Originally Posted by
BFSGrad
Don’t recall hearing that. Roth referred to the river clutter causing the radalt to bounce around.
To complicate further, the Army Day 1 witness, CW4 Lewis, indicated she would have flown route 1/4 using radalt as her altitude reference. She also offered that she had zero DC route experience.
I had time to look through the live transcript I still have open.
It was her.
Lewis: In my experience, when flying at low altitude, I would be referencing the radar altimeter.
Mueller: And when would you transition roughly between the two?
Lewis: In my experience, certainly 200 feet and below, I would be referencing the radar altimeter. However, if I was flying on a published MSL route, I would be referencing barometric altitude.
and later
(unsure): This is a scenario based, one based on what the chairman asked about flying over the Potomac River route. If you had a route ceiling of about 200 feet and you were to look at your barometric altimeter and see about 160 feet, but then it's all on your radar altimeter, about 280 feet. How would you triage that situation in your experience?
Lewis: So if the barometric altimeter is reading 160 feet, you're saying and the radar altimeter is reading significantly higher than that, I would still my primary concern on the MSL route would be staying below the 200 feet. And I would definitely, you know, take note of that and and maybe write the aircraft up for some, you know, maintenance action. But at that particular time I would as long as there was nothing wrong with the aircraft before we took off. As far as the field elevation and barometric altimeter, I would, you know, continue to assume that I was below that 200 foot MSL.