Originally Posted by
21600HRS
Over a year and yet there is only ADS-B and other technical solutions considered. During the accident there was warning in tower, ”traffic” in CRJ but still this happened. Reason was visual separation in the dark. All visual separations in dark or poor visibility should be banned, no human can for sure name a target in the dark.
a) as a non-technical solution, the bill also abolishes heli route 4 operations.
b) visual separation when you can't see the traffic is already banned
More from the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-...bill/7613/textSEC. 109. CONTROLLER VISUAL SEPARATION TRAINING.
(a) In general.—Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall, in coordination with the exclusive bargaining representative of air traffic controllers certified under section 7111 of title 5, United States Code, develop and implement initial, recurrent, and refresher training for air traffic controllers on tower-applied and pilot-applied visual separation procedures that is instructor-led and scenario-based.
SEC. 119. REQUIRING VERTICAL SEPARATION NEAR AIRPORTS DURING CRITICAL PHASES OF FLIGHT.
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Section 119 concerns criteria for helicopter routes.
The "findings" section says:
(8) The NTSB held a public meeting on January 27, 2026, where the NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the FAA’s placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path; their failure to regularly review and evaluate helicopter routes and available data, and their failure to act on recommendations to mitigate the risk of a midair collision near DCA; as well as the air traffic system’s overreliance on visual separation in order to promote efficient traffic flow without consideration for the limitations of the see-and-avoid concept.
(9) The NTSB determined that the lack of effective pilot-applied visual separation by the helicopter crew, the tower team’s loss of situation awareness and degraded performance due to the high workload of the combined helicopter and local control positions and the absence of a risk assessment process to identify and mitigate real-time operational risk factors, and the Army’s failure to ensure pilots were aware of the effects of error tolerances on barometric altimeters in their helicopters, were also causal to the collision.