Plane crash in DC plane and chopper in Potomac River (Sadly there were NO survivors)

I'm not looking to latch onto any conspiracy theory, but I will say that the idea of not being aware of the chance of being even near a collision seems (to me) about as unlikely as being able to intentionally fly directly into such a collision. If this was a training flight, then that would suggest that there were extra eyes on what to watch out for. I definitely don't want to draw any crazy conclusions, but from a desire of wanting to know what can be done better, I would love to know more about what went wrong on the part of the pilots (or perhaps from their perspective). Would the ATC have had knowledge of the helicopter's flight path? Or was that just an object in the area that should be aware of our flight paths. Without knowledge of the flight path, that would make sense for the lack of dialog...perhaps being used to the potential for close calls quiet frequently? I don't know, but nothing would truly surprise me.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Yep, let the NTSB do their investigation.

 

Some good analysis by new lawyer and reality star FAA leader.

 

This is apparently the radar scope:



I’ll defer to any of the pilots or ATCs on here who may know, but my understanding is that DC has defined helicopter routes around the city and ATC would have known which route the helicopter was supposed to be following. Some of the helicopter routes do cross the approach for DCA, but the altitude limits on the helicopter routes and requiring visual separation are supposed to stop things like this from happening.

My best guess from what I’ve read online is that the helicopter may have been slightly higher than it was supposed to be and probably identified the wrong plane and keyed off of that when it was being instructed where to go relative to the CRJ.

 

Since we created DOGE on a whim with no legal basis, its clear we need a new Department of Planes not Crashing Into other Planes (DPNCIP -aka Deepincip)

 

Seems like what this one really needed was a Department of Helicopter Safety Near Airports (DOHSNAP).

 

Seems pretty avoidable to an uniformed observer like me. I dont see altitude indicators on there anywhere.

 

Maybe someone will get the brilliant idea of not having helicopter training flights in the vicinity of a major airport. I mean, there's quite a bit of airspace somewhere else to be training helicopter pilots. Or maybe part of the training near a major airport is how to avoid hitting an airliner.

 

Yeah I’m not an expert on reading those. The speculation the helicopter may have been higher than it should have been seems to be because the altitude restrictions on the helicopter routes there are 1500’ or below 200’, while the news has said the radar indicated altitude of the plane before it began its uncontrolled descent was roughly 400’.

 

We just need to invest billions more in AI, and nothing bad will happen when computers do everything

 

Question G8RBorne.

Is "cross behind" an actionable directive for a helicopter?

I am no air traffic controller, but if I am in a slow moving bicycle and a fast moving car is intersecting my path, I wouldn't know how to cross behind that.

I would want to hit the brakes and wait for it to pass.

Is that particular FAA shorthand lingo implying a braking action?

 

It isn’t necessarily a new pilot. Military is constantly training.

On the one hand you have a point as to whether it’s wise to add traffic in dense areas for “training”. On the other hand they need to get used to that airspace to be ready for their missions, even if it “just” involves landing VIP’s. That’s what training is! It does seem like it pretty much has to be on the helo pilot, however it happened that he or she flew into the path of the plane.

 

Wonder if he was focused on something ahead and night vision limited his peripheral vision.

 

Puck was chaos embodied. He is a train wreck, not an aviation accident.

 

Disagree, as a former bike messenger, he understands transportation more than most people

 

It’s kinda hard to laugh today, but that did bring a chuckle.

 

Not well enough to avoid DUI that seriously injured his son and him, but as a former bike kamikaze he certainly would understand close calls and contested flyways. No telling what other chaos he wreaked without getting caught.

 

Hey, the Secretary of Defense is a raging drunk, what's a harmless little DUI for the Transportation guy?

 

Shouldn’t he have some answers to the questions he’s posing before he….nvm

 

Watching Trump’s rambling presser. He calls out others “bullshit” when he is the king of bullshit.