Regional jet crashes into Potomac River near Reagan National Airport

[selmaborntidefan]

Quite correct. Until shown otherwise, I'm going to operate under the assumption that being a good or bad pilot has nothing to do with gender, race, or sexual orientation and that being hired while DEI policies were in place doesn't mean that you weren't highly qualified to do the job.

Asfrom which, a good pilot still makes mistakes. Does anyone think Chuck Yeager never messed up? And my suspicion is there’s likely to be a lot of blame to go around.

(I use Yeager because l used to see him at the base hospital once a month or so, and we had a saying: “What’s the difference in God and Chuck Yeager? God won’t tell you he’s Chuck Yeager”).

The crew on the helicopter is being undone in the modern age because everybody has seen a video and thinks that that tells everything. And it may - but many times it doesn’t. When the Eagles and the Bears played the infamous Fog Bowl on the last day of 1988, fans watching on television or even in the stands, could not see the ball game. The game is on YouTube and people looking at it will say there’s no way anyone could see. After all, just look at the video. But the reason the game was not postponed or anything is because just so long as you could see one end zone from the other down at field level, they considered it decent enough visual to play. “They couldn’t see to pass”…. But Randall Cunningham threw for 407 yards….. and the teams combined for 771 yards, a blockbuster total in 1988.

My point is that simply seeing a video in and of itself doesn’t substantiate anything in most cases.

 

[Bamaro]

One thing that I cant understand is they both approached each other close to head on, maybe off by 20 degrees or so, but the copter pilots couldn't see a jet with its landing lights on.

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

One thing that I cant understand is they both approached each other close to head on, maybe off by 20 degrees or so, but the copter pilots couldn't see a jet with its landing lights on.

The simplest explanation (and therefore the one getting the least political attention) is that the blackhawk pilots suffered from confirmation bias. They were told to look for an RJ and go behind it. They thought they saw it even though they actually were looking at another plane, and continued visually tracking the wrong plane until the moment of impact with the RJ they were told to look for but had never actually seen.

As for the landing lights, they are bright but primarily when viewed head on, by design, because too much lateral beam would run the risk of interfering with other aircraft not in the flight path. The blackhawk would not have had to have been too many degrees to the RJ's right side for the RJ's landing lights to have blended into the backdrop of other planes and DC lights.

I don't know this how it happened, but it's the simplest explanation...

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

On the matter of DEI, the issue is potentially legitimate but also being misconstrued.

It's very likely that DEI initiatives in any industry AS THEY WERE IMPLEMENTED reduced technical competence versus what otherwise would have been hired. But in most fields, technical competence isn't the only thing that matters. Usually, there's a competence threshold below which a candidate can't cut it and will get rejected; but above that threshold, especially in team environments such as, say, a cockpit, you also need to be a good team player and communicator (both giving and receiving). Navy Seals are known to prefer a less competent team member who is not toxic to one more competent who is toxic. Southwest Airlines was famous for rejecting highly qualified pilots who displayed arrogance in favor of other highly qualified pilots who didn't. There's a reason not many test pilots fly commercial (I'm only aware of one who did), and it isn't for lack of skill.

You don't solve many complex issues with a point solution approach; in the case of chopper or airline pilots, by hiring the best technical quality starting at the top and working your way down until you have a full complement. It's more of a threshold question: meet the minimum technical competence necessary for success, and then weave in other factors that become as important as, or more important than, an extra increment of technical competence.

The presence of DEI initiatives - even if it led to hiring less qualified pilots - is not a priori evidence of a safety problem. You'd need to show that DEI a posteriori resulted in hiring pilots with skills below the threshold. And no one who's talking knows the answer to that question yet...

 

[Huckleberry]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1885734974298435943

NTSB: For media covering the airplane crashes in Washington and Philadelphia—all NTSB updates about news conferences or other investigative information will be posted to this X account. We will not be distributing information via email.


The NTSB is limiting these updates to Musk's privately-owned app.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

I apologize if I missed you all talking about this already...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/female-pilot-in-crash-trump-blames-on-dei-was-in-top-20-of-army/

I've been pretty disgusted about how this whole thing was almost immediately politicized when there is almost nothing political about it.

But fwiw the Pilot was apparently well trained and qualified despite the initial narrative.

"She had been in the top 20 per cent of Army ROTC cadets nationwide and picked for a prestigious role as a White House social aide. Her awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon."

"She achieved the rank of Captain, having twice served as a Platoon Leader and as a Company Executive Officer… With more than 450 hours of flight time, she earned certification as a pilot-in-command after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion"

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1885734974298435943

NTSB: For media covering the airplane crashes in Washington and Philadelphia—all NTSB updates about news conferences or other investigative information will be posted to this X account. We will not be distributing information via email.


The NTSB is limiting these updates to Musk's privately-owned app.

The NTSB is an independent entity by design; and has an independent streak almost to the point of self-righteousness. You’re implying a motive here that I’d be hard-pressed to accept with NTSB. If this were from FAA, whose leadership reports to and serves at the pleasure of the president, I’d understand the concern I think you’re expressing…

 

[Huckleberry]

The NTSB is an independent entity by design; and has an independent streak almost to the point of self-righteousness. You’re implying a motive here that I’d be hard-pressed to accept with NTSB. If this were from FAA, whose leadership reports to and serves at the pleasure of the president, I’d understand the concern I think you’re expressing…

Whether the motivation is improper or not, the optics are terrible. I guess the NTSB might not be concerned with that, but still...

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

Whether the motivation is improper or not, the optics are terrible. I guess the NTSB might not be concerned with that, but still...

Agreed. They should explain why they’re doing it. E.g., harder (probably close to impossible) to disseminate false information by cloning a verified X account than by impersonating an email account…

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I apologize if I missed you all talking about this already...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/female-pilot-in-crash-trump-blames-on-dei-was-in-top-20-of-army/

I've been pretty disgusted about how this whole thing was almost immediately politicized when there is almost nothing political about it.

But fwiw the Pilot was apparently well trained and qualified despite the initial narrative.

"She had been in the top 20 per cent of Army ROTC cadets nationwide and picked for a prestigious role as a White House social aide. Her awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon."

"She achieved the rank of Captain, having twice served as a Platoon Leader and as a Company Executive Officer… With more than 450 hours of flight time, she earned certification as a pilot-in-command after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion"

Funny how that bastion of impartiality (sarcasm intended) lowers her later in the article to “co-pilot.” Which is fine but sure wasn’t the story they went for in the clickbait title.

And what does “Top 20” mean? We are given no context of what SPECIFICALLY that means. And they list her awards ALL of which I had the USAF version because medals are handed out in the military like candy at the bank. Let’s not confuse her with a Medal of Honor winner yet.

None of this of course means she even bears ANY responsibility for the crash at this point much less most. And l concur with you that Mr Gaslight was and is disgusting, but the first thing l heard politically was “ Who did Trump need to eliminate on that plane” followed by “Trump paused ATC hiring” as if an air traffic controller could’ve been trained in the last eight days. That does not absolve the president of the United States, from whom I should be able to expect higher standards than the average Joe, but let’s not pretend everything doesn’t become political (as a reminder, there are people thinking Trump wasn’t even shot or that that whole thing was staged for pole ratings; sure, they had to kill the fireman, but whatever).

We are going to learn exactly what kind of pilot she was, good or bad - unless a convenient fire from the army just burns up those papers and they conveniently don’t have a computer copy with that information on it.

Even at that point, we are having to assume that an organization dedicated to lying in the interest of national security is actually telling us the truth.

 

[crimsonaudio]

One thing that I cant understand is they both approached each other close to head on, maybe off by 20 degrees or so, but the copter pilots couldn't see a jet with its landing lights on.

My understanding is they were running NVGs at the time, which alters a LOT of how we perceive things, according to a former blackhawk pilot on X:

Former Blackhawk pilot here. I’ll try to describe it [flying with NVGs] for you. Imagine you are looking at the world through toilet paper tubes, and everything is just different shades of green and black, with stars and ground lights hard to differentiate and aircraft lights that look the same as those. Then you have 3 different radio frequencies going off in your ears. Then you’re trying to navigate without any peripheral vision. And you’re trying to keep the aircraft under control. And you are trying to keep watch for all traffic, not just one plane. Because there are several in the sky at once and you’re tying to mentally keep track of all of them. And you get distracted for like 5 seconds or your focus goes elsewhere, like you instructor pilot asking you a question about airspace regulations. Boom. You’re all dead. Flying these machines is really tough, and the airspace and NVGs make it a heck of a lot tougher.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Another:

There are so many ways an experienced pilot could have missed the jet. I have over 800 hours flight time on night vision goggles (NVGs), and while I would certainly prefer to fly at night with NVGs they are not a panacea to see everything. First of all, you only have about a 40 degree field of view (FOV), so you don't have enhanced visibility in your peripheral vision. The brightness of the NVG image also tends to drown out normal lighting in your peripheral vision. To counteract the limited FOV and maintain situational awareness of things all around your aircraft, you have to continuously be scanning and moving your head. This limits the amount of time spent viewing and processing what is happening in each 40 degree cone you view. It also means when focusing on a task or trying to keep something in view (like an aircraft you believe is the one you should be following), you tend to stop scanning. Also notice how city lights at a distance start blooming out, creating little halos in the attached picture. As you get closer and the intensity of lights increases, that blooming effect tends to expand. Imagine being up close to the lights of Joint Base Anacostia/Bolling and trying to pick out a co-altitude aircraft out of the base lights and the National Harbor lights further down the river. Additionally you run into an issue where the light intensification in the NVGs hits its maximum limit and the electronics will decrease the gain (or amplification) on the image to try to maintain some sort of useful image instead of whiting out completely. On top of the difficulty in seeing aircraft on NVGs in a cluttered light environment, if the pilots truly believed the aircraft on 8 mile final to Rwy 01 was their ATC called traffic, then it's likely one pilot may have gone "heads down" to input a new frequency, to update their Flight Management System (FMS), or write down some notes related to the checkride. The crew chief also could have either been on the right side of the helo or doing another task. Totally normal sort of activities if there is not a perceived need to be focusing outside. This would leave only one pilot looking outside with an increased risk in the few moments prior to the mid-air.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1885397783152033974

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

If you’ve lost Juanita Broaddrick, you’ve lost America…

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

I’m willing to bet there’s a direct correlation between one’s propensity to say the DCA video proves DEI or terrorism caused the incident, and one’s propensity to say the Rodney King video didn’t prove police brutality; and the reverse…

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Has anyone noticed that the more rigid and defiant opinions are from people who do not know the first damn thing about aviation?

then again, maybe I am oversensitive on this subject for multiple reasons, including living through that pandemic and listening to everyone who didn’t know the basics of blood coagulation explain to the rest of the world a bunch of nonsense about Covid and vaccines.

Want to know the two people that I know personally, but don’t think you can even rely on the video for a number of reasons? My brother-in-law, a C-130 pilot for over 20 years, and my father, an aircraft mechanic. I would be willing to say my brother, the former crew, chief, but he is given to conspiracy theories and doesn’t talk much with us.

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

Has anyone noticed that the more rigid and defiant opinions are from people who do not know the first damn thing about aviation?

At least the problem is confined to this issue…

 

[TIDE-HSV]

The simplest explanation (and therefore the one getting the least political attention) is that the blackhawk pilots suffered from confirmation bias. They were told to look for an RJ and go behind it. They thought they saw it even though they actually were looking at another plane, and continued visually tracking the wrong plane until the moment of impact with the RJ they were told to look for but had never actually seen.

As for the landing lights, they are bright but primarily when viewed head on, by design, because too much lateral beam would run the risk of interfering with other aircraft not in the flight path. The blackhawk would not have had to have been too many degrees to the RJ's right side for the RJ's landing lights to have blended into the backdrop of other planes and DC lights.

I don't know this how it happened, but it's the simplest explanation...

There's also the altimeter problems - plane showing 345', tower showing copter at 200', copter still unknown...

 

[selmaborntidefan]

OK, so my father, the lifelong aircraft mechanic who has been involved with numerous investigations, opened his mouth on this subject today. Given his rather subordinationist views on women and his Trump boot licking, I was actually surprised that I heard the guy I thought I knew years ago speaking.

He noted just 2 things:
1) that one video by itself is so misleading as to be practically useless without other stuff
2) why was the altimeter reading different between the tower and the copter?

These should be obvious but given his recent history and less than receptive notions of women and any kind of machinery all his life (he’s contradictory on this fwiw), I was pleasantly surprised that he reverted back to his pre-stroke expertise and actually asking questions that were legitimate and not making damning conclusions - of anyone.

Of course, he always views it from the standpoint of whether the mechanics did anything, but this is the one area in life he seems capable of objectivity.

Me?
I’m getting a little upset with a world that seems to have turned into “thank you for your service unless I disagree with your politics and then (bad words)”.

 

[Bamaro]

(Bloomberg) -- A US Army helicopter was flying higher than permitted limits when it collided in midair with an American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet last week, according to US aviation safety investigators.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday that its latest data shows the Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk was flying at about 300 feet at the time of the accident, about 100 feet higher than a preliminary review of radar data indicated. The updated assessment of what air traffic controllers saw on their display in the tower reflects multiple radar sensors and other data sources, the agency said.

The NTSB said it needs additional information from the Black Hawk itself, which it expects to receive after recovering it from the water later this week.

Helicopters in the area where the crash occurred are limited to 200 feet. Investigators previously disclosed the American jet’s flight data recorder measured the impact as happening at 325 feet — plus or minus 25 feet.

 

[Elefantman]

. On Feb 4th 2025 the NTSB announced: "NTSB is not planning any additional on scene media briefings on the Jan. 29 midair collision near DCA. NTSB needs additional information to verify data points from the Black Hawk. In order to obtain this information, the Black Hawk needs to be recovered from the water, which is expected to take place later this week. Any future media briefings will take place at NTSB headquarters." The NTSB indicated however that an investigative update might become available later Feb 4th 2025. In the evening of Feb 4th 2025 the NTSB stated in their investigative update: "NTSB has also been provided updated information that shows the air traffic control tower display at DCA is fed by the Potomac TRACON. The TRACON fuses information from multiple radar sensors and ADS-B data, providing the best quality flight track data to air traffic control. This data showed the Black Hawk was at 300 feet on the air traffic control display at the time of the collision. This data is rounded to the nearest 100 feet. NTSB needs additional information to verify data points from the Black Hawk. In order to obtain this information, the Black Hawk needs to be recovered from the water, which is expected to take place later this week."