Originally Posted by
ignorantAndroid
The 200 ft altitude restriction seems to have given some the impression that helicopters were routinely passing directly below the approach traffic, but that's not the case. And even if it was, it wouldn't really be relevant to this accident. The Blackhawk pilots weren't trying to duck underneath the plane, they never even saw it.
The reason I brought this up was the contention by some earlier posters that there was an obvious case for negligence on the part of the Army pilots. I took that to be based on their 78ft breach of the route maximum altitude, which would obviously be an easy thing to prove (notwithstanding my point that the FAA only requires pilots to fly to an accuracy of 100ft). However if, as you say, the altitude restriction wasn't relevant to the accident then a case for Army pilot negligence would have to be based on their failure to see the CRJ, and that would be much harder to make out. It was argued much earlier in the thread that they probably saw the AAL aircraft on final to 1 and misidentified it as the CRJ. I think that would be difficult to argue as negligent.
I agree with you, by the way - my point being that the case for Army pilot negligence isn't as obvious as it might first appear.