Originally Posted by
galaxy flyer
Apply EASA aviation standards and the US network would grind to halt or create huge gaps in service ... Our economy would suffer greatly and passengers revolt at what would required.
... The politics of DCA are going to drive a band-aid fix is my prediction. Visual separation won’t go away. FAA will get crucified over manning. DCA may lose some significant service, if we closed 33 permanently.
I think your predictions are good ones. Underlying them is the idea that while the extra airspace capacity afforded by visual separation at night may come at the price of occasional accidents such as this, that price is worth paying for passenger, government and economic benefit. Those kind of ideas don't tend to be well received or understoood by the public, or by extension by elected representatives, so a prediction of my own: every single agency and authority involved will go out of its way to avoid acknowledging that idea, and instead will pretend that visual separation at night is a fundamentally sound practice let down by poor procedure design and/or ATC at DCA.
[I think of the Austin investigation, which did not even mention, let alone question the practice of issuing runway clearances to multiple aircraft at the same time, which IMHO is the root cause of most of the recent near misses.]