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AA CR7 collides with Army Black Hawk near DCA

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FlyingAce (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 30 Jan 25, 04:34Post
A passenger aircraft carrying 64 people collided midair with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, DC, as it approached the runway, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and defense officials.

There are no confirmed casualties at this time, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. A massive emergency response is underway in DC’s Potomac River, where the passenger plane and helicopter collided.


https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/pl ... index.html
Money can't buy happiness; but it can get you flying, which is pretty much the same.
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 30 Jan 25, 05:34Post
A lot of talk about visual separation and do you have it in sight, but also so much talk about “cleared for immediate takeoff.” I think the controller circled the crj to land which took him off approach altitudes and the helicopters are on vr or ir routes through there. He called the traffic early for the helicopter but you can’t hear anything the helicopter says in non-DALR audio, be interesting to see the FALCON. Then right before the collision he said do you have crj in sight and pass behind. CRJ was probably at a lower altitude than normal from the circle and helicopter can’t tell what a crj looks like at night and there were 3 on final and probably picked the wrong plane to pass behind.

Many lessons in this, learned in blood. Lots of ATC-0 coming up in America, too. Brain drain, non-competitive QOL, shitbag retard devs that we’re told to certify. At least this time there isn’t the laughing and hooting and hollering typical of DCA tapes in the past year.

More aerial cremations likely. Next Tenerife has been in queue for a while.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 30 Jan 25, 13:32Post
Lucas wrote:More aerial cremations likely. Next Tenerife has been in queue for a while.

The only thing surprising to me - a totally unqualified observer - about this is that it wasn't on a runway.

You'd hope that this would be the trigger for a top-to-bottom review of the whole sorry mess, but I'm sure that slapping another band-aid on top of all the other band-aids will fix it just fine.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
JLAmber (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 30 Jan 25, 13:42Post
Lucas wrote:Many lessons in this, learned in blood


The holes in the Swiss cheese are getting worryingly large.

What is it about aircraft going down in the Potomac too? Do flightpaths follow the river?
A million great ideas...
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 30 Jan 25, 16:50Post
JLAmber wrote:The holes in the Swiss cheese are getting worryingly large.

I'm sure I've posted this before, but if not:

SwissCheeseModel.jpg
SwissCheeseModel.jpg (129.45 KiB) Viewed 2005 times


JLAmber wrote:What is it about aircraft going down in the Potomac too? Do flightpaths follow the river?

Hey, at least it puts the fire out. {boxed} River's pretty much the only place there isn't something governmenty with a prohibited area around it, by the looks of things. In this case, the CRJ was lined up for an approach to runway 1 (up the river), then broke off right (crossing the river) to then line up for 33 (and cross it again).
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
mhodgson (ATC & Photo Quality Screener & Founding Member) 30 Jan 25, 21:39Post
It's literally the 'river visual' to the southerly runway (19) which I did in July. A superb approach if you're in an A seat as you see all the tourist spots.
There's the right way, the wrong way and the railway.
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 30 Jan 25, 23:24Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:
Lucas wrote:More aerial cremations likely. Next Tenerife has been in queue for a while.

The only thing surprising to me - a totally unqualified observer - about this is that it wasn't on a runway.

You'd hope that this would be the trigger for a top-to-bottom review of the whole sorry mess, but I'm sure that slapping another band-aid on top of all the other band-aids will fix it just fine.



I have stolen the mouse picture. I read the SOP for what was going on and let's just say that if they want to sacrifice a couple of the control staff, they can do it without hesitation—HC/LC not decombined, more supe training, tower should be applying visual sep primarily and ensuring it's followed, etc.

But hey, if it's worked 10,000 times, it should work just fine on try 10,001. Right?

ATO report looks like they are moving in for the kill, so to speak.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 30 Jan 25, 23:52Post
Yep, that'll work! Hang 'em from the yardarm, problem solved, back to work.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
paul mcallister 31 Jan 25, 01:19Post
Seems to me that this awful tragedy could have been easily avoided by ATC telling the Blackhawk PAT25, to hold short of the approach until advised, to allow inbound traffic to land.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 31 Jan 25, 12:30Post
Except for gliding, where they do love to bunch up together under the same cloud, is there any other world in which 200' of vertical separation and 0' horizontal is OK?

From the outside looking in, it seems that there's almost a perverse pride in cranking as much traffic through the system as possible, as close to the ragged edge as possible, talking as fast as possible ("CLAAAAAA" does not constitute a landing clearance), simultaneous crossing-runway ops, LAHSO... "We have so much traffic that we have to do it that way! And that makes us awesome!" I would love to see that put to the test, get some Heathrow or Gatwick controllers on a sim and throw a typical JFK rush at them under LHR/LGW rules. And vice versa.

Thinking more widely: Maybe, if the US wasn't so allergic to passenger rail, the skies wouldn't be infested with RJs on short hops and everyone could breathe a little?
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 31 Jan 25, 17:07Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:Except for gliding, where they do love to bunch up together under the same cloud, is there any other world in which 200' of vertical separation and 0' horizontal is OK?

From the outside looking in, it seems that there's almost a perverse pride in cranking as much traffic through the system as possible, as close to the ragged edge as possible, talking as fast as possible ("CLAAAAAA" does not constitute a landing clearance), simultaneous crossing-runway ops, LAHSO... "We have so much traffic that we have to do it that way! And that makes us awesome!" I would love to see that put to the test, get some Heathrow or Gatwick controllers on a sim and throw a typical JFK rush at them under LHR/LGW rules. And vice versa.

Thinking more widely: Maybe, if the US wasn't so allergic to passenger rail, the skies wouldn't be infested with RJs on short hops and everyone could breathe a little?



Man, they literally just got our staffing 20% here, and decided that during the busiest days, we are allowed only one controller running all positions with no break for 5.25 hours. No one else even in the building. But we get a little medical alert bracelet in case we have a heart attack. Anyway, we have to save money, you know. Only way anything will change is if you slap a Raytheon sticker on your ass and claim to be a missile.

But it's safe, and if it's not safe, then you must suck, because the FAA says it's perfectly safe, so we know it's safe. Are you too stupid to understand?
paul mcallister 03 Feb 25, 02:14Post
Some very alarming details coming out about understaffing at Regan National Airport.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5gyx09pj8o
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 04 Feb 25, 21:23Post
paul mcallister wrote:Some very alarming details coming out about understaffing at Regan National Airport.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5gyx09pj8o


CRWG is going to up the target for staffing, as the group found that even the numbers we're missing bigtime are aiming at having far too few controllers given the changes in airspace and volume in the past decades. This will mean that many facilities will plummet from say, 75% staffed, down to 60% staffed. On the FCT side, we've had places like Bozeman running 600-op days, 3 parallels and one crossing, with only two fully-certified controllers on staff. This is the FCT program, and the FAA just agreed to many pay/benefit/controller cuts throughout it, which will affect some 250+ towers.

We literally have controllers pissing in bottles.
ShanwickOceanic (netAirspace FAA) 04 Feb 25, 23:13Post
Lucas wrote:We literally have controllers pissing in bottles.

I thought that was just Amazon drivers. Christ.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.
Lucas (netAirspace ATC & Founding Member) 05 Feb 25, 20:46Post
ShanwickOceanic wrote:
Lucas wrote:We literally have controllers pissing in bottles.

I thought that was just Amazon drivers. Christ.



Hahaha. No. We literally are offered retirement or medical, our choice (price determined by executive order combined with an act of Congress, no less), EXCEPT tons of facilities just told the controllers that not only are they having pay reduced to the federal minimum, they're having their retirement eliminated, their vacation reset (where they even could take it, which is rare, given staffing), and housing nuked. AND CONTROLLERS CUT FROM THE FACILITY STAFFING! And we're talking about airports where the traffic is like this on final all the time:

A320, GLEX, GLF5, A319, E75L, CRJ7, C25B, B738...

Why can't we get radar given that MSBRS is literally plug-and-play? Because upkeep all combined could reach 40K a year, so use binoculars. Can we use ADS-B? Only through approved, 3rd party vendors, starting at 50K/month. How about CPDLC since we have the money independently? No, because some of OUR towers don't have it, so yours definitely can't, because it would create jealousy.

I mean literally they declined an extra controller across the board for 250 facilities because it would cost $40,000,000, and at the same time a Navy ship launched no-kidding $180M worth of missiles at Houthis and HIT NOTHING.

I would smash people's teeth out with bricks if I weren't a law-abiding citizen and if I knew which people to go for. (And they didn't have protection.)
 

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