[HN Gopher] The missteps that led to a fatal plane crash at Reag...
___________________________________________________________________
The missteps that led to a fatal plane crash at Reagan National
Airport
Author : keepamovin
Score : 126 points
Date : 2025-04-28 02:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| keepamovin wrote:
| https://archive.is/23Uv1
| beeburrt wrote:
| Thanks! And
|
| Username checks out :)
| keepamovin wrote:
| Thank you :)
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43817001. Nothing wrong
| with it! I just want to save space at the top of the thread.
|
| (One of these years we'll build a more specialized system for
| aggregating related links)
| flowerthoughts wrote:
| Why is there a flight path along the Potomac river, right in
| front of a landing strip, at landing altitudes?
|
| The article claims the helicopter was higher than it should have
| been, but isn't it safer to fly high across the airport if you're
| crossing?
| lupusreal wrote:
| Training to evac politicians from what I understand. From
| wikipedia:
|
| > _" The helicopter was part of the Continuity of Government
| Plan, with the flight being a routine re-training of aircrew in
| night flight along the corridor."_
|
| Continuity of Government Plans is what they do when nukes get
| launched or a 9/11 sort of thing happens.
| vkou wrote:
| Should the people who had the most ability to prevent a
| global nuclear war be _survivors_ of one?
|
| That seems like a misalignment of incentives.
| dkokelley wrote:
| Not sure what the next best option here is. There was a
| thought experiment once where it would require the
| president to kill the key holder in order to launch a
| nuclear attack (the launch codes would be embedded in the
| designated key holder's heart). In theory this would make
| sure the president knew the seriousness of his or her
| actions, but it was never seriously considered as a
| protocol.
| kube-system wrote:
| The US's ability to _respond_ to a nuclear attack is a
| deterrence to one beginning in the first place.
| vkou wrote:
| The chain of command is designed to be resilient enough
| to do so without having to bail the VIPs out of the
| frying pan they landed themselves and the rest of the
| world in.
|
| They need to have as much skin in the game as everyone
| else.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| In the case of a nuclear attack, most of the nuclear
| "chain of command" would be targeted and, realistically,
| many would not survive. The continuity of government plan
| for a nuclear attack isn't designed to get all the
| influential muckety mucks out of the frying pan, it is to
| attempt to get the bare minimum of decision makers to
| secure facilities like Site-R or onto Doomsday Planes so
| they can wage an all-out nuclear retaliatory war. Very
| very few people would make it out of DC, and even getting
| anyone Sec Def or above out would be a very close thing.
|
| The point is that for deterrence to work, it has to be
| credible. If Russia thought it could "kill" the US
| government so that no one would be able to effectively
| order a counterattack (either because they are dead or
| because they can't communicate orders to actual nuclear
| forces), would they do it?
| tbrownaw wrote:
| OTOH, turning "instigate a nuclear war" into a way to
| assassinate specific people also seems like a bad idea?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Penn & Teller's book 'Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends'
| included a short story whose premise was a test to see if
| the president would be more likely to start a nuclear war
| if a safe bunker was available.
| standyro wrote:
| the military gets what it wants in DC, and the pilots were too
| comfortable and on different radio systems (helo can't hear
| airplanes and vice versa, air traffic control is their
| intermediary)
|
| A disaster waiting to happen in retrospect. Similar issues at
| other airports like runway incursions, especially at crowded
| small airports like SFO and LaGuardia with antiquated runway
| layouts.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Let's wait for the investigation to complete before we opine
| on what is or isn't a "disaster waiting to happen." The
| entire aviation system is a "disaster waiting to happen"
| unless you assume a baseline level of aircrew competence, and
| the question will be whether or not the aircrew fell victim
| to a systematic risk inherent in what they were doing, or
| whether they just screwed up.
|
| Sad to say, as a former aviator, I have seen it before where
| people died and families lost loved ones ultimately because
| of a systematic risk inherent in what they were doing, but
| also other times because someone flat-out just screwed up.
| tremon wrote:
| FTA:
|
| _data recently analyzed by the board revealed that
| National Airport was the site of at least one near
| collision between an airplane and a helicopter each month
| from 2011 to 2024_
|
| I would say that statistic in and of itself qualifies as a
| "disaster waiting to happen". I agree that we should wait
| for the full report, but I don't think the GP is using
| hyperbole in this case.
| jonah wrote:
| That line really stood out to me. One would hope that
| someone would realize this was a disaster waiting to
| happen and make changes before it actually happened.
| goku12 wrote:
| One near collision every month (minimum) for 13 years?
| How is that a disaster waiting to happen, as much as it
| is a case of wilful criminal negligence? How many near
| collisions are needed for the authorities recognize that
| it's an unacceptable risk? How did they let this happen?
| banannaise wrote:
| One of the biggest challenges for the FAA et al. is
| preventing both individuals and organizations from
| developing this kind of complacency, where something
| extremely dangerous becomes "just how we do it here, and
| it's fine".
|
| Unfortunately, they don't always succeed. Every crash is
| a lesson learned too late. We endeavor to learn earlier
| than that, and when we don't, we make sure we learn in
| the aftermath.
| Animats wrote:
| > Let's wait for the investigation to complete before we
| opine on what is or isn't a "disaster waiting to happen."
|
| Yes. The info still isn't that good.
|
| That said, allowing helicopter operations underneath a
| final approach path is iffy. Ops.group has a discussion.[1]
|
| [1] https://ops.group/blog/the-dangers-of-mixed-traffic/
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Relying on seeing another aircraft in the air at night is
| pretty much a disaster waiting to happen.
|
| You don't see aircraft at night, you see lights. And
| they're over a city--a gazillion lights. Thus all you
| really see are moving lights. But if two objects are on a
| steady collision path neither moves relative to the other.
| Thus both sets of pilots would simply have seen stationary
| lights, invisible against a sea of stationary lights.
| kube-system wrote:
| There's a lot going on in a small area there. Even without
| helicopters, the main runway (01/19) is the busiest runway in
| the nation, and it points directly at a no-fly zone over the
| white house, so the approach has a complicated turn at the last
| moment. Directly across the river, there's a military base with
| a heliport. And those helicopters often transport important
| individuals inside of those areas and to areas up and down the
| river. Those helicopters aren't just casually flying through,
| they are doing things in the immediate area.
|
| Just as an example, look at a map and take note of where DCA
| is, where the Marine One hangar is, and where the White House
| is. All of this stuff is right around the airport.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| Doesn't fully explain why the military flight path runs right
| on front of the landing pattern for the main runway. Even
| with the proximity to each other, i don't see how that was
| necessary
| kube-system wrote:
| This accident didn't involve the main runway, but runway
| 33. Although -- look at a map -- runway 33 points across
| the river to a military base with a heliport. It seems
| obvious as to why military helicopters would have to be
| there.
|
| Now, this particular flight wasn't landing there, but I
| don't think it is in any way confusing as to why military
| helicopters are in this area or taking these routes.
|
| This is inherently very complicated and high volume
| airspace, and there is a lot of helicopters because there
| are important leaders who use military helicopter
| transport, not commercial airports, but many of the places
| they might be landing are all around DCA.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _This is inherently very complicated and high volume
| airspace, and there is a lot of helicopters because there
| are important leaders who use military helicopter
| transport, not commercial airports, but many of the
| places they might be landing are all around DCA._
|
| Three are occasional news articles and sci-fi worlds
| advocating for flying cars to replace normal cars. I
| imagine that would actually be like this situation but a
| gazillion times worse, rather than the promised
| elimination of traffic jams.
| toast0 wrote:
| Actually, its a great way to eliminate traffic jams. The
| vehicles involved in the collision will naturally exit
| the roadway. So long as the flame and smoke don't obscure
| visibility, traffic will unjam itself.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The naturally exiting vehicles then just rain debris down
| on whatever unsuspecting <insertWhateverHere>.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| My question would be "why not close down Reagan?"
| especially now that the DC Metro runs to Dulles. Yes,
| yes, Congress likes to fly into Reagan. Too bad.
|
| Not only does Reagan have the same design problem as LGA
| and SFO (built before jetliners, runways too short), it's
| incredibly close to restricted airspace. No civilian
| needs to fly into an airport that close to DC.
| kube-system wrote:
| The area has enough traffic to support three airports,
| and all three (DCA/IAD/BWI) carry between 26-27 million
| passengers a year, each. I don't think you could close
| one of them without some significant disruption to
| service.
|
| Travel in/out of IAD from DC can take an hour, which is
| obviously why people there prefer DCA. And the flights
| there are all short-haul anyway, so many are the types of
| flights people are doing on short turnarounds.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| Well that settles it then, military aircraft will have to
| just turn on their ADS-B transponders when within X miles
| of a commercial/public airport
| janeerie wrote:
| They're not all short haul. I can do a direct to DCA from
| SLC.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are a handful of exceptions (of which SLC is one),
| but broadly the airport is legally limited to
| destinations within a 1250 mile perimeter to keep long
| haul traffic at IAD/BWI.
| gosub100 wrote:
| A compromise could be to close it for arrivals during
| certain hours, opening up one entire side of airspace
| (depending on the wind).
|
| The pain could be mitigated somewhat by adding seating
| areas and more aircraft parking while using larger
| planes. For instance, fewer flights total, consisting of
| 737s and a320s and eliminating flights that previously
| used shorter commuter sized aircraft.
| gymbeaux wrote:
| I think Midway (another old airport) is like this in that
| it's "Southwest + some private flights"
| jandrese wrote:
| I don't think IAD has the capacity to absorb the DCA
| traffic, at least not on a regular basis. Even if you
| include BWA I have my doubts that you wouldn't have to
| cut a bunch of flights due to gate or runway limitations.
| michael1999 wrote:
| It's an air-taxi service for VIPs. DC traffic is terrible.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| It's "safer" not to do a lot of things you do in military
| aviation, for one. And second, the flight path was deliberately
| plotted out requiring aircrew to maintain certain altitudes and
| stay within certain lateral boundaries to avoid other traffic.
| This is no different than any number of corridors like it
| around the country.
|
| At some point, it's like saying "isn't it 'safer' not to take
| the freeway because everyone drives so fast?"
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The appropriate analogy would be to take the freeway on a
| unicycle, naked. Otherwise known as inviting disaster.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| The helicopter did not cross the airport. The helicopter
| crossed the approach path to the airport, it was supposed to
| stay low enough not to be in the approach path. Then the pilot
| steered around the wrong plane and blundered right into the
| plane that they were supposed to be avoiding.
|
| Politicians wanting contradictory things, oops.
| jandrese wrote:
| Ironically it would probably be safer if the helicopter
| crossed directly over the airport. At least then airplanes
| are usually on the ground, except for the cases where someone
| has to abort a landing and go around. Still dangerous, but it
| should happen less often.
| michael1999 wrote:
| The military run a VIP helicopter-taxi service, with routes
| right though active landing flight paths.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I still don't understand the policy of the Army at the time to
| allow disabling of ADS-B Out in civilian airspace. I can
| understand in wartime.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Doing so was Army protocol, meant to allow the pilots to
| _practice_ secretly whisking away a senior government official
| in an emergency.
|
| 1: You don't want to do that for the first time in wartime.
|
| 2: In case you've been living under a rock, _we are at war with
| Russia right now._ We just haven 't declared war.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| True, train as you fight. But this was like a check-ride for
| the young Captain. ADS-B Out didn't need to be off.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I fail to see how flying untracked in a public airspace
| 8000km away from Moscow has anything to do with the US being
| in a new cold war, I don't see what good it brings,
| especially if it's to play hide and seek around a civilian
| airport
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| The Russian Embassy is pretty close as is the Chinese. That
| said, they could easily track military helicopters with or
| without ADS-B Out.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Easily? I suppose a surveillance radar on the roof of
| those embassies wouldn't go unnoticed.
| jamessinghal wrote:
| American embassies do this worldwide, famously spying on
| Angela Merkel from the Berlin Embassy (probably). [1]
|
| [1] https://www.duncancampbell.org/content/embassy-spy-
| centre-ne...
| lm28469 wrote:
| And how exactly does it help Russia to know there are
| planes and helicopters flying in the US around an airport
|
| What's the next conspiracy? They have anti air weapons in
| embassies and wait for a military helicopter transporting
| a high value target?
|
| Either way it's not worth 64 lives...
| pc86 wrote:
| It should be pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more
| than about 45 seconds thinking about it that you can
| gather good information about a potential enemy by
| watching how they train. For military and intelligence
| operations you want layered security, and you don't want
| to make intelligence-gathering operations against you any
| easier than you need to. So it makes perfect sense _at
| least_ up to the moment of this crash that if you 're
| operating military training flights in an area with a lot
| of foreign assets that you'd disable a feature that
| literally broadcasts where you are with telemetry once
| per second.
|
| This mindset isn't conspiracy and framing it as such
| makes you sound like you have no idea what you're talking
| about.
|
| > They have anti air weapons in embassies?
|
| It'd honestly be pretty surprising if they didn't, but
| this is also why when countries officially go to war with
| each other the embassies are typically evacuated and/or
| evicted.
|
| > Either way it's not worth 64 lives
|
| Not a single person here or elsewhere is claiming
| otherwise.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| > They have anti air weapons in embassies and wait for a
| military helicopter transporting a high value target?
|
| I agree with you that it seems relatively unlikely that
| there would be a large weapons cache inside an embassy. I
| want you to consider the opposite scenario of what you're
| dismissing though.
|
| If an American CIA officer in Russia wanted to shoot down
| a helicoper, do you think it would be _that difficult_
| for them to get ahold of a rocket launcher and do so?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| So what is the scenario, Russia does <what> to cause the
| president to be evacuated, and hopes he will fly through
| this route on a Blackhawk, as opposed to any other
| option, places an agent with a rocket launcher along the
| route, hopes it gets through countermeasures and shoots
| down the helicopter.
|
| After this unlikely series of events, what is achieved?
| Do American people give up because someone killed an
| easily replaceable politician with bad approval rating?
| chmod775 wrote:
| You don't need radar to track aircraft with ADS-B on: The
| plane is actively broadcasting its position.
|
| There's ADS-B receivers the size of a USB stick - because
| some _are_ USB sticks and available for 50 bucks on
| Amazon.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| No, but if ADS-B is off then its not squawking unless its
| got like Mode-3 or Mode-S then maybe MLAT can be used.
| jjwiseman wrote:
| Just to be specific, PAT25 seems to have been using Mode
| C for an earlier portion of its flight and Mode S for the
| later portion.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| https://scdn.rohde-
| schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/premiumdo...
|
| Passive RADAR is an incredibly cool technology. Instead
| of the RADAR station transmitting its own signals, it
| relies on nearby high-power cultural transmissions (FM
| radio, broadcast TV, etc) as the signal source and
| measures the reflections of those signals off of
| aircraft. Since the majority of traffic in the region
| would be broadcasting ADSB, you'd be able to figure out
| which tracks from your Passive RADAR system correspond to
| aircraft without ADSB.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| At war with Russia, or at war with Ukraine? It's hard to tell
| these days.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If we haven't declared war we're not at War. Words mean
| things.
|
| Especially in this era when this administration seems to be
| gearing up for military action in domestic spaces when
| Congress has declared no war.
| cafard wrote:
| For how many years was the United States engaged in a
| declared war, and for how many other years did its military
| engage in substantial operations?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm not excusing the malfeasance of past administrations
| when highlighting the malfeasance of this administration.
| HaZeust wrote:
| >"We just haven't declared war."
|
| Then we're not at war. Hope this clears things up for you!
| calfuris wrote:
| By this standard, the US has not been at war since WWII.
| This is an absurd result, so I conclude that the standard
| is wrong. Official declarations of war have become
| decoupled from actually being at war.
| howard941 wrote:
| The idea is that you're supposed to train as you fight.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I get that but in DC airspace near Reagan?
| howard941 wrote:
| Yes, you're right, lousy airspace design. Flown perfectly
| the chopper should have been no closer than 75' from the
| airplane if everyone is flying exactly on altitude (which
| never happens, you have to give at least +/-50'). Couple
| that with the difficulty of picking out an airplane against
| the hundreds of backlights of the valley and disaster was
| inevitable.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| The FAA says that I can't fly closer than 500 ft to a
| shed in the desert, but a Blackhawk is fine to be within
| 75 ft of a part 121 airliner in a bravo.
| howard941 wrote:
| Yeah but the Blackhawk requested visual separation. It
| shouldn't have, it couldn't tell the difference between
| the CRJ and any number of lights around it. Anyway, at
| that point the request was granted and you see how it
| ended.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I recall the tower establishing that they could maintain
| visual separation, not a request being made from the
| helicopter. My point is that if everything had gone
| perfectly, as little as 75 ft of separation would be
| provided. This is unacceptable in this context for
| reasons should have been clear ahead of time, but very
| unfortunately are made clearer in hindsight.
| howard941 wrote:
| Let's refresh recollections. TFA: "Shortly after the
| Black Hawk passed over Washington's most famous array of
| cherry trees, an air traffic controller at nearby Ronald
| Reagan National Airport alerted the crew to a regional
| passenger jet in its vicinity. The crew acknowledged
| seeing traffic nearby. One of the pilots then asked for
| permission to employ a practice called "visual
| separation." [...] "Visual separation approved," the
| controller replied."
|
| There's no ambiguity here.
| lobotomizer wrote:
| Wasting innocent civilians out of sheer stupidity, checks
| out.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Its a switch in the cockpit. Does train as you fight mean you
| gotta hit the chaff dispenser aswell? Wheres the line?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Almost certainly moving after this fiasco.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| Within reason, which is why soldiers train with blank-firing
| adapters and blanks, and not live ordnance when simulating
| combat.
|
| Turning ADS-B on/off likely has zero effect on the
| training/fighting relationship.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The article says the reason is a bit different - that the
| route they were practicing is (in theory) sensitive
| information.
|
| > But the Black Hawk did not operate with the technology
| because of the confidentiality of the mission for which the
| crew was practicing. That is because ADS-B Out positions
| can be obtained by anyone with an internet connection,
| making the system a potential risk to national security.
|
| Seems like leaving it in listen-only mode would be wise,
| though.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| They were coming back from Langley. I'm told it was just
| to "refuel."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| On one hand, I've got a reputable news organization
| publishing an article with specific information from
| experts, pilots, etc.
|
| On the other hand, I've got an internet rando who once
| told me to Google up MGTOW saying "I'm told".
|
| Which one would _you_ find credible?
| jjwiseman wrote:
| It wasn't coming back from Langley. That's misinformation
| from people who don't know the subtleties of what's
| displayed by flight tracking sites. For more info see
| https://x.com/aeroscouting/status/1884983390392488306
| alistairSH wrote:
| The route is a public/known helicopter flight path.
| There's nothing secret about it.
|
| Here's a map of the helicopter routes in the area. In
| this case, they were flying on route 4... https://www.loc
| .gov/resource/g3851p.ct004873/?r=0.67,0.258,0...
|
| Yes, this group transports VIPs and sometimes does so in
| secret. This training flight was a "simple" check-ride
| for the pilot (simple in scare quotes because part of the
| ride was using the NVGs, which strikes me as fairly
| ridiculous in the DCA air space).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The route itself, sure.
|
| When this specific helicopter/mission joins the route,
| how fast it goes, what callsign it uses, when it leaves
| the route, etc. may not be so public. Or at least be
| treated as "try not to make it _unnecessarily_ public ".
|
| Overclassification is absolutely a thing, too. I recall
| when the Snowden NSA leaks came out, government employees
| were still forbidden from reading the documents, even if
| they were published in the newspapers. Pointless? Yes.
| But those were the rules.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Surely either you are training, or you are on a mission,
| but in that case you should be competent pilot.
|
| training on a confidential mission is just inviting
| disaster
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Training _for_ a mission tends to mean pretending it 's
| the _real_ mission, as closely as possible. People fire
| off $100k missiles
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrhybKEzb-0) so they
| know what it'll be like to do it in combat for real.
|
| Competent people still make mistakes. I wouldn't want to
| be anywhere near DCA airspace, personally.
| alistairSH wrote:
| The ADSB is a simple switch. All it does is broadcast the
| position. It would have had zero impact on operational
| readiness. It's not like they were actually flying "dark"
| - lights were on, they were in context with ATC, etc.
| dmoy wrote:
| > Overclassification is absolutely a thing, too. I recall
| when the Snowden NSA leaks came out, government employees
| were still forbidden from reading the documents, even if
| they were published in the newspapers. Pointless? Yes.
| But those were the rules.
|
| Not just government employees. I was at a defense
| contractor at the time, and we were also instructed to
| not read any of the documents online, even for people who
| were technically cleared to read them through proper
| channels.
|
| Edit: misremembering, wasn't the Snowden leaks, it was
| some earlier set of leaks on WikiLeaks
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Listen-only mode would be ADS-B In. Black Hawk's support
| ADS-B Out.
|
| 1. C-17 Globemaster III (transport)
|
| 2. C-130 Hercules (transport)
|
| 3. KC-135 Stratotanker (tanker)
|
| 4. KC-10 Extender (tanker)
|
| 5. P-8 Poseidon (maritime patrol/reconnaissance)
|
| 6. E-3 Sentry (AWACS)
|
| 7. E-8 Joint STARS (reconnaissance)
|
| ^ above have ADS-B In capability
|
| This answer on Aviation Stack Exchange did some research
| into ADS-B statistics for military aircraft: https://avia
| tion.stackexchange.com/questions/107851/military...
|
| TCAS (collision avoidance) can use Mode A/C/S however it
| depends on if the aircraft has the earlier or later model
| TCAS:
| https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/90356/does-
| tcas...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They'll all have both in and out capability. (It's
| typically the same device.)
|
| Military aircraft have permission from the FAA to turn
| off one, or both, for fairly obvious reasons.
| https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/communications-
| navigati...
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I don't think the Black Hawk can support ADS-B In and
| usually its the surveillance type aircraft that carry it.
| I updated my post above. There is limited cockpit space
| in Black Hawks anyways. There might be a specific
| modernization occurring for a variant of UH-60 that has
| ADS-B IN, but vast majority do not.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Every aircraft in controlled airspace is required to have
| ADS-B transponders, and any aircraft with Out has In as
| well (In is the easy one; it just listens; you can even
| build your own with a Raspberry Pi -
| https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/ and a $36
| receiver https://flightaware.store/products/pro-stick).
| You can buy a portable ADS-B In receiver the size of a
| wallet for $400 and get traffic alerts on an iPad.
| https://flywithsentry.com/buy
|
| My dad's little four seat hobby plane has both In/Out.
| You can track him on FlightAware as a result, because
| it's continually broadcasting its location; it's
| certainly not rare or sophisticated equipment.
|
| Here's a military Blackhawk toodling around as we speak:
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae27fc
|
| https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/blackhawk-ads-b-was-
| off-...
|
| > The Army Black Hawk helicopter crew involved in the
| midair collision with an American Eagle CRJ700 last
| January at Reagan National Airport had _turned off ADS-B
| because they were practicing a classified flight profile_
| , according to a New York Times investigation.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| We are both in agreement that ADS-B OUT is required. But,
| I am referring to ADS-B IN which most _military_ aircraft
| do not have as a matter of practice. If ADS-B IN was
| running in addition to ADS-B OUT on both aircraft then it
| might have provided additional situational awareness
| assuming the Black Hawk pilot was operating the
| helicopter properly. The original comment was about
| putting the receiver in listening mode and that 's simply
| not possible with the Black Hawk.
|
| I have been running an ADS-B receiver at home for 6 years
| via PiAware along with an AIS receiver. So yes, low cost
| :)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's really not that rare. Especially with stuff like
| ForeFlight.
|
| https://download.aopa.org/advocacy/2019/dhowell_jking_DAS
| C20...
|
| > A majority of respondents had used ADS-B In, with 56%
| of respondents reported having experience with either an
| installed or portable system. Of the group who had
| experience with ADS-B In, 85% used portable systems and
| 30% used installed systems.
|
| And that's in 2019.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| No disagreement. ADS-B IN is just a feature that most
| military aircraft to include UH-60's (Black Hawk) do not
| have yet.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Sounds like they should sort it out before placing
| civilians in danger
| firesteelrain wrote:
| In retrospect, it was a bad plan to let a young Captain
| who mostly served as a liaison in DC and _not_ a
| helicopter pilot to train on that route. A simpler one
| where she could progressively train up to would have been
| wiser. She also should have listened to her more well
| seasoned Warrant Officer copilot. ADS-B In wouldn't have
| addressed any of those problems
| 542354234235 wrote:
| The route they were training for was to evac government
| personnel during an emergency (terrorism, incoming
| attack, etc.). ADS-B is live location whereas transponder
| is delayed. In a real scenario, you wouldn't want to be
| transmitting live location, since whatever the emergency
| is likely involves targeting of VIP government personnel.
| But in training, that would not effect your training,
| since the ADS-B is for others benefit, and doesn't change
| your situational awareness or capability.
|
| edit: To add and make clear, the route will be known for
| a training or real situation, but it will be delayed. So
| for training, turning off the ADS-B does not protect the
| route information and that is why there is no reason to
| fly with it off for training.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you train to turn the ADS-B on, there's a decent
| chance you'll turn it on during the real thing. That's
| the point of training.
| yuliyp wrote:
| The ADS-B transponder tells other planes where you are. It
| doesn't tell you where the other planes are. Turning it off
| when there are civilian planes doesn't improve your ability
| to aviate. it just hurts the situational awareness of the
| civilian planes who aren't supposed to be learning how to
| fight.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| ADS-B goes both directions - you can broadcast, and you can
| listen. In this case, having it on would've told the
| Blackhawk crew a plane was way closer than they thought,
| even if the Blackhawk had _broadcasting_ off.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This sounds very strange:
|
| - What combat situation will require a military aircraft
| to be flying 30 meters from civilian jet doing routine
| flights?
|
| - i don't believe that there really is no technical
| solution to provide awareness to civilians of the
| presence and location of military aircraft without
| altering the pilot's experience
|
| - if it had told the Blackhawk crew a plane was way
| closer, the crew would still be alive. That's like the
| whole point.
|
| I have no expertise or n the area, but I can't share the
| feeling that decision making is extremely poor, and
| sometimes it actually takes an outsider, who is free from
| groupthink and cope, to see that a decision is stupid.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > What combat situation will require a military aircraft
| to be flying 30 meters from civilian jet doing routine
| flights?
|
| Evacuating leadership during a 9/11 scenario?
|
| > i don't believe that there really is no technical
| solution to provide awareness to civilians of the
| presence and location of military aircraft without
| altering the pilot's experience
|
| There is. That's ADS-B. Which broadcasts your position.
| So it's turned off in military aircraft at times, for
| obvious reasons.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >So it's turned off in military aircraft at times, for
| obvious reasons.
|
| Obvious reasons to me are in active military operations
| against an enemy. Not flying around the airport of the
| nation's busiest runway and civilian populated areas.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Warrant Officer Eaves stated that it was at 300 feet and
| descending to 200 feet -- necessary because the maximum height
| for its route closer to the airport had dropped to 200 feet. But
| even as it reached that juncture, Warrant Officer Eaves evidently
| felt obligated to repeat his instruction: The Black Hawk was at
| 300 feet, he said, and needed to descend
|
| > Not only was the Black Hawk flying too high, but in the final
| seconds before the crash, its pilot failed to heed a directive
| from her co-pilot, an Army flight instructor, to change course.
|
| > He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to
| turn left, toward the east river bank. Turning left would have
| opened up more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342,
| which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300
| feet. She did not turn left.
|
| As much as the article tries to balance it out that the
| controllers should have done more it seems that ultimately the
| pilot flying was distracted and not following instructions from
| the instructor sitting next to them. It happened at least twice
| based on the captured recordings.
|
| Was there something in their personal life or career to warrant
| that - a setback, some family situation? Otherwise they seemed
| qualified and flew that route a few times already.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Was there something in their personal life or career to
| warrant that - a setback, some family situation? Otherwise they
| seemed qualified and flew that route a few times already._
|
| Beyond her general lack of flight-time? Her primary role
| appeared to be some sort of liaison in DC, not flying
| Blackhawks.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| 450 hours over 5 years for a Army helicopter pilot stateside
| doesn't seem to be abnormally low.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's only 90 hours/year. Not even 2 hours/week.
|
| That may be common for an Army pilot, but for somebody
| expected to fly during wartime, transport VIPs under
| stressful conditions, etc that's pretty goddam minimal.
| sjs382 wrote:
| Is that based on something other than vibes?
|
| From what I can tell, that's the low end of average, but
| that's based on 5ish mins of fact-checking.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Vibes, I guess... 2 hours/week feels inadequate to
| maintain proficiency in a highly technical, high-stress
| role.
| sjs382 wrote:
| Seems that for a FAC 1, UH-60, 48 hours is required
| semiannually (every 6 months) and 12hr of sim can be
| applied to meet those flight time minimums. For FAC 2,
| it's 30 over 6 months, also allowing 12 hrs of that as
| sim time.
|
| One source among many: https://helicopterforum.verticalre
| ference.com/topic/24169-ar...
|
| This is one of those situations where common intuition
| doesn't match reality. I've similarly been wrong in the
| past where my intuition was off wrt/ to hours on
| industrial equipment compared to their expected life.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| The warrant officer was the instructor and was training her.
| Few times doesn't make someone qualified. I think it was
| because of military egos and ranks, the warrant officer didn't
| force corrected the Captain.
|
| Also why is training happening in such dangerous path where
| even if the instructions were followed the aircrafts could get
| as close as 30 m apart.
| milkshakes wrote:
| exploring this phenomenon is the premise of season two of
| "the rehearsal"
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I think it was because of military egos and ranks, the
| warrant officer didn't force corrected the Captain.
|
| I think they should prohibit such type of flights when ranks
| are reversed. Let's imagine he would have yanked the controls
| and avoided the crash. Now the Captain could have said
| "you're insubordinate and tanked my qualification flight,
| there will be a price to pay".
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Extremely unlikely. Laughably so.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Coincidentally, Nathan Fielder is currently doing an entire
| season of The Rehearsal based on the premise that a number of
| flight crashes occurred after the co-pilot failed to
| contradict or take controls from the pilot.
|
| > Nathan Fielder studies airliner black box transcripts in
| which the first officer feels too intimidated to challenge
| the captain, leading to fatal crashes due to pilot error. He
| discusses this with John Goglia, a former National
| Transportation Safety Board member, who had once recommended
| roleplay simulation to improve pilot communication.
|
| Really good season so far!
| mmooss wrote:
| It's a well-known problem with well-known solutions.
| Fielder didn't discover it.
| rob74 wrote:
| That's actually the crux of the matter - not only shouldn't
| they have done _training_ (at night, with night vision
| goggles) in conditions where aircraft could be only 30 m
| apart, this construct of a helicopter flight corridor being
| within an altimeter 's tolerance of the glide path for an
| airport runway shouldn't have been allowed to happen at all!
| It's unfortunate that the article focuses on who made what
| missteps and doesn't mention this systemic issue.
| scrlk wrote:
| > I think it was because of military egos and ranks, the
| warrant officer didn't force corrected the Captain.
|
| I'd be shocked if the US military didn't provide crew
| resource management training for their aviators. This is
| exactly the kind of situation CRM is designed to prevent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Similar in firefighting, we train new cadets about
| correcting or calling out situations to their officer,
| especially re (but not limited to) safety.
| khuey wrote:
| > Also why is training happening in such dangerous path where
| even if the instructions were followed the aircrafts could
| get as close as 30 m apart.
|
| Forget training, why is this happening under any
| circumstances ever? If a military transport mission is ever
| so critical that you're willing to fly it within 30 meters of
| a civilian airlines it seems to me that you should just close
| the airspace to civil air traffic at that point.
| Titan2189 wrote:
| That helicopter route is available to anyone, not just army
| helicopters
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Everyone else has ADS-b and uses shared comms.
| multjoy wrote:
| I don't know if the US shares a great deal with UK armed
| forces, but an officer ignoring a senior NCO, especially one
| training them, does so very much at their own peril.
|
| It is far more likely to be something like cognitive overload
| rather than a clash or personalities - you don't get to be in
| that position in the first place if you have a tendency to
| disregard instructors.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I am talking about instructor. He didn't took control
| himself even likely knowing the captain was putting both in
| risky place.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| I've personally never met a warrant officer afraid of (or
| even the least bit timid about) correcting a commissioned
| company-grade officer (O-3 in this case).
| somat wrote:
| With regards to training for high tolerance situations.
| Places and times where a small error can have large
| consequences.
|
| Yes you ease into it, the first level of training is done in
| a safe environment, however as the person gains competence
| the training moves into the domain in question, the person
| gains experience at doing the thing in question while being
| supervised. Or to put it another way.
|
| What? You expect that their first flight through that tight
| corridor at night should be done alone?
|
| In conclusion, I think it is fine in general that they were
| doing training on that flight path. However the fact that the
| both pilot and the trainer erred so badly indicates the need
| for better low level training and a reevaluation of the need
| for such a tight flight path in a civilian zone.
|
| Update: unrelated thought, I could not decide if low or high
| tolerance was the term i wanted, after waffling a bit I went
| with high tolerance. as that is the correct engineering
| meaning, but really the term is ambiguous and means the
| different things in different domains, he has a high
| tolerance for alcohol means the opposite of he made a high
| tolerance part.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| While I can't speak to their individual temperaments, this is
| not an issue in the Army. Warrant officers are probably the
| least likely to worry about rank being confused with
| authority. They have the military experience from serving in
| the enlisted ranks as an NCO, with the protection of being
| officers that are above enlisted but still fall outside the
| commissioned officer ranks. They aren't untouchable but are
| highly insulated from petty tyrants.
|
| I don't know why the instructor didn't take a more
| forceful/active role leading up to the crash, but I don't
| think rank was a contributing factor.
| mbrameld wrote:
| I agree with everything you said, just want to point out
| that there's a "street to seat" program for Army aviators,
| so the warrant may have never served as an enlisted
| soldier. I still don't think a reluctance to act based on
| rank was the issue, like at all. Aviation is different from
| the rest of the military, there is generally a culture of
| safety that supersedes the rank structure.
| Onavo wrote:
| A hundred feet in aviation unfortunately just isn't that much.
| It's the equivalent of driving 3 miles over the speed limit on
| the highway. I am not sure about rotorcraft but if you are
| flying a traditional Cessna for training, a bit of wind shear
| or updraft can easily change your altitude by hundreds of feet.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > A hundred feet in aviation unfortunately just isn't that
| much. It's the equivalent of driving 3 miles over the speed
| limit on the highway. I am not sure about rotorcraft but if
| you are flying a traditional Cessna for training, a bit of
| wind shear or updraft can easily change your altitude by
| hundreds of feet.
|
| I would agree in general, but in that particular environment
| around DC with the restricted WH fly zone, the busy airport,
| the river and the bridges and the ADSB switched off it can
| make a huge difference.
| Onavo wrote:
| Yeah, I find the report to be more of a morning after
| quarterback situation. For general plane to plane vertical
| separation, you are supposed to maintain a minimum of
| hundreds of feet. _A hundred_ feet shouldn 't make a
| difference.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| I mean maybe instead of patholigizing to that level we maybe
| need to accept that there is a temporal normal distribution to
| human attention spans and design our systems around it.
|
| It feels like semi-autonomous ATC and flight controls were
| possible as of 5 years ago. Has FAA even started writing
| initial reports on this?
| rdtsc wrote:
| > semi-autonomous ATC
|
| Yeah, that one has been around as long as there have been
| computers. It's sort of like the flying car of the ATC world
| - it's always 5 years away.
|
| > temporal normal distribution to human attention spans
|
| Tn this case we had both the ATC and the instructor tell the
| pilot to do something different and they didn't listen. Not
| sure if that's an attention span issue, it may be, but it's
| not clear it's definitely what it is.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| AFAICT the technologies been around for a while (esp
| assistance). It's the regulation and the minefield of a
| roll-out plan that the FAA would rather not take on. Nobody
| gets fired for doing nothing and continuing to play whack-
| a-mole with human frailties.
| xienze wrote:
| > Was there something in their personal life or career to
| warrant that - a setback, some family situation?
|
| Probably something as simple as she thought he was
| "mansplaining."
| mbrameld wrote:
| > As much as the article tries to balance it out that the
| controllers should have done more it seems that ultimately the
| pilot flying was distracted and not following instructions from
| the instructor sitting next to them. It happened at least twice
| based on the captured recordings.
|
| I'm a helicopter flight instructor, although I've never flown
| in the military. There are 5 magic words the instructor can,
| and I would argue is obligated to, use to fix the situation: "I
| have the flight controls"
|
| Knowing they were 100 feet high and flying into the approach
| corridor with an aircraft on short final and not taking the
| controls is an enormous failure on the part of the instructor.
| The student was likely task-saturated and the instructor should
| have recognized that.
| rconti wrote:
| I was also struck by
|
| | He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted
| them to turn left, toward the east river bank.
|
| Now, I'd love to _hear_ the actual comment/instruction here.
| He may have been hedging because he was trying to piece
| together the stepped on "pass behind" direction from ATC. But
| I also wonder if it's an inherent problem when the student
| outranks the instructor?
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Seems like a lot of people have never had to deal with a
| higher-ranked person who might ruin the underling's career
| if shown up in a particularly embarrassing way. It's easy
| to imagine that prospect causing the instructor to hesitate
| just enough for disaster.
| rainsford wrote:
| > Knowing they were 100 feet high and flying into the
| approach corridor with an aircraft on short final and not
| taking the controls is an enormous failure on the part of the
| instructor.
|
| Even if they were out of the helicopter airway, based at
| least on radio transmissions the instructor thought they had
| the landing aircraft in sight and presumably thought they
| could stay separated from it visually. I would agree with you
| if staying at the exact right altitude and position was being
| thought of as the primary factor keeping them separated from
| traffic they couldn't see, but it seems different when they
| were operating under visual separation and thought they
| _could_ see the aircraft.
|
| That said, I fly Skyhawks not Blackhawks (or any kind of
| helicopter), so maybe the expectations are different in the
| rotary wing world. But my experience is that a 100ft altitude
| deviation is not an "instructors takes the controls"
| situation in an airplane unless you're about to run into
| something. Of course they were in this case, but it's not
| obvious the instructor knew that.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Was there something in their personal life or career to
| warrant that - a setback, some family situation?
|
| Why do you focus on that and not many other possibilities for
| distraction - cognitive overload, lack of sleep, an injury,
| other distractions in the cockpit, etc.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Why do you focus on that and not many other possibilities
| for distraction
|
| Why shouldn't I focus on those? I guess just by asking the
| question you haven't quite shown why your guess are better. I
| guess I don't how lack of sleep is a better explainer than, I
| don't know, a family member dying?
|
| I guess which one would the investigator be able to figure
| out? They can read the obituary of the grandmother but how
| would they figure she didn't sleep well the night before.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It seems like both the pilot and instructor misidentified the
| plane they were supposed to be separated from, otherwise the
| instructor would have taken the controls and performed the
| maneuver himself if he knew a collision was imminent.
|
| Maybe visual flight separation is a bad idea when there are a
| bunch of lights from the ground and a busy airspace. A plane on
| a collision course with you will just look like a static light,
| like many many other lights in the area.
| rainsford wrote:
| I think there is way too much focus on the exact position of
| the helicopter and the article actually does a pretty good job
| providing additional details (which it then undermines by
| ending the article the way it did).
|
| For me the most consequential factor is that the helicopter
| pilots (technically the instructor, but I assume both were in
| agreement) requested visual separation based on their obviously
| incorrect visual sighting of the landing aircraft, which the
| controller granted. While perfect adherence to the routes by
| both helicopter and airplane might have avoided a collision,
| the margin is so incredibly slim (75 ft) that it seems unlikely
| the intent was that it would serve as the primary way to
| separate traffic. Properly executed visual separation would
| have kept everyone safe, but it seems pretty likely that
| neither helicopter pilot actually has eyes on the jet, maybe at
| any point or maybe just prior to the crash.
|
| I also think it's hasty to discount the controller's role. At
| least based on the article, it's not clear the controller
| provided enough information that the helicopter pilots could
| have determined if they had visually identified the right
| aircraft. Given how busy the airspace is, making sure the
| helicopter was tracking the _right_ landing aircraft is pretty
| critical. And while it 's the pilots' job, the controller can
| certainly give them every advantage.
|
| I think the statement in the article about many things going
| wrong all at the same time is likely the right one, although of
| course we should wait for the final NTSB report to say for
| certain. I feel like people want the satisfaction of
| identifying one single primary cause, but most aircraft
| accidents don't really work like that. And we should want to
| understand all the factors to plug as many holes in the swiss
| cheese as we can going forward.
| listenallyall wrote:
| > He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to
| turn left
|
| This is an interesting sentence. In a very generous
| interpretation, the pilot (if she had survived) might claim that
| she wasn't directed to turn, just that the instructor _believed_
| ATC _wanted_ her to turn, and thus she still needed to evaluate
| the situation and decide what to do. In other words, she might
| claim she didn't defy an order, because being told an instructor
| "believes" something is different than being directed to do it.
| mmooss wrote:
| What are the actual words used by the warrant officer? I think
| you are taking a characterization in the article too literally.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Very possible. That's kind of the point of my comment - like
| you I'm curious what actual words were said and whether they
| are normal protocol for a training exercise, and at what
| point does the trainer abandon the exercise and just go
| "you're about to crash!" either out of urgency or panic?
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