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That simple change (“SHALL hold route 4 traffic east of point X with aircraft on 33 approach”) would solve this problem. So simple, yet people are bitching about mil ADS-B.

I agree. It's a dumb to fly under landing traffic. Especially with no safe separation provided for both aircraft. They should have not been cleared to continue on route four via visual separation at night with an aircraft circling to land 33. They used to not clear you to continue on route four via visual separation with landing traffic to 33. They would have you hold over Haines Point or something similar.

Time for the wood chipper. Feet first preferably.

I agree with your post after this one I’m quoting. But, come on….. if they were “ at or below (not above)” the minimum clearance as the pax bird crosses over top ON GLIDEPATH was 75 feet. There’s no way anyone involved creating this procedure should have found that acceptable. I guarantee if the pilots flying into DCA knew that was a possibility when they accepted a clearance to sidestep to the other runway with a helo on that route, they would have declined every time.

Hell awaits!

The pilot and his girlfriend both arrested for fucking their 11 year old daughter starting when she was only 6.

Easy fix: Don't clear someone for visual separation on route four if there's an aircraft on short final to 33. Complacency from both Tower and the Helo caused this.

Prior to the series 80, 1911s could and did go off from being dropped. And revolvers have an equally checkered past, including the Colt peacemaker. I would happily trust a Sig P320, fully conceding that there is some sort of unidentified mechanical malfunction occurring that causes them to occasionally misfire, over carrying a 1911 or revolver that our elders used to carry. Guns were not safer back then, we just didn't care about accidental deaths as much.

Yeah, but humans don't work that way, and this line of reasoning got a bunch of innocent people killed, so new procedures are needed in my opinion. Being off altitude, misidentifying visual traffic at night in an ocean of lights, or drifting off flight path are well within the reasonable bounds of human error. Procedures at congested airports should not allow for basic human error to result in a crash. That's the whole point of having these procedures.

If you fly at or below (not above) the required altitude for that route, the helicopter route worked. Also, if you hear any aircraft cleared to land on the runway that crosses said route, use your hands and maneuver the helicopter out of the path of said runway. If you're cleared to maintain visual separation, you need to do so.

I miss juicey girls.

@Swizzle This is a Dibs!

It'd take at least a 12 pack to dibs that.

One of those other cops called for “backup” should have immediately called him out for this level of dumbassery. He needs to find a job with no authority over anyone or anything. He acted like a small child pissed off that mommy took his toy truck from him for nap time.

My back yard...My son went to the rival high school which ironically had a similar situation a few years ago. In that case a retired USMC Gunny worked as a NJROTC instructor. He was pursuing a female student. She told her friends who went to authorities.

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/crime/2025/07/30/molly-mersereau-gulf-breeze-high-school-teacher-arrested/85438300007/ Burner phone, teacher and student, Crime Stoppers call = drama First thing came to mind was South Park... ....but wait... @Biff_T?

Slightly off topic, but somewhat related, anyone have a recommendation for an AME in the Pensacola/Ft Walton area? Recently separated and moved back to the area, and probably going to need to reup my medical before starting at my civ job next month. Dr Brinker in Gulf Breeze had some good reviews, doc in Ft Walton seemed to have some more negative reviews. I thought there was post someone asking the same thing awhile back but I can’t seem to find it.

I gotta call BS. Maybe a good on-the-fly excuse to his leadership and a face saving option for media consumption. Sure. But if anyone in the business actually thinks that abortion of a maneuver and near destruction of beach side property and potential death of numerous innocent beach goers is a better alternative to taking a bird or two, they’re not playing with a full deck. He wasn’t even going that fast. The canopy is easily rated to take that and if an engine gets involved, well he’s got another. UFB.

More time in Itaewon, service member life expectancy plummets…they didn’t think this one through!

So congress is addressing something that had zero to do with the accident - “look, we’re doing something everybody!” Or, maybe you change the procedures, which actually will make a difference. Idiots.

Got my optics squared away on my MPX. Large Field of View Green Dot with a fold away 3 X Magnifier.

In their report, the Washington commission cited six incidents since 2021 with “uncommanded” discharges involving the M17 and M18. The M18 incidents were: In 2023, a Japanese security guard at Camp Foster, Okinawa, “rested their right hand lightly on the rotating cover of a weapon holster” when their M18 discharged. Also in 2023, at Camp Pendleton, California, an officer in the armory stopped at a clearing barrel to empty their M18. The officer pulled the pistol out of the holster while it was on safe and removed the magazine. A round discharged from the M18 into the clearing barrel. The officer was “sure that they never touched the trigger of the M18,” and had “ample weapons handling training,” according to the report. In 2022, a service member was preparing for his shift at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, when his M18 discharged at his home. He was taken to the hospital for a penetrating gunshot wound with the bullet still “lodged in his knee,” according to the incident report. With the M17, previous incidents included: A military police soldier at Fort Eustis, Virginia, in 2023 injured his foot after his pistol “inadvertently discharged” after making contact with another officer’s gun holster. The gun of an Army civilian attending a law enforcement course in 2020 at Leesville Police Range in Louisiana discharged while he drew the pistol from his holster. A service member attempting to holster his pistol in 2021 fired a round through his foot at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Army, Marine Corps, Navy have no plan to stop using M18, M17 pistols The Army, Navy and Marine Corps are not planning to pause use of the M18 pistol as a primary, daily service sidearm for their troops, the services told Task & Purpose, even as units in the Air Force pull the weapon from service after an airman was killed when his M18 discharged last week. The Air Force owns close to 75% of the military’s inventory of roughly 165,000 M18 pistols, according to data provided by the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and procurement documents from the Navy. Exact numbers of M17s currently in use were not immediately available. The Army and Marine Corps indicated in testing and evaluation documents that they intended to buy several hundred thousand of the handguns. A January 2017 contract announcement included a $580 million contract with Sig Sauer to replace the Army’s M9 by 2027. Officials from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps told Task & Purpose that those services have no plans to pause use of the weapons... Discharge issue discovered during Army testing The Department of Defense discovered unexpected discharge issues with the Sig Sauer handgun when the Army began operational testing for the M18 almost a decade ago. The service found that during drop testing with an empty primed cartridge inserted, the gun’s striker struck the round’s primer and caused a discharge. Army officials directed the company to correct the problem by implementing lightweight components in the trigger mechanism, according to a fiscal year 2017 operational test and evaluation report. Follow-on testing “validated” that the change “corrected the deficiency and the pistol no longer fired when dropped,” the report stated, adding that the new version with the changes was submitted for production. Sig Sauer conceded the early issues with the Army pistol, noting that testing “above and beyond” national, state, global military and law enforcement standards found that “after multiple drops, at certain angles and conditions, a potential discharge of the firearm may result when dropped.”