quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
TCAS should have alerted the CRJ crew to the helo and commanded either CLIMB or DESCEND. But it only works if both aircraft have transponders on. It also presupposes the crew responds immediately.

I have heard new reports (take it for what it is worth) that TCAS turns off below 1,000 feet. It will alert you to an impending collision, but won't provide an avoidance maneuver.

quote:

Originally posted by Broadside:

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
TCAS should have alerted the CRJ crew to the helo and commanded either CLIMB or DESCEND. But it only works if both aircraft have transponders on. It also presupposes the crew responds immediately.

I have heard new reports (take it for what it is worth) that TCAS turns off below 1,000 feet. It will alert you to an impending collision, but won't provide an avoidance maneuver.

Below 900 AGL TCAS give you a TA but not an RA; meaning it will alert you of impending conflict, but it will not direct an avoidance maneuver. The system function exists to prevent people from maneuvering away from traffic and into terrain.

https://archive.liveatc.net/kd...an-30-2025-0130Z.mp3

PAT checks in around 15:00 and is told about the traffic. PAT reports the traffic in sight and visual separation is approved. Around 16:00, traffic was updated and PAT again reported traffic in sight, requested and visual sep approved. 17:40, controller verified PAT had traffic in sight and PAT confirmed, again visual sep requested and approved.

This does not “sounds like the mother of all ATC screw-ups” and more pilot error.

Night can be a bear. You can see the lights, but it is much harder to track the path of the other aircraft, detect turns, etc.

Multiple people have said the helo should have turned away. That might have worked, but one of the first things you learn in formation flying is to never lose sight of the other aircraft. Going for vertical separation is generally a better way to avoid traffic.

After reading arabiancowboy’s post I am delighted to be far away from the DCA airspace.

"Traffic in sight" at RR? The volume of flights arriving and departing is huge as anyone who has ever observed operations at the airport can attest. From the terminal there are at least a dozen aircraft visible in the air at any given time, perhaps a takeoff or landing every 30 seconds or so. Very concentrated over the river mostly for noise abatement, but also runway alignment. Very possible the helo pilot was tracking a different aircraft than the one he hit.

Why they would route a military flight through a heavily-used aviation corridor seems the most significant question here. The volume of helicopter traffic inside the DC beltway has to be seen to be believed. The surprising thing is that this hasn't happened before.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:
I had seen that TCAS does not alert to ascend or descend below 1000 feet? It does alert, but does not say what to do?

Below 1,000 ft it will announce "TRAFFIC". It will get louder and more insistent, iirc. I also recall it providing a CLIMB graphic on the display but without the aural announcement. That's from flying parallel approaches into San Francisco where we'd frequently get all kinds of TCAS warnings.

Somebody more current (I'm 3+ years retired) might be able to comment more authoritatively, but we trained the breakout procedures for PRM approaches which involved a TCAS command, and that could have been below 1000 ft. So I am not 100% sure Juan is correct that there is no CLIMB command below 1000 ft. He could be correct that there is no DESCEND command below 1000 ft, but we absolutely did do descending PRM breakouts.

The descending CRJ may not have been physically able to see the helo against all the lights on the ground, plus they would be super busy with that approach. So a TRAFFIC alert may not have been something they were reasonably capable of using to avoid this collision.

Anyone know the rules for helicopter flights over the Potomac? For example, are there corridors at specific altitudes?

I'm curious if there were artificial (for lack of a better word) limitations the Blackhawk pilots would have been trying to fly within that would have limited their options to change direction or speed. They had six possible choices to avoid hitting the CRJ: up, down, left, right, faster, slower. I realize no matter what the rules are, be they for cars, boats, or aircraft the first is don't run into stuff. Especially other cars, boats, or aircraft.

Ignoring that they could use more two of any of those at the same time: at 200', down doesn't seem like a great option. I have no idea what the Blackhawk's rate of climb would be, so up is possible. Right did not work, so left was obviously the better choice. How fast can a Blackhawk go? Could they just gun it to get out in front of that semitruck? That leaves slow down or stop; it is a helicopter after all. How quickly can a Blackhawk stop forward motion from 120kts?

quote:

Originally posted by Phantom229:
https://archive.liveatc.net/kd...an-30-2025-0130Z.mp3

PAT checks in around 15:00 and is told about the traffic. PAT reports the traffic in sight and visual separation is approved. Around 16:00, traffic was updated and PAT again reported traffic in sight, requested and visual sep approved. 17:40, controller verified PAT had traffic in sight and PAT confirmed, again visual sep requested and approved.

This does not “sounds like the mother of all ATC screw-ups” and more pilot error.

Agreed. I did not have the ATC audio when I posted that. ATC did it's job here and alerted the helicopter to be aware of the jet. The blackhawk pilot accepted the responsibility to maintain visual separation, and he failed for some unknown reason. It makes the most sense to me now that, when he reported having the landing jet in sight, he was looking at the wrong aircraft and didn't see AAL 5342. But still speculation. Hopefully we will get some answers.

I still think it is crazy that aircraft are allowed to cross the final approach segment at altitudes where incoming jets are likely to be. That will never make sense to me.

trapper189, the helo pilot had numerous options to avoid the collision. As others have stated, the pilots of the plane likely didnt see the helo until impact was imminent.

The helo's avoidance options naturally decreased the closer the aircraft approached each other.

It would have only taken a slight course and/or speed correction further away to avoid, and we wouldn't be doing a postmortem now. Seconds before impact, there would come a point of no return where NOTHING the helo crew did could avoid collision.

I don't even know if the helo crew saw the aircraft it collided with - both crews may have been surprised by the appearance of the other aircraft (assuming the helo pilot was not actually looking at the correct aircraft).

The maximum altitude helicopters are supposed to fly over the Potomac between Memorial Bridge and Wilson Bridge is 200 feet and both Routes 1 and 4 are along the East bank of the Potomac.

FAA Helicopter Route Chart BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON

It's a PDF file.

The CRJ pilots were where they were supposed to be, when they were supposed to be, and doing what they were supposed to be.

I don't know how accurate the MLAT data on that ADS-B exchange site is, but it seems to show the Blackhawk was climbing to 300' 30 and 20 seconds before the crash. At 10 seconds before the crash, it shows descending to 200'.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I read that many of the passengers were kids and their families returning from a kids' figure skating camp in Wichita.

I don’t watch the news so just finding out about all this from this very thread. Your comments about the passengers made me gasp. Horrific. Kids didn’t even get some years under their belt and have some kind of life. Just awful for me to read, such a devastating event. I can only imagine the families right now of all involved. The surviving family members will be all in on lawsuits so this will be a mess for years to come. You cannot even put a price on a dead child so hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent. Someone will have to pay and it will be taxpayers. God help anyone involved.

I can’t imagine what those families are going through.

The car accident that takes out five kids is probably my biggest parental fear. We’ve let our daughter go on two school trips one to NYC and one to Chicago. We figured the worst that could happen was the flight gets delayed or canceled.

Every day with them is a blessing.

So sad and devastating

Those skaters were all performing in ICT last week. Terrible. I'm just waiting for the list of fatalities. Wichita may be the biggest city in KS but from a personal perspective, it's a small town. We all know lots of one another. Just hoping my friends, clients and acquaintances aren't on the list.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Anyone know the rules for helicopter flights over the Potomac? For example, are there corridors at specific altitudes?

Some good details here.

^^^ Informative video. Thanks, Alan.

Damn shame and sad event. The circumstances surrounding it are truly heart breaking.

ATC at that tower is now being reported as understaffed. Thus, controller was pulling double duty for both rotary and fixed wing aircraft at the same time which, also as reported, is not protocol. IMO, ATC failed to give complete and commanding instruction to UH60. Uh60 was likley looking at wrong aircraft when ATC asked if he saw the jet as ATC was not specific enough in their question and, as a result, gave vague guidance to UH60.

Being reported that similar incident nearly occurred the day before but ATC successfully diverted the pilot.

This is going to go down as a horrific, but avoidable, accident for many reasons but at the end of the day it was ATC’s airspace to command and they failed.

^^^^^ Disagree.

Having spent nearly 20 years riding the left seat in 206s and a 407, and looking out the side doors of Hueys, this was entirely the fault of the helo crew. They fucked up and killed a lot of people. Simple as that.

ETA: That sounded really harsh, and kind of uncalled-for. But, sadly it is the truth. They were responsible for seeing other aircraft and they failed to do so. In their defense, flying at night with tons of ambient lights around, it is very difficult to see and identify other aircraft. You need experience and a trained eye, and even then you can still fuck up. It'll be interesting to find out what the ranks and experience of the crew were. And I got out prior to the Blackhawk being ubiquitious, is a crew of three (pilot, copilot, crew chief) a normal complement?

I'm going to Monday morning quarterback here quite egregiously, but when the ATC controller got that Collision Alert, and it wasn't rectified within a few seconds, she should have immediately called for the CRJ to go-around and climb. Having said that, this seems to be mostly the fault of the Helo crew.

I imagine all kinds of things are happening at that time though. Damn, what an awful tragedy.

NTSB have recovered both voice and data recorders from the CRJ.

https://www.theguardian.com/us...overed-officials-say