[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot @ DCA this evening?????

My initial read is that the Army H-60 (PAT25) may have made an error as to what traffic they called in sight. It looks to me like the AA RJ (AA5342, a CRJ-700) doing everything right and got hit by the Blackhawk as they were rolled wing-up towards Final on 33.

Audio between PAT25 and DCA tower asks if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT25 affirms and requests visual separation.

AA3130 was on final to 01 at the time. PAT25 may have called that traffic in sight, thinking it was the AA5432-- and missed AA5432 being wing-high to them.

Just my 0.02.

R.

[Llarry]

Tragic news out of DCA.

There are two USAF fighter wings in Korea. Up North at Osan Air Base -- about an hour South of Seoul -- is the 51st which has a single squadron of F-16C Vipers and another of A-10C Warthogs -- the latter not long for this world.

Down South, at Kunsan Air Base, is the 8th FW "Wolfpack" with two squadrons of F-16Cs. Here is a photo of a painted-up Viper of the Wolfpack.

[Llarry]

Tomcat Thursday.

A pair of F-14As from VF-32 "Fighting Swordsmen".

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Artemis

For Llarry, smokinjoe64 and Lady Jane

30 minutes high-res quality.

[I]Experience F/A-18 Superhornet aircraft carrier aviation aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) out at sea with VFA-154, "The Black Knights", for their 2020-21 deployment. For six months, the crew worked around the clock to defend and protect freedom and navigation of the Western Pacific.

Artemis Thank you very much for the excellent video of VFA-154 flight operations!

In return, let me present a few historical photos of aircraft flown by Fighter Squadron 154 over the years...

Before the F-18, 154 flew the F-14A Tomcat

Before the F-14A, they flew several different models of the F-4 Phantom

Before the F-4, they flew the F-8 Crusader.

Before the F-8, they flew the FJ-3 Fury (not pictured)

Before the FJ-3, they flew the F9F Panther

When activated in the Korean War era, they first flew the F4U Corsair

[Lady Jane]

I just watched the video showing the Blackhawk running into American Flt. 5342 after the ATC asked them if they had the landing airplane in sight.

Not a good day...

https://en.as.com/latest_news/americ...ent-history-n/

[ASAP]

Terrible news, i've flown in and out of that airport for years when I lived in DC...

I have to wonder why these flight paths are this close to each other and why you would ever allow helis to pass in a landing flight path... i don't know whats going but the FAA seems like a total mess and the recent explanation of the drone sighting being an faa approved test where even weirder... so perhaps there are serious procedural or communication issues somewhere.

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by ASAP

Terrible news, i've flown in and out of that airport for years when I lived in DC...

I have to wonder why these flight paths are this close to each other and why you would ever allow helis to pass in a landing flight path... i don't know whats going but the FAA seems like a total mess and the recent explanation of the drone sighting being an faa approved test where even weirder... so perhaps there are serious procedural or communication issues somewhere.

It is awful news. I was just watching 'Air Disasters' last night, and my heart sunk when I turned the TV on this morning.

I am a total novice when it comes to aviation, but I agree with you. Again, I'm no aviation expert but from what I'm seeing it looks like we had a blackhawk heli with no TCAS basically playing frogger in commercial airspace. Doesn't seem like a good idea, but I'm sure there's more to this story.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

...but from what I'm seeing it looks like we had a blackhawk heli with no TCAS basically playing frogger in commercial airspace.

...with all three Blackhawk crew members wearing night vision goggles as part of a training exercise from what the TV news talking heads are reporting.....

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...with all three Blackhawk crew members wearing night vision goggles as part of a training exercise from what the TV news talking heads are reporting.....

I heard the same, but I'm sure we'll get more concrete information in the coming days/weeks.

[wizardofOz]

I want to say condolences but it won't help the issue at all...

And not sure if this is related to the FAA director being recently fired and ATC hiring freeze..

I've got so many images of these kinds of incidents in my head, terrible 2025 continuing..

[M_Six]

That area is awash with "No Overfly" zones. The Pentagon is right there, for instance. So there are just a few corridors for aircraft to traverse the area. When you funnel so much air traffic into a small space, there is a potential for disaster.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by wizardofOz

I want to say condolences but it won't help the issue at all...

Yes, condolences to all the family members. Sad day.

[M-technik-3]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...with all three Blackhawk crew members wearing night vision goggles as part of a training exercise from what the TV news talking heads are reporting.....

The amount of ambient light in the area is not a good area for NVG's. Not sure why a the Army is flying in this area on NVG's being Belvoir has plenty of training south of the capital.

[Hydrostream]

Because night time navigation of your route structure is a basic skill needing to be trained and evaluated. There is nothing abnormal about the mission they were performing. NVGs work fine in that environment. Just a bunch of holes in the Swiss cheese lined up last night and that sucks.

[ezaircon4jc]

I can't count how many times I had one aircraft pas behind another; it was quite routine. From what I've seen of night-vision googles, vision is pretty limited. I've heard that the helicopter & local (tower) positions were combined, which is not really unusual. As long as it was light traffic (probably that time of night), there is nothing wrong with working combined positions. When I was at SLC, we had two positions that were de-combined maybe 5% of the time. When I was at SoCal TRACON we had the same thing, only the positions were split maybe 15% of the time. One of the worst things is working a sector that is so slow that one's mind wanders.

I don't know if the Blackhawk saw the wrong aircraft or he just misjudged his angle to go behind .

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

I can't count how many times I had one aircraft pas behind another; it was quite routine. From what I've seen of night-vision googles, vision is pretty limited. I've heard that the helicopter & local (tower) positions were combined, which is not really unusual. As long as it was light traffic (probably that time of night), there is nothing wrong with working combined positions. When I was at SLC, we had two positions that were de-combined maybe 5% of the time. When I was at SoCal TRACON we had the same thing, only the positions were split maybe 15% of the time. One of the worst things is working a sector that is so slow that one's mind wanders.

I don't know if the Blackhawk saw the wrong aircraft or he just misjudged his angle to go behind .

I watched a professional airline pilot with a YouTube channel today go through the communications and the air traffic that night and he has come to the conclusion he believes the Blackhawk thought he had visual separation with the AA jet, but did not, because he was actually seeing the plane that was coming in behind the AA jet. Between that and the lack of two controllers it makes the most sense to me. But, I must admit, I’m not sure having two controllers would have mattered, because the Blackhawk pilot tells the controller with confidence in his voice numerous times he has visual separation with the AA jet. I think he was sure he did, but I think it’s very likely, with the dark and all of the lights on all of the aircraft, he was looking at the wrong airplane.

[vreihen16]

I heard the TV talking heads this morning saying that the Blackhawk was flying at over 400 feet, and should have been under 200 feet in that airspace.....

[Lady Jane]

The Ice-skating world is also reminded of another great tragedy with the crash of Sabena Flight 548 in 1961.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabena_Flight_548

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I heard the TV talking heads this morning saying that the Blackhawk was flying at over 400 feet, and should have been under 200 feet in that airspace.....

I follow Juan Browne’s excellent reporting and he mentioned that the Blackhawk was flying above the 200 foot ceiling for his corridor; something
like 300 feet.

Had the Blackhawk been flying at 200 feet, apparentally it would’ve allowed
100 feet of legal separation - legal, but crazy in my mind. And I agree with
the possibility the Blackhawk crew was looking at another aircraft.

[ASAP]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

I follow Juan Browne’s excellent reporting and he mentioned that the Blackhawk was flying above the 200 foot ceiling for his corridor; something
like 300 feet.

Had the Blackhawk been flying at 200 feet, apparentally it would’ve allowed
100 feet of legal separation - legal, but crazy in my mind. And I agree with
the possibility the Blackhawk crew was looking at another aircraft.

fundamentally... no matter what happened in this case... it seems like poor procedure overall... and who regulates this procedure? i would guess faa... it is in the end kind of like dodging bullets in a busy airspace