AA5342 Down DCA

[Alpine Flyer]

Originally Posted by Chock Puller

Helicopter Low Level Routes are standardized through out the DC area.

Military Operations are 24/7/365 due to National Security issues.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3851p....,0.268,0.125,0

According to the procedure map Route 4 (which seems to be the one they were closest to) is supposed to be flown at or below 200ft north of Wilson Bridge. The Radar plots that surfaced so far show the helicopter above 300ft. Even if they misset their altimeter they probably have a radar altimeter and a 75% difference in height should be apparent to a crew familiar with low-level flying.

I have never flown there but if there's regular helicopter traffic 150ft below an ILS or circling approach airline crews familiar with the airport might tend to disregard TCAS proximate traffic, etc. as normal backdrop chatter.

Even when flying behind similar aircraft on an ILS in daylight and good visibility it takes quite some time to see that preceding traffic is slowing down as it only starts to "grow" at an alarming rate when quite close. I have witnessed that twice, once caused by self and another time caused by mismatched speed instructions from ATC. I have resolved to never accept visual separation to preceding traffic at night and while the European aversion to visual approaches might be excessive, high density night ops based on visual separation don't seem to be a good idea even without that crash.

[LowObservable]

I live near there. Most days I walk within sight of the Pentagon and DCA. I have full view from my Secret Lair of the helo traffic on the other main route from Fort Belvoir to the Pentagon, northeast along 395.

I suspect that this is either going to be one of those "we have been playing Russian Roulette for decades" investigations, or a normalization-of-deviance/boiled frog issue where a difficult situation has been made worse over time.

Factors in the boiled-frog situation would be more use of 15/33 as RJs have become more prevalent; not well regulated growth in helicopter traffic to the Pentagon; and a lot more lighting in the area.

DCA generally is a complex traffic situation with very regular go-arounds (the standard fly-out path is over my building so I hear them). I saw an RJ missing an approach to 15 just yesterday.

But one thing that I'm thinking now: there is no way in hell that a civilian heliport as busy as the Pentagon would be allowed 1,000 yards from a very busy final approach to an airport.

[Semreh]

Putting humans in situations where failing to notice something results in catastrophic consequences is bad engineering, not human error. I am very glad that no-one is pointing at one, or either, pilot or flight-crew's actions or inactions and saying pilot/human error.

The human visual system is good at picking up movement across the visual field. As other have pointed out, if the two aircraft were on intersecting vectors, there would be no relative movement to be picked up. Bright(er) lights don't help: if anything, they make it harder to make out the source from the background, as the bright light makes the local background look like a uniform dark field.

From a 'human factors' point of view, if you have an incorrect situational awareness model in your consciousness, it is difficult to remain flexible enough to recognise you might be wrong - misidentifying the next in sequence, AAL3130, landing runway 1, as the CRJ (IF that is what happened) is hard to recover from.

We should not blame the flight-crews. We should not engineer them into situations where incorrect interpretation of what were likely inputs that were easy to interpret in more than one way become catastrophic. The problem is not restricted to air-navigation. One of the many reasons Norway lost the frigate Helge Ingstad in a collision was misidentification of a moving object (a brightly lit oil tanker) as a stationary object (an oil terminal), and incorrectly ascribing radio transmissions as coming from other moving ships in the vicinity,

The personnel on the bridge of Helge Ingstad both before and after the change of watch 20 minutes before the accident were of the opinion that the lights they saw from Sola TS were from a stationary object in connection with the Sture Terminal, and not from an oncoming ship. Contrary to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,[60] "Sola TS" had the same deck lights on after the ship left as when they were still at the terminal. The personnel on the bridge of Helge Ingstad were of the opinion that the radio call just before the accident was from one of the three other oncoming ships.

We should look at how to engineer things better to avoid this happening: this does not mean 'more training', 'brighter lights', or putting additional human-operated steps in already complex procedures.

[bigjames]

If the Heli said he would pass behind the aircraft on approach and that aircraft was behind the incident aircraft, then it makes even less sense.

[momo95]

Originally Posted by Khashoggi

Our 16 year Domestic commercial aircraft safety streak sadly has just ended. RIP to all those affected.

Some would say it has been a long time coming with all the well documented "near miss" type events in the US the last few years. The luck ran out.

[MPN11]

As a regular tourist to Alexandria, I have often watched the DCA traffic and the helos transiting along the Potomac shoreline north of the Wilson Bridge on Route 4. In this tragic instance, the Blackhawk [PAT25} not only seems to be higher than the published procedure but also further west [ie over the river]. And according to that radar plot [post 80] , in the last moments it seems to rurn right [ie further west] exacerbating the situation.

MPN11, former Mil ATCO

[ATC Watcher]

on Juan video, I did not hear ATC passing traffic info on the Helicopter . something we would normally do in Europe, , something like : PSA , you have Heli on your right at 300 Ft has you in sight. passing being you " is that not standard in the US ?
especially with the fact that possibly the 2 were on different frequencies seems odd .
Anyway the whole procedure is very odd to me . Lots of holes in the cheese legally opened here .

[Flch250]

Frequencies in use. It is not clear to me if everyone was on the tower frequency.

I suspect possibly not.

We also have a VHF helicopter TAC and UHF Mil Aero frequencies possible..

Can this lead to less information or SA, perhaps.

[Teddy Robinson]

Originally Posted by Flch250

Frequencies in use. It is not clear to me if everyone was on the tower frequency.

I suspect possibly not.

We also have a VHF helicopter TAC and UHF Mil Aero frequencies possible..

Can this lead to less information or SA, perhaps.

Fair comment.
I had a very nasty encounter at V1 with an underslung shipping container dangling below a USN CH53 that was masked by a dust cloud.
He had been cleared to depart 5 minutes previously on the MIL frequency, but used those minutes stabilising his load.
Meanwhile, unaware of this, the civilian tower frequency cleared us for takeoff.
It was not pretty.

[Avv]

Originally Posted by bigjames

If the Heli said he would pass behind the aircraft on approach and that aircraft was behind the incident aircraft, then it makes even less sense.

Unlikely that they mistook the CRJ, It's landing lights were pointing right at them. More likely they weren't sure where they were in relation to the plane and where it was going. From the radar plot they are head on, then the CRJ turns final to 33 and the Blackhawk turns right to avoid them. Too high and in the wrong spot.

[Upside Down]

Originally Posted by Junkflyer

Obviously way too soon for a definitive answer, however the Helo calling the traffic in sight may have been the first or second hole in the cheese.

wrong traffic ?
Or could the circling approach from 01 to 33 also be a factor with the helo misinterpreting the CRJ flight path and somehow losing sight ? The track of both aircraft is interesting… helo seems to initially be parallel to the river bank and turns 40 right. Why ? Was their destination the same airport or was that manoeuvre related to traffic avoidance or loss of visual ?

All guesswork I know… putting Special VFR traffic so close to final approach traffic at night clearly a problem. Tragic.

[MissChief]

Visual Separation is a recipe for a collision. The US ATC use it far too often, setting a trap for many an unwary crew. At night, in complex and crowded airspace, Visual Separation should not be used. I nearly came a cropper in daytime at MCO, when my gung-ho CM1 accepted it just as we entered cloud while joining final approach at 8 miles. So the blame can lie on both/all sides.

Remains to be seen here.

[Diff Tail Shim]

Originally Posted by ATC Watcher

on Juan video, I did not hear ATC passing traffic info on the Helicopter . something we would normally do in Europe, , something like : PSA , you have Heli on your right at 300 Ft has you in sight. passing being you " is that not standard in the US ?
especially with the fact that possibly the 2 were on different frequencies seems odd .
Anyway the whole procedure is very odd to me . Lots of holes in the cheese legally opened here .

The swiss cheese has well and truely been blown open. The CRJ would have been on a fixed descent on the localiser into Reagan? Only one aircraft was not where it should have been.

[henra]

The nasty thing about 'see and avoid' is that exactly the stationary situations where relative position/angle does not change is the collision setup. And this over a sea of lights of a big city at night.

Almost astonishing that this hasn't happened earlier

[HOVIS]

Am I right in thinking the CRJ is in a left banking attitude? The chopper is approaching from the right which would put it 'below' the horizontal deck level of the CRJ? If so, the AA crew would not be able to see the chopper at all. The helicopter pilots would only be able to see the lower anti col beacon and maybe the navy lights, logo lights if fitted/working would not highlight the fin at that angle, are cabin lights still being dimmed at night for take off and landing? So windows not lit up either?
I'm astonished that civil passenger carrying aircraft are operating in such an environment.
Incredibly sad and ultimately avoidable incident.
RIP.

[EDLB]

So a midair in the most tightly restricted and controlled airspace in the world. How many official agents were watching this in real time without taking action?

[172_driver]

I used to enjoy the free use of airspace in the US, but I always told myself and others; It's not for anyone who under performs.

[Stringy]

Originally Posted by 172_driver

I used to enjoy the free use of airspace in the US, but I always told myself and others; It's not for anyone who under performs.

That's an indirect way of saying that the system is flawed and is relying too much on humans to stop it from failing.

Originally Posted by EDLB

So a midair in the most tightly restricted and controlled airspace in the world. How many official agents were watching this in real time without taking action?

The problem is an over reliance on visual separation in congested and complicated airspace. An aircraft claims it has the traffic in sight, therefore taking responsibility for separation, and ATC moves on to their next task. The fact that this is allowed with commercial aviation over DC (or any major US city) when there's potentially hundreds of lives at stake in the air, never mind the lives on the ground, is staggering.

[Capt Fathom]

Originally Posted by Stringy

The problem is an over reliance on visual separation in congested and complicated airspace. An aircraft claims it has the traffic in sight, therefore taking responsibility for separation, and ATC moves on to their next task.

I remember the Lufthansa A380? that refused a night visual approach into SFO and subsequently diverted to Oakland.

[nicolai]

Neither Lufty nor Iberia will accept a visual night approach (as far as I recall).

But that wouldn't have saved them here, since they'd still have been hit by someone else trying visual separation at night in this case.

The Lufty A380 that went to Oakland looked a lot like they were being sent there by ATC to punish them, since it can't have been news to the SFO controllers that Lufty won't do that approach - when they come there every night at about the same time. The ATC kept him waiting and the Lufty Captain was pretty arsey to the ATC and then they sent him to Purgatory (OAK).