AA5342 Down DCA
Joined: Jun 2003
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From: LFMD
Helicopters have their own VHF frequency and are *supposed to have* their own controller too!
As for hovering, I've twice been asked by ATC to hover, once in the traffic pattern at Palo Alto KPAO and once flying the heli transition at Heathrow, both times in an R44.
Gender Faculty Specialist
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From: In your head.
Quite right. However, I'm not investigating this accident. Nobody on PPRuNe is. It's a rumour network.
Perhaps I should rephrase. Responsibility for separation was given to PAT25. Failure to maintain separation was caused by PAT25 not maintaining the separation that they were responsible for. Ergo, the collision was caused by a reduction in separation to zero, which was the responsibility of PAT25.
Perhaps I should rephrase. Responsibility for separation was given to PAT25. Failure to maintain separation was caused by PAT25 not maintaining the separation that they were responsible for. Ergo, the collision was caused by a reduction in separation to zero, which was the responsibility of PAT25.
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Joined: Mar 2006
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From: Sunny Scotland
Sorry fdr, I humbly disagree. While it is near impossible to stop a light heli manually like a Robinson R22 without proper ground reference, those big junks used for all-weather rescue operations all have hover-capable autopilots. Press the button and the thing holds position even in strong winds. I am sure a Blackhawk has this feature too. And hover og at sea level is not an issue here. And I am sure you should not be allowed to fly a heli at night if you cannot perform a reasonable 360 flown shy above transition speed. Another question is if you should be allowed to fly at 200 feet at night over a built up area. But that's another story. There are so many risks staring at you with these procedures it's a wonder an accident did not happen before.
Despite what some people appear to be suggesting here, in my experience it's not normal just to stop a helicopter to wait for a passing aircraft to fly by.
And maybe even more importantly, why would you stop if you have no reason to suspect that the flightpath isn't clear?
Pegase Driver
Joined: May 1997
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From: Europe
"Do you see the traffic?" invites the pilot to confirm "yes" if they see something plausible.
It encourages confirmation bias; "I see something so it must be what I'm being told to see".
"Do you see the CRJ" invites the helicopter pilot to find something out there in the dark, which might or might not even be *a* CRJ in the dark, never mind the right CRJ, then feel he's now identified the threat. It invites him to concentrate on one threat and fail so see others.
It encourages confirmation bias; "I see something so it must be what I'm being told to see".
"Do you see the CRJ" invites the helicopter pilot to find something out there in the dark, which might or might not even be *a* CRJ in the dark, never mind the right CRJ, then feel he's now identified the threat. It invites him to concentrate on one threat and fail so see others.
Joined: Jan 2006
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From: London
I'm worried about the potential politicisation of any subsequent inquiry into this terrible incident, especially in the current US political climate. So many things lined up for this to go wrong, and the investigation needs to go hammer and tongs at all of them and not scapegoat one individual thing or oversimplify. Things like:
- A nationwide over-reliance on visual separation with commercial passenger traffic
- US exceptionalism regarding how brilliant they are (how many times in the last 24 hours have you heard someone rabbit on about how the USA has the safest aviation in the world...) the inquiry needs to tear this to shreds.
- An ATM system running beyond capacity
- Deference to government and military (both in general life and aviation)
I have little to no hope that in the current political climate a review will be held with enough freedom to do all of the work it needs to.
SIr Charles Haddon-Cave QC said it best in the Nimrod Review, the independent review into the loss of RAF Nimrod XV230. The damning review into UK military aviation safety was simply titled:
"A failure of leadership, culture and priorities"
- A nationwide over-reliance on visual separation with commercial passenger traffic
- US exceptionalism regarding how brilliant they are (how many times in the last 24 hours have you heard someone rabbit on about how the USA has the safest aviation in the world...) the inquiry needs to tear this to shreds.
- An ATM system running beyond capacity
- Deference to government and military (both in general life and aviation)
I have little to no hope that in the current political climate a review will be held with enough freedom to do all of the work it needs to.
SIr Charles Haddon-Cave QC said it best in the Nimrod Review, the independent review into the loss of RAF Nimrod XV230. The damning review into UK military aviation safety was simply titled:
"A failure of leadership, culture and priorities"
Joined: Nov 2017
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From: UK
Others, far more qualified than me, have already described these root causes.
Gender Faculty Specialist
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From: In your head.
Of course and I'm not suggesting otherwise.
Joined: Nov 2001
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From: Australia/India
Quite right. However, I'm not investigating this accident. Nobody on PPRuNe is. It's a rumour network.
Perhaps I should rephrase. Responsibility for separation was given to PAT25. Failure to maintain separation was caused by PAT25 not maintaining the separation that they were responsible for. Ergo, the collision was caused by a reduction in separation to zero, which was the responsibility of PAT25.
Perhaps I should rephrase. Responsibility for separation was given to PAT25. Failure to maintain separation was caused by PAT25 not maintaining the separation that they were responsible for. Ergo, the collision was caused by a reduction in separation to zero, which was the responsibility of PAT25.
Perhaps the "responsibility" should never have been "given" to a helicopter to maintain separation on the basis of visual identification of another aircraft, at night, in close proximity to an airport in Class B airspace.
Joined: Mar 2006
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
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From: Vance, Belgium
The aircraft that was on a vectored approach to land. it was night so VMC rules do not apply. it was IMC. Is it standard approach into Reagan on ILS with LOC capture or a free for all? Every aircraft I have ever flown in as a civvy engineer is AP/YD engaged well into DH accepted AP disconnect unless MEL applied. So on a set course and trajectory that is the same everywhere else in the world. Long final, Short final, little difference. Whom gives way?
Joined: Jul 2007
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From: Switzerland
Despite what some people appear to be suggesting here, in my experience it's not normal just to stop a helicopter to wait for a passing aircraft to fly by.
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From: PLanet Earth
Joined: Dec 2006
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From: near BHX
In the case of XV230:The Nimrod Safety Case was a lamentable job from start to finish. It was riddled with errors. It missed the key dangers. Its production is a story of incompetence, complacency, and cynicism.
Joined: Jan 2006
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From: London
The XV230 report is absolutely damning. unlike the typical AAIB report which (with some exceptions) is focussed on the events in the hours and sometimes days leading up to the event, it has a scope of decades. Absolutely no-one emerges from it with credit, apart from the people on board the aircraft who paid the price for the indolence and indifference of essentially the entire RAF procurement and maintenance arm. The only parallels are the reports into the loss of the two shuttles, but even those were softened by an air of oh, space travel is necessary and cool, so we shouldn't say anything too bad about the noble cause.
In the case of XV230:The Nimrod Safety Case was a lamentable job from start to finish. It was riddled with errors. It missed the key dangers. Its production is a story of incompetence, complacency, and cynicism.
In the case of XV230:The Nimrod Safety Case was a lamentable job from start to finish. It was riddled with errors. It missed the key dangers. Its production is a story of incompetence, complacency, and cynicism.
Any subsequent review into this incident (following the initial accident investigation) needs to go exactly the same way - what on earth has happened to US aviation as a system and culture, supposedly the "safest in the world™", to allow a military helicopter to occupy the exact same piece of sky as a commercial airliner, that merely by the grace of god wasn't an A380 carrying many hundreds of people. One does not simply look at the hours leading up to it and that one bit of airspace in isolation.
Joined: Jul 2007
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From: Switzerland
According to CNN, the crash was waiting to happen.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/30/u...nvs/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/30/u...nvs/index.html
Joined: Mar 2018
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From: Central UK
5. The troubling thing, though, was that it sounded to me as if the LC here was on the verge of being overwhelmed. He had to speak so quickly that his comms were bordering on being unfathomable. And yet it seems that this was ‘normality’ at DCA.
6. Effective radio comms depend on the people communicating speaking clearly and precisely, so that what they say is understood by all parties involved. That includes waiting for read-backs and acknowledgements.
7. This man was having to speak so fast in order to do his job that it seems strikingly obvious that the volume of traffic he was having to deal with was far too high.
6. Effective radio comms depend on the people communicating speaking clearly and precisely, so that what they say is understood by all parties involved. That includes waiting for read-backs and acknowledgements.
7. This man was having to speak so fast in order to do his job that it seems strikingly obvious that the volume of traffic he was having to deal with was far too high.
My take is, in order.
5) No, I don't think he was overwhelmed. He was shot through with adrenaline and shocked as anyone would be having just witnessed two aircraft he was talking to seconds before vanish in a fireball, realising his career, reputation, life and future sanity was irrevocably blown to pieces no matter the cause.
No, no and thrice no. Assuming the tapes are in real time there are considerable gaps between transmissions so he most certainly did not 'have' to speak so quickly. He had plenty of time to speak clearly and coherently instead of spouting those eruptions of incoherent, almost incomprehensible babble.
Sadly - reprehensibly, this style of unnecessarily theatrical auctioneer-style unpunctuated babble seems all too frequent in the States. Tower frequencies are usually if not almost invariably much less time-pressurised as they handle fewer aircraft in a well spaced sequence than in a termnal control area.
6) Concur 100%. And they failed miserably to achieve this. I've been flying for several decades and struggle to hear one word in three (and only assume much of the rest because I know what to expect - a human factors disaster) of that controller's outbursts, and the shoddy partial readbacks are shocking to European ears.
7) Once again, NO! Even if super-busy (and I'd argue especially if super busy) it is essential to keep r/t steady, clear and comprehensible; gabbling that fast might save half a second on an exchange, but no frequency is so busy it requires that, least of all a Tower. He only had three or four aircraft to deal with for simple go-arounds, all well spaced out on approach. He pretty much had time to recite half the Lord's Prayer to each.
This crazy r/t seems to be a cultural thing and needs to be changed, as do some fundamental procedures like having helo lanes crossing final approach tracks at essentially the same height instead of with decent vertical separation. Why wasn't the helilane at 800ft or 1000ft as a Heathrow? No aircraft is up there one mile out from finals while every single one is at 300ft. Madness. Just madness. It's like a figure 8 banger race dodging cars at the intersection. If there was a flyover - vertical separation too accidents would be all but eliminated.
And this buisness of "...pass behind the CRJ on finals" when no none can determine whether the lights in sight are a CRJ, a Cessna or the Space Shuttle or in what sequence they are landing. It might work in daylight but imho it assumes unreasonable levels of instant almost head-on aircraft recognition - a disastrous human factors trap quite aside from the additional one of assumption.
I'm not having a go at the poor controller who imho is compleely blameless, he did his job as well as the flawed system that indoctrinated him allowed.
As for 'stopping' helicopters in a free- air hover. This is (in my experience) never ever requested, done or attempted as a traffic avoidance method. I can only assume people suggesting this have absolutely zero knowlege of flying helos and the litany of pitfalls and hazards it would generate, helos simply do not 'stop' in midair unless they have to for SAR, load-lfting ot maybe surveillance. If necessary, as in holding at 'dual taxiways' between the Heathrow runways at 1000ft you'd slow to a sensible speed, maybe 50-60Kts in a tight orbit and even that is 'interesting' in 40Kts of wind. "Are you visual with landing traffic 2 mile final" identifies the traffic far, far better than "the CRJ on finals" when there might be three in a row, not to mention assuming superhuman powers of head-on distant aircraft recognition even in daylight - and impossible at night!!! Crossing clearance is then "cross over the threshold after the landing traffic" where no aeroplane ever is at 1000ft. (bar a g/a when there is enough time to skedaddle and avoid) With any significant wind a hover would have to be into wind, ie more or less tail -on to the conflicting traffic, an utterly absurd concept. Bin this one people, please.
As for the appalling behaviour of the 'president' to instantly apportion blame with no understanding of either the situation or accident investigation in general whatsoever - which anyway is not his job and none of his business, thereby prejudicing any enquiry (what pressure does this put on the investigators and report writers, federal employees, when they are all but directed by their deranged and vindictive boss what they are expected to report? This is a very, very dangerous precedent that smacks more of a shonky third world dictatorship than a western democracy.
Last edited by meleagertoo; 31st January 2025 at 10:55.
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 353
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From: s england
Quote from an NTSB report
” The NTSB determines that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the flight crew to comply with the provisions of a maintain visual separation clearance including the requirement to inform the controller when they no longer had the other aircraft in sight.
Contributing to the accident were the air traffic control procedures in effect which authorized the controllers to use visual separation procedures to separate two aircraft on potentially conflicting tracks when the capability was available to provide either lateral or vertical radar separation to either aircraft. “
That was of course PSA 182 I’m not entirely sure that after a lengthy investigation the report won’t say something similar.
” The NTSB determines that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the flight crew to comply with the provisions of a maintain visual separation clearance including the requirement to inform the controller when they no longer had the other aircraft in sight.
Contributing to the accident were the air traffic control procedures in effect which authorized the controllers to use visual separation procedures to separate two aircraft on potentially conflicting tracks when the capability was available to provide either lateral or vertical radar separation to either aircraft. “
That was of course PSA 182 I’m not entirely sure that after a lengthy investigation the report won’t say something similar.
Joined: Sep 2023
Posts: 296
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From: newbury
Is there any audio suggesting the heli acknowledged the instruction to pass behind ?
it seems fairly obvious where the blame lies but more interesting is the systematic failures that lead to them being there .
it seems fairly obvious where the blame lies but more interesting is the systematic failures that lead to them being there .
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 303
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From: Europe
At 00:26 ATC informs them about the CRJ, and PAT25 requests visual separation. At 01:08 the conflict alert sounds and ATC instructs them to pass behind. This is not read back; instead PAT25 affirms they have the traffic in sight and asks again for visual separation. ATC seems to approve this request for the second time, but this transmission is not very clear.
Joined: Jun 2024
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From: Melbourne
Arrivals tells PAT25 Heli to keep watch for CRJ. There is no acknowledgment. Arrivals then tells PAT 25 to pass behind CRJ. There is no acknowledgment. Then boom.
Capt Sully responded today. Said dark water gives no indication of height or direction of other aircraft. Put to bed Trumps remarks that it was a clear night so should have seen aircraft but then he now reckons it's the control tower that are the problem.
Last edited by Senior Pilot; 31st January 2025 at 10:28. Reason: Remove the political comments