Two things that should probably never be allowed in that airspace at night. Circling to another runway, and maintaining visual separation. It's hard enough to get eyes on the correct airplane landing at Tulsa at night. I can't think of any way to be absolutely certain you have the correct set of blinking lights in that airspace.

Perfect storm...RJ descending out of IDTEK (490') just past VDP to line up and land/PAT cruising south down Route 1/4 at +100' deviation?; the vertical separation at that point in space has to be minimal at best

There's no indication they loaded the RNAV 33 to have SA on IDTEK so its constraint is immaterial. They were switched from the Mt Vernon 1 to visual 33 from the Wilson Bridge. Wilson Bridge is 3.4NM from 33. I expect - and hope - they didn't go heads down to load a new approach in the box that late.

Edited January 31Jan 31 by nunya

Not a Helo guy, but does it have TCAS onboard?

This feels like it’s going to be one of those textbook Swiss cheese, safety incidents. F’ing tragic for everyone

5 hours ago, jrizzell said:

Not a Helo guy, but does it have TCAS onboard?

This feels like it’s going to be one of those textbook Swiss cheese, safety incidents. F’ing tragic for everyone
 

Even if both aircraft had it operating, it wouldn't avoided the collision. The ATC feed populated CA's (conflict alerts) for both aircraft, but that is an independent system. I'm assuming the helo had TCAS off based on no flight path deconfliction prior to the incident. 

TCAS functionality (TA/RA outputs) varies based on modes each aircraft are squawking and altitude thresholds that prohibit RAs. Below 1000AGL, TCAS is in SL1 (sensitivity level) and RA's are inhibited. For both aircraft to get an RA based on flight path conflict they both need to have (1) TCAS II systems with Mode S on, (2) TCAS on (TA/RA) and (3) above 1000AGL to be in SL3+. In some cases one aircraft might get a TA while the other gets an RA, based on TCAS I vs TCAS II inputs. More specifics are in the link below (page 5, 23, 34). 

https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/tcas ii v7.1 intro booklet.pdf

Edited February 1Feb 1 by Beaker16

Learjet 55 crashed in Philadelphia. 
 

A plane crashed into a neighborhood in Philadelphia on Friday night, leaving multiple homes on fire.

ABC 6 Action News reported that the plane was a “small plane,” although no specifics were given about the number of people on board or the type of aircraft.

The crash happened in an area in the north-eastern part of the city just shortly after 6 p.m.

The report said that the plane appeared to hit “several buildings and cars in the area” and that multiple casualties have been reported.

Edited February 1Feb 1 by mp5g

Now reports saying Lear 55 med-flight with 6 on board

Edited February 1Feb 1 by RegularJoe
Updated

Last ADSB hit had it at -11000 fpm 

1 hour ago, uhhello said:

Last ADSB hit had it at -11000 fpm 

 

2 hours ago, mp5g said:

Learjet 55 crashed in Philadelphia. 
 

 

A plane crashed into a neighborhood in Philadelphia on Friday night, leaving multiple homes on fire.

ABC 6 Action News reported that the plane was a “small plane,” although no specifics were given about the number of people on board or the type of aircraft.

The crash happened in an area in the north-eastern part of the city just shortly after 6 p.m.

The report said that the plane appeared to hit “several buildings and cars in the area” and that multiple casualties have been reported.

That's insane! 

From what i'm seeing it only got to 1660 feet altitude on takeoff as well.  

Probably the best camera footage of DCA.

 

That's horrific.  I hope the initial impact was violent enough that no one was conscious afterward.

Not a Helo guy, but does it have TCAS onboard?

This feels like it’s going to be one of those textbook Swiss cheese, safety incidents. F’ing tragic for everyone

No

Though one of the things we’ve been messaging PM is to get the APX-123 ADS-B In to be supported by the avionics suite along with weather functions etc. The box will do it, but none of the fleet can inject it.


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Why are they withholding the Blackhawk pilot’s name?

Why are they withholding the Blackhawk pilot’s name?

Saw a report that it was at request of the family. Maybe to give time to notify someone taking longer than normal.

1 hour ago, Vetter said:

Why are they withholding the Blackhawk pilot’s name?

Maybe because she’s a female pilot and with the appalling DEI finger pointing from El Presidente the family doesn’t want their daughter’s name drug through the mud by a bunch of fucking stupid neck beards 

@08Dawg What’s too bad is that’s exactly what would happen, I don’t blame her family. Nobody will talk about how there was a male pilot also there with twice the hours. The only way DEI could possibly be linked is if the tower was understaffed at the time and it was found the additional personnel who *should* have been there would have likely jumped in with directive comm to avert disaster. But even then, that hypothetical finding will never be definitive, but just an educated assumption.

FAA staffing may be a CF (in addition to helo pilot error), but ultimately I think the RC will be insufficient procedures for the amount of traffic congestion in the DCA area.

And I say all this as someone who vehemently believes DEI is a cancer on the world and needs to die. Meritocracy and highest qualified/capabilities is how every industry and gov agency should work. 

Edited February 1Feb 1 by brabus

7 hours ago, Vetter said:

ADMIN NOTE:  Comment removed.

That’s fucking stupid…absolutely the family gets a say. 

5 hours ago, Vetter said:

ADMIN NOTE:  Comment Removed.

Fuck you…that’s their daughter. Have some decency. 

Side note, is there any hard evidence out there at this point that the helo was off altitude? The impact looks to have been slightly more than a half mile final to 33 so 150'-200' A would be on glideslope for the RJ. I know the publicly available flight track shows PAT25 at 300 just before but given the granularity of that data I'm not convinced that can't be explained by rounding/altimiter/baro error.

Normally not a fan of speculating before the data is out but given that POTUS and the SECDEF both decided to go out the next day and publicly blame an "elevation issue" I think it's worth asking.

Edit: Answered as soon as I posted, based on the CRJ data impact was 325'. No data from the blackhawk yet.

 

Edited February 2Feb 2 by Bumpass Ball

5 hours ago, Vetter said:

ADMIN NOTE:  Comment Removed.

You can breathe easier now.  She has been identified.  All is safe. 

14 minutes ago, Bumpass Ball said:

Normally not a fan of speculating before the data is out but given that POTUS and the SECDEF both decided to go out the next day and publicly blame an "elevation issue" I think it's worth asking.

Yep, the Bobs would never jump to conclusions based on sanitized information from the peons. If a politician who has no expertise in the matter says it, I'm definitely assuming they're correct.

I'm curious if this will renew the FAA pushing ADSB for mil aircraft.

Edited February 1Feb 1 by icohftb

The procedures in that area are stupid.

Capt. Rebecca Lobach

450hr PIC?

Edited February 1Feb 1 by gearhog