Crash at Reagan National Airport, DC. Helicopter crash into airliner.

Albany Tom said:
I'm sure everyone understands that practicing a system to allow leadership to flee in the event of an emergency is more important than flight safety for airliners.
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They are not mutually exclusive.

Visual separation failed, not the helicopter routes or having helicopters in the vicinity of the airport. It is relying on visual separation, in complex situations like this, that needs to be fixed.
 
Larry in TN said:
They are not mutually exclusive.

Visual separation failed, not the helicopter routes or having helicopters in the vicinity of the airport. It is relying on visual separation, in complex situations like this, that needs to be fixed.
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And we have the technology to do that. But, hey ... gotta "hide" some of it, apparently.
 
TCABM said:
So the PIC in VMC has no responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft? Can you cite that?
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I’ll answer here:

No. They do have that responsibility.

Also in the circumstances of this accident it is unreasonable to expect anyone to see the helicopter early enough to avoid the impact.

The pilot flying in the RJ did attempt to avoid the impact when they had a visual on the helicopter but it was too late. This crew did exactly what was expected.

Frankly this position you are taking is beneath you dude. My impression of you from post history is not consistent with saying something this idiotic.
 
Funny story:

A co-worker of mine worked in the White House on 9/11. He was walking through a tunnel to the West Wing when he saw 4 men running towards him carrying what appeared to be a log under their arms. When they got closer, he saw that the log was Dick Cheney. He followed them into an elevator and wound up in an underground bunker for a week ... the famous "undisclosed location."
 
Lindberg said:
These operations have safely coexisted for many years, so the idea that they can't possibly safely coexist is wrong.

And while I'm certain you are very important to your friends and family, the notion that there aren't people who are actually significantly more important than you to the continued functioning of our elected government in times of crisis is utterly absurd.
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For the first part, that's provably incorrect. The flight paths of the helicopters and the aircraft on approach, considering the margin of error of each, overlap. That means that the only thing that keeps this from happening is that the time period of overlap is small, so it's an uncommon or rare failure. But it happens, and the absolute proof is this accident. That "visual separation" is the real method of separation requires the assumption that this method works. Again, this accident is an indication that is does not. Two aircraft ended up at the bottom of the river because this was NEVER safe, just rare.

As to "visual separation", the analogy I'll use is the old joke about a guy selling elephant repellent in Ohio. Someone walks up and says "there aren't any elephants in ohio!", and the salesman said "Of course not. This stuff works great." Wishing something works, and the observation of things following in sequence does not prove causality. On a more scientific layer, how does someone read the N number of an aircraft, at night, on a right angle collision course with an intercept speed of around 100 knots? That's a rhetorical question.

As to the second part, there is no person's life in this country that is ANY more important than any others, and certainly none that are significantly so. That's not just basic morality, that's one of the fundamental priniciples that the country was based on. In terms of civilian leadership, they're elected to serve the people. They rotate through regularly, and they represent us. One of the beautiful things about a democratic government is that there is no divine, mystical, or inherited power system. We will survive through any change of leadership, and we always have. In terms of the military leadership, it is there duty to stand in front of, not behind, the people they serve...and the people I've known in person and on this board who have been in that role are universal in that appreciation. Leaders do not stand behind civilians in this country. And for a more practical perspective, if we've learned anything from the past 25 years or so, it is the civilian population that is likely the target of any foreign attack on US soil.

Or to sum it up and bring it back to aviation, we do live in a world where some passengers pay more and get better snacks and more leg room. But we don't live in a society where we evacuate first class before the rest of the cabin. Or at least we're not supposed to.
 
Albany Tom said:
As to the second part, there is no person's life in this country that is ANY more important than any others, and certainly none that are significantly so. That's not just basic morality, that's one of the fundamental priniciples that the country was based on. In terms of civilian leadership, they're elected to serve the people. They rotate through regularly, and they represent us. One of the beautiful things about a democratic government is that there is no divine, mystical, or inherited power system. We will survive through any change of leadership, and we always have. In terms of the military leadership, it is there duty to stand in front of, not behind, the people they serve...and the people I've known in person and on this board who have been in that role are universal in that appreciation. Leaders do not stand behind civilians in this country. And for a more practical perspective, if we've learned anything from the past 25 years or so, it is the civilian population that is likely the target of any foreign attack on US soil.
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Counterpoint: if you want to destroy a country, start by decapitating it.
 
Larry in TN said:
They are not mutually exclusive.

Visual separation failed, not the helicopter routes or having helicopters in the vicinity of the airport. It is relying on visual separation, in complex situations like this, that needs to be fixed.
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I believe it's possible that an evacuation mission could be practiced without endangering civilian air traffic. I'd say to accomplish it, though, would take a couple of things. First, to admit that the existing plan didn't work. Second, for the military to understand that civilian air traffic safety is the primary goal, more so than having the training be as realistic as possible.

As far as the o-rings go, I didn't read the report. I did watch the hearings live. It was sworn testimony that a) they knew there was erosion of the o-rings on cold launches b) that the o-rings were a criticality *** part (word I can't remember), where if it failed the spaceship failed and c) they were basing launch safety on extrapolated data, because they hadn't launched at that cold a temp before. The tech report may not have said that, but I remember the testimony clearly. It was around the time where the senator I believe pulled an o-ring out of a glass of ice water and snapped it in half.

The people on that panel were a smart group, with the collective tenacity to get to the core problems.

Ed Haywood said:
Counterpoint: if you want to destroy a country, start by decapitating it.
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:) Without getting too political, If the goal is to replace a dictatorship, that might work, but if it's to destroy a society, take over a country, or win people's hearts and minds, I'd suggest historically it doesn't generally work very well. Sure, we rescued Charles de Gaulle, but I don't think anyone outside of that country believes it changed the outcome of that situation any. Apply it to either cartels or foreign influences in South America and it doesn't seem to have made much difference, either. Our strength is our resilience. On the military side, from my non-professional perspective, we're not a country that needs a lot of management from the top. Independence of action is built into everything, not just in theory but in the way everyone is wired.
 
Albany Tom said:
First, to admit that the existing plan didn't work.
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Right, and we know exactly what part of it didn't work. Visual separation.

If PAT25's visual separation request had not been granted, this accident would not have occurred. PAT25 would have had to hold north of the runway 33 final until the CRJ had passed.

Disallow visual separation between airplanes and helicopters in the DCA Class B surface area and the problem is solved.
 
Training for evacuation of Very Important Persons in an emergency is a concept.

This was basically the excuse to have a taxi service just for them (it's a big club and we're not in it). As brought up earlier, who is more important and the regular important people to get a seat? Just paint the helos yellow with checkerboard trim
 
AV8R_87 said:
Negative. Read the report. They had o-ring extrusions in the field joint before when operating at low temperatures, they just chose to ignore those other near misses.
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what other time did NASA attempt a launch when the temps were 36 degrees F?

edit: of course, the root cause was using the SRBs - no escape possible once those were lit.
 
Albany Tom said:
the senator I believe pulled an o-ring out of a glass of ice water and snapped it in half.
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That was Richard Feynman, Caltech professor and Nobel laureate. The only one that really had the guts to challenge NASA and Thiokol in public.

Lindberg said:
So you agree with me.
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Au contraire, mon ami.
Just because the bullet was dodged before doesn't make it ok.
What we saw in DC was a catastrophic event, according to the hazard classification guidelines. That needs to have a probability of less than one in a billion per flight hour. I'm pretty sure there were significantly less than a billion flight hours of helicopters flying in close proximity to airliners around DCA before this happened.
Just because it took a little while for the first accident to occur doesn't make it ok. Unless there's an emergency, PAT needs to play by the same rules as the other users of the airspace.

Bob Noel said:
what other time did NASA attempt a launch when the temps were 36 degrees F?
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They had a couple close calls at 50 where the primary o-ring was compromised and the back-up extruded from the field joint.
As I said, the report is worth reading. There were a lot of warning signs ignored before Challenger.
I'm pretty convinced that was the case at DCA as well.
 
AV8R_87 said:
What we saw in DC was a catastrophic event, according to the hazard classification guidelines. That needs to have a probability of less than one in a billion per flight hour.
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You should definitely stay on the ground. Probably in your house. But don't go in the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom.
 
Lindberg said:
You should definitely stay on the ground. Probably in your house. But don't go in the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom.
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You should learn a thing or two about how safety is looked at in aviation. AC 25.1309-1B is a good starting point, even if it targets the aircraft design side of things. The principles are the same. When paying passengers are involved, safety needs to be taken seriously. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_25.1309-1B.pdf
 
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Lindberg said:
These operations have safely coexisted for many years, so the idea that they can't possibly safely coexist is wrong.

And while I'm certain you are very important to your friends and family, the notion that there aren't people who are actually significantly more important than you to the continued functioning of our elected government in times of crisis is utterly absurd.
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You ignore the dozens of documented near misses on the Potomac between those helicopters and scheduled domestic airline flights. The collision that killed 67 innocent people was inevitable given the casual manner in which these supposedly critical operations were conducted.

What's absurd is the idea that a few helicopters can effectively transport whomever it is that are Important Persons Critical to the Functioning of Everything in the event of some undefined Oh My God Emergency to "safety."
 
The basic issue is that altitude separation was insufficient for day to day operations. That it didn’t matter in the past was inconsequential. The accident was brewing the whole time until it came to fruition. If sufficient separation was not achievable a different route should have been specified. The two guilty parties were the Blackhawk (at the wrong altitude) and the FAA route planners which had a direct impact on the accident. Perhaps I’m being too simplistic, but that’s the way I see it.
 
Couple of points worth reiterating:

1. The PAT accident UH-60L likely had the capability to display ADS-B traffic within the cockpit. The 12th Aviation Battalion (AB) stated to the NTSB that it is likely that the accident flight crew checked out a Stratus receiver as one was missing from the 12th AB pool of Stratus receivers. However, a Stratus was not recovered from the wreckage. Both of the flight crew’s iPad minis were recovered. The problem is that the 12th AB did not have any standardized requirements for how or when ADS-B traffic capability would be used during missions. From the interviews, some 12th AB pilots used ADS-B traffic, while others rarely used the capability.

2. The accident UH-60L was broadcasting Mode 3/A and C throughout the flight, switching to Mode S at Cabin John. Mode S and the ADS-B Out function were usually coupled. But the UH-60L transponder also allowed ADS-B Out to be turned off independent of Mode S. I’ve not seen any determination from the NTSB as to whether ADS-B Out was enabled (or capable) on the accident UH-60L.

However, the NTSB did establish that the accident UH-60L had not transmitted ADS-B Out for the prior 730 days. Furthermore, the NTSB found that at least 7 12th AB UH-60Ls had an erroneous time source code entered in the transponder such that, even when ADS-B Out was turned on, the transponder would not transmit ADS-B Out. With the correct time source code entered, the problem was resolved. It seems possible (or even likely) that the accident UH-60L had the same anomaly.

Post-accident, the 12th AB revised procedures such that ADS-B Out was a functional check prior to every flight that required O-6 level permission to disable.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Luck is not safety. They coexisted "safely" only because of luck.
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well, in a sense, "safety" is luck. Every piece of hardware has a non-zero probability of failure, including hardware that is essential to continued "safe" flight. IIRC, the various flavors of advisory circulars 1309 make reference to probabilities.

But, yup, trusting in the Big Sky isn't a particularly good approach (no pun).
 
Randomskylane said:
The old joke here in dc is that the enemy knows they are better off leaving dc leadership to their usual infighting
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As in the constant infighting can be more effective than any formal anti-American enemy could apply to our society? I'd agree with that...
 
Lindberg said:
And while I'm certain you are very important to your friends and family, the notion that there aren't people who are actually significantly more important than you to the continued functioning of our elected government in times of crisis is utterly absurd.
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Albany Tom said:
As to the second part, there is no person's life in this country that is ANY more important than any others, and certainly none that are significantly so. That's not just basic morality, that's one of the fundamental priniciples that the country was based on. In terms of civilian leadership, they're elected to serve the people.
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FWIW, I'll offer my perspective on this. I think that both of these statements contain truth, but each must be viewed from the proper perspective.

I believe it's quite true that as people, no person is more important than another. All people being equal is fundamental to the original concept of the USA, and we dare not abandon that truth.

HOWEVER,....

It is also true that some jobs are more important to the continuation of the country than are other jobs. Certainly the job performed by, for example, the Secretary of State is more important to foreign relations than the job of french fry cook at McArches.

The priority transportation provided by helicopters around DC is a matter of the job, not the person. When the person doing the job changes, the helicopter access stays with the job, not the person. When that high school kid burning french fries becomes Secretary of State some years in the future, he'll have priority transportation. (And one of the beauties of the US is that has a better likelihood of happening here than just about anywhere else.)

I'll note also that everyone has an equal say in the USG - one person, one vote. The folks getting helicopter rides have just the same number of votes as everyone else. That's because persons are equal, even if jobs are not.

I really wish that instead of VIP, we used the term VIJ to emphasize job over person.

Just my humble opinion....
 
Brad Smith said:
The basic issue is that altitude separation was insufficient for day to day operations.
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There was no altitude separation nor any attempt to provide altitude separation. The routes were never designed for altitude separation to be applied.

The minimum standard for the use of altitude separation in that situation and airspace is 500' and that doesn't exist for a helicopter on RTE 1 and an airplane landing runway 33. It is not an option. It is not expected that altitude separation will provide safe separation between a helicopter on that route and an airplane landing runway 33.

The separation standard applied between PAT25 and JIA5342 was visual separation and visual separation only.
 
Groundpounder said:
Perhaps they should add some extra lights to the DC area birds for their training missions.
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:yeahthat:

Unlike a war mission, there's no need for helos to be hard to see in this role. Why not light the thing up like a Christmas tree?

I'm not sure it would have helped in this situation, given the relative locations of the aircraft, but it certainly could in other cases.
 
Half Fast said:
FWIW, I'll offer my perspective on this. I think that both of these statements contain truth, but each must be viewed from the proper perspective.

I believe it's quite true that as people, no person is more important than another. All people being equal is fundamental to the original concept of the USA, and we dare not abandon that truth.

HOWEVER,....

It is also true that some jobs are more important to the continuation of the country than are other jobs. Certainly the job performed by, for example, the Secretary of State is more important to foreign relations than the job of french fry cook at McArches.

The priority transportation provided by helicopters around DC is a matter of the job, not the person. When the person doing the job changes, the helicopter access stays with the job, not the person. When that high school kid burning french fries becomes Secretary of State some years in the future, he'll have priority transportation. (And one of the beauties of the US is that has a better likelihood of happening here than just about anywhere else.)

I'll note also that everyone has an equal say in the USG - one person, one vote. The folks getting helicopter rides have just the same number of votes as everyone else. That's because persons are equal, even if jobs are not.

I really wish that instead of VIP, we used the term VIJ to emphasize job over person.

Just my humble opinion....
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Excellent post.

One caveat: in the case of the legislative branch, the individual is important. We each elected a person as our representative to national government (two, actually). That is a core principle of our democracy. Remember "no taxation without representation?"

Simultaneously killing 535 members of Congress would pose an unprecedented challenge to the Republic. We would have to run nationwide elections or some other process to select new representatives, all while possibly fighting a global war and dealing with catastrophic damage. There are many ways that could go wrong, resulting in the country splitting along regional or factional alignments.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
We each elected a person as our representative to national government (two, actually).
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That's true, but even then, the special privileges we're discussing will transfer with the job, not stay with the person, when we elect someone new. We try to ensure the safety of the person because of the special job they're doing (like the entire Congress, as you say), not because there's something special about their personhood.

It's a stark contrast to monarchies (perhaps less noticed today than in 1776), wherein privileges attach to the person either by birthright or royal decree.
 
Bob Noel said:
but only one time in those weather conditions.
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Actually... NASA was fully aware of the risk and chose to ignore it. Classic case of "It'll probably be fine." I'd like to call it normalization of deviance, but I'm not sure that fits in a bespoke space op.
Lindberg said:
Or crashed only because of bad luck. Sometimes the house loses. Claims that this was "inevitable" are based on a lot of assumptions and hindsight bias.
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Here is normalization of deviance. "It's been working fine this way forever, therefore it is fine." Then badness happens and people chalk it up to "bad luck" instead of recognizing the system itself is flawed.
 
traumamed said:
I'd like to call it normalization of deviance, but I'm not sure that fits in a bespoke space op.
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The term “normalization of deviance” was coined in a book in reference to Challenger. There is no more appropriate example.

vervint.com

Normalization of deviance: Definition, examples and solutions | Vervint

“Normalization of deviance” is one of my favorite concepts as a technology leader. It refers to the process by which deviance from proper behavior becomes normalized in corporate cultures.
vervint.com vervint.com
 
Lindberg said:
Or crashed only because of bad luck. Sometimes the house loses. Claims that this was "inevitable" are based on a lot of assumptions and hindsight bias.
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Your original statement.
Lindberg said:
Not at all what I said or even implied.
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Please do explain it to me like I'm five then. I guess I do not see how a clearly preventable accident occurring under operational parameters that are atypical compared to what is standard through the NAS is "bad luck," nor how calling it simple "bad luck" and denying its inevitability is anything but normalization of deviance.
 
traumamed said:
Your original statement.

Please do explain it to me like I'm five then. I guess I do not see how a clearly preventable accident occurring under operational parameters that are atypical compared to what is standard through the NAS is "bad luck," nor how calling it simple "bad luck" and denying its inevitability is anything but normalization of deviance.
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It's not my original statement. You need to follow the thread.
 
Lindberg said:
It's not my original statement. You need to follow the thread.
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I'm not sure why the argumentative tone. I've been following the thread since day one. I cannot recall everything on all 43 pages. You made a statement that this was just "bad luck." If I read it out of context, you could simply explain why, which may benefit new readers to the thread as well. We are 1,718 posts in here.

Contextual clues (that elude me) aside, the bottom line is that this wasn't bad luck. Going backward by allowing the military to unilaterally impose its own rules so it can continue its free-for-all in unsafe proximity to DCA airspace is a big step in the wrong direction. Fly into DCA at your own risk. Good on NTSB Chairwoman Homendy for publicly calling this out for what it is.
 
Bob Noel said:
well, in a sense, "safety" is luck. Every piece of hardware has a non-zero probability of failure, including hardware that is essential to continued "safe" flight. IIRC, the various flavors of advisory circulars 1309 make reference to probabilities.
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Not really. Yes, we know everything has a nonzero probability of failure. That's why anything important with less than several zeroes in front of it is going to have a backup, so that there are layers of safety - The slices of swiss cheese that we talk about - until there aren't any single layered pieces visible.

"Luck" isn't just probability. Luck is probability times preparation. In aviation safety, we are starting from a position of safety and having to make it better as well as keeping it from getting worse. We proactively attempt to find where the holes in the swiss cheese might be, and add additional layers of safety, while also ensuring that existing safety isn't compromised. We find and analyze potential hazards, we write new procedures, we measure the adoption of those procedures, we inspect to ensure they're followed, we document so that they're not ignored or discarded, and we start all over again.

Lindberg said:
Or crashed only because of bad luck. Sometimes the house loses. Claims that this was "inevitable" are based on a lot of assumptions and hindsight bias.
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Taking a hazard like having a helicopter route crossing a final approach path and ignoring all of the occurrences of close calls is incredibly poor safety management, not bad luck. Clearly with the number of close calls, the frequency did NOT have several zeroes in front, and the severity is obviously catastrophic. This one should be "red" in any risk matrix... Yet nothing was done.

The FAA already forced 121 carriers to implement an SMS (2015 IIRC), and the non-single-pilot 135 carriers are in the process of the same. Yet, the FAA itself doesn't have a public-facing SMS, and while ASAP/ASRS may feed into some sort of SMS-like thing, the FAA isn't even rising to the level of safety assurance and promotion that they're requiring of carriers.
 
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