Originally Posted by
MechEngr
Depending on radalt for this flight mode is a problem when flying over buildings or terrain
They were flying over the river, not the built up areas. Not sure how much time you have flying in a Blackhawk, but if you are over the water at night at 200' your radalt is giving you better indications of how far you are above water than your bar alt. If the two disagree, which one do you think you'll be using?
(Same is true in the Seahawk).
As to your point on the cause of the accident, yes, they were not aware of the traffic coming into 33 (for reasons beaten to death already).
I'm going to offer a contributing cause that I think merits consideration: there was mention made early on of there being 1, not 2, tower controllers on duty at the time when apparently 2 is the normal number.
Had there been two, the helicopter might have been handled differently, but we'll never know.
The youtube vid some months back had a pilot who had flown in that unit, and he mentioned often getting "do a left 360 for spacing" in the past.
That would have sufficed in this, and other, cases where traffic comes into 33.