Helicopter Crash in DC
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@jon-nyc said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
Maybe it’s time for a DCA DMZ.
More likely, it’s time to expand and improve Dulles and shut down DCA.
@LuFins-Dad said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
@jon-nyc said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
Maybe it’s time for a DCA DMZ.
More likely, it’s time to expand and improve Dulles and shut down DCA.
I think DCA is fine, it's time to severely change where helicopters can fly. For example, they should stay at 200' and must be south of the Wilson Bridge before they can cross into Virginia.
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It seems to me that this really has the possibility of being a 3-way cluster… The AA Pilot and crew had to have not responded to proximity alarms or there was a sensor/alarm failure on the plane. The ATC needs to still have been more on the ball, even if the AA Pilot called for a visual approach, and the ATC should have given more clear instructions to the Blackhawk, and probably should have cleared them out of the area. The Blackhawk crew obviously looked at the wrong plane and weren’t aware enough of the approach they were on.
There’s things that can be improved on, here, but it’s also true that sometimes shit happens. Tragic, yes, but not something to go on a crusade over. That’s true on both sides.
@LuFins-Dad said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
It seems to me that this really has the possibility of being a 3-way cluster… The AA Pilot and crew had to have not responded to proximity alarms or there was a sensor/alarm failure on the plane. The ATC needs to still have been more on the ball, even if the AA Pilot called for a visual approach, and the ATC should have given more clear instructions to the Blackhawk, and probably should have cleared them out of the area. The Blackhawk crew obviously looked at the wrong plane and weren’t aware enough of the approach they were on.
There’s things that can be improved on, here, but it’s also true that sometimes shit happens. Tragic, yes, but not something to go on a crusade over. That’s true on both sides.
Good post. The ATC thing is definitely clear in 20/20 hindsight, even though that's how they talk (and have for 25 years) without much of an accident, that they should've been clearer about where the CRJ exactly was.
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@LuFins-Dad said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
More and more people on the right are thinking it was intentional by the Black hawk pilot.
Well, if there's anybody who knows more about the intricacies of flying a helicopter near a crowded airport than right wing podcasters and culture warriors, I for one would like to meet them.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
@LuFins-Dad said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
More and more people on the right are thinking it was intentional by the Black hawk pilot.
Well, if there's anybody who knows more about the intricacies of flying a helicopter near a crowded airport than right wing podcasters and culture warriors, I for one would like to meet them.
It's almost like someone saw Trump's response coming. This was the morning BEFORE the crash.
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What I said earlier - my experience of encouraging everybody to leave with a decent golden handshake is that you lose all the people you want to keep, and keep all the people you want to lose.
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Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
I was only joking
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Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
@Doctor-Phibes said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
I think most aviation experts and most folks here agree it was likely a tragic accident caused by the helicopter pilot not looking left (or looking at the wrong plane). Most likely all key folks here (the two pilots and ATC guy) were all white straight men, too.
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It seems the whole system depended on fluid decision making on the part of pilots to ensure there were no collisions between the helis and the planes. That's the biggest surprise about the procedures, that ATC didn't have a firmer grip on everything. But that's how it had worked for a very long time. I don't suppose it'll work like that anymore. I assume the helis got special dispensation because they're military and they could be trusted not to do anything boneheaded.
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Agreed. I'll be honest... from 2009 to 2021 I was in a high rise condo that overlooked the direction of the Pentagon, DCA, Potomac...and saw helicopters (as I mentioned before) many times a day. News, medical, many military... dozens of fly-bys per day, and I always presumed the airspace (to include the altitude near the ends of the runways) around DCA was totally off-limits. I never saw a helicopter go "over" the airport of course, and those choppers flying near the airport were always on the north side of the river (opposite from airport). You're right, this certainly will change authorized helicopter paths in the area for the better.
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Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
@Doctor-Phibes said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
As a safety engineer, were not you taught that there is no such thing as an accident? LOL Just teasing you.
I sat in on a couple of "accident" analysis. We called them "Tap Root" or "Root Cause" analysis. Always found that there was something that could have been done to prevent the event.
Now, of course, the time and money to do so maybe did not make it worthwhile to justify that the very small chance that the event would happen.
One of the examples given was that ALL highway car "accidents" that result in death could be eliminated. Lower speed limit/lower maximum speed of cars, armor cars, requiring breath test of everyone to start a car, etc. etc. But the cost and effort were not worth it to do that and would cause too much disruption so some car "accident" deaths were "acceptable"
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@Doctor-Phibes said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
Has it occurred to anybody that this could just be a tragic accident caused by a very challenging working environment, and that disabled black lesbians weren't in some way to blame?
As a safety engineer, were not you taught that there is no such thing as an accident? LOL Just teasing you.
I sat in on a couple of "accident" analysis. We called them "Tap Root" or "Root Cause" analysis. Always found that there was something that could have been done to prevent the event.
Now, of course, the time and money to do so maybe did not make it worthwhile to justify that the very small chance that the event would happen.
One of the examples given was that ALL highway car "accidents" that result in death could be eliminated. Lower speed limit/lower maximum speed of cars, armor cars, requiring breath test of everyone to start a car, etc. etc. But the cost and effort were not worth it to do that and would cause too much disruption so some car "accident" deaths were "acceptable"
@taiwan_girl said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
One of the examples given was that ALL highway car "accidents" that result in death could be eliminated. Lower speed limit/lower maximum speed of cars, armor cars, requiring breath test of everyone to start a car, etc. etc. But the cost and effort were not worth it to do that and would cause too much disruption so some car "accident" deaths were "acceptable"
At some point, the loss of efficiency and freedom can be blamed for deaths, too. But it's interesting how much difficulty most humans seem to have with grappling with simple reasoning like that. During COVID, we saw the "even a single life is infinitely precious" crowd out in full force, even on this forum.
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My own single life is infinitely precious. Yours, not so much.
I do this for a living. There's an acceptable level of risk. With what I do, it's a pretty high bar, but there's still a bar. We also write standards to cover it. But anybody who thinks you can completely eliminate risk probably isn't worth listening to. The same thing applies to people who say the standards are all rubbish and this could never happen and we should just use a bit of common sense and everything will be ok. The second group are typically trying to make money.
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I can’t see them closing DCA. The secret service didn’t want to reopen it after 9/11 and Bush ordered them to.
@jon-nyc said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
I can’t see them closing DCA. The secret service didn’t want to reopen it after 9/11 and Bush ordered them to.
I wonder what his reason was. It's not like the airport is a convenience to the President as it is closer to the Oval Office than Dulles, by the mere fact that Air Force 1 uses neither, but Andrews AFB instead down the road a ways in Camp Springs, MD, (where my daughter was born!)
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In 2001, IAD was too inconvenient to service DC by itself. There was no mass transit system in place and the express road was more limited. DCA was necessary.
Since that time, a metro line has been installed directly tying the airport to DC and the express lanes have been expanded. 66 going into DC has also seen a reduction in traffic thanks to the dynamic tolling and HOV Toll Free policies. IAD is much more easily accessible than it was, and the airport still has tremendous amounts of space available to expand and modernize.
They may not shut down DCA, but it is not nearly as necessary as it was.
The Brad
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From what I understand it's really, really, really hard to pass the test to become an air traffic controller, too.
@89th said in Helicopter Crash in DC:
From what I understand it's really, really, really hard to pass the test to become an air traffic controller, too.
when I joined the Air Force under a delayed enlistment program, I was qualified to choose any rate they offerred as I aced the ASVAB intelligence test all recruits have to take. I was advised to pick 2 rates in this delayed enlistment program and as soon as the school for one of the 2 became open I would then "reenlist" and fly off to Lackland AFB in San Antonio to commence my bootcamp. I chose Air Traffic Controller and Pharmacy Specialist as I wanted to be educated in a trade that would carry over well in a future civilian life. I waited for 4 months before the call came for the opening in the Pharmacy Specialist school and living in Carson City, NV, at the time, I took a bus to Oakland, CA, to the military MEPS station to reinlist and then fly to San Antonio. One of the last things they do before you reenlist is to take you into a room that has an FBI agent in it. They sit you down and ask you if everything you have stated in your application for the military is true and that nothing has been left out. Because if you are found to be lying, it would not go well for you. Intimidation was the obvious method of getting all the skeletons out of your closet now or never. I honestly told them that during the 4 months of delayed enlistment I was pulled over one evening as a lad of 20 years old and found with an open can of beer in my car. This turned into a misdemeanor conviction for me as Carson City was a hard nosed take no prisoners type of town. There was the running joke that possession of 1 marijuana seed would get you 7 years in one of our lovely prisons we have there in town. Anyways, I informed the FBI agent of this, and it took them 30 minutes to tell me adios, we don't want you anymore. Go home. A total state of shock hit me as I now felt like a street urchin , with nowhere to go, back home was out of the question as my mom and I had been butting heads for the last year and that door was now closed. Inside the MEPS station though were recruitment offices for each branch of military and I figured my only option left was to enlist with one of the other branches since Air Force was out. I walked by both Army and Marine offices, thinking to myself, the limited offerings they would have for me for a job that translated well into a civilian career and instead knocked on Navy's door. I told them what had just happened and they admitted that their standards were a bit more relaxed than Air Force, but still I would need a waiver to be accepted. In the meantime they had 2 rates open at the moment, Gunner's Mate Technician, and Radioman. I quickly chose Radioman (which is not really the job one immediatley thinks of from vietnam, a grunt with a radio backpack amongst the riflemen in a Marine unit. Much more now, computers, IT, communications, etc). They flew me that very night to San Diego for bootcamp as my waiver passed, and I started my new life working for Uncle Sam in the Navy.
Regarding ATC's though.... I know a handful of them as I live close to Fresno's airport and have played baseball with them and they concur with the facts of the stressful life many ATC's work with. High issues of alcoholism and suicide. No thanks. They do make good money though. Did you know another profession that has a huge rate of suicide you'd never think? Veterinarians. The field I originally wished to pursue since I was a child.
