINITELY not the case INMO.

If anyone reads about the Bodensee accident that is a tragic story all in all, the TCAS on both planes warned them but the ATC gave opposing instructions and they went with it. I don’t know who to trust.

This is some similarity in that one of the planes was filled with kids. Also, one ATC instead of two…

2002 Überlingen mid-air collision - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Herat]

This is probably our horrible electric grid. We had an outage in WA in November and it was a catastrophe although it shouldn’t have been. And then I went to India - they don’t hide electric cables underground- but the construction is more solid. I think our electric grid is a separate issue. And it needs discussion.

Umm, one electrical grid can shut down US-wide flight notifications?

That does not sound like it's consistent with any Emergency Preparedness, far less the plane/helicopter traffic mess along the Potomac.

 

[Charlot123]

Umm, one electrical grid can shut down US-wide flight notifications?

That does not sound like it's consistent with any Emergency Preparedness, far less the plane/helicopter traffic mess along the Potomac.

Well, emergency preparedness questions was answered by that training helicopter flight. Think of what their mission was.

The electric grid is a chronic problem at least where I live; the first horrible outage was in 2006 and since that time, nothing changed. Prior Governor was very much into environment and the plan was to change all heat and stoves in the houses to electric. And in the middle of the discussions, came that “cyclone bomb” which in my area, swear, was two hours of gusty wind followed by five days of no power. That, I hope, closed the discussion. But it opened a question for me - I subscribed to several cellular companies and only ATT was active till morning. Verizon and T-Mobile immediately went down. Now I am looking into satellite phones.

We invest into lots of random beautiful projects. But the grid!

 

[bestill]

This is a reality check right here. The families of the victims laid a wreath and were able to visit the scene today before they remove the aircraft debris. Imagining their pain right now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886133907625558300