D.C. Officials Believe No One Survived the Plane, Army Helicopter Collision
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D.C. Officials Believe No One Survived the Plane, Army Helicopter Collision

D.C. Officials Believe No One Survived the Plane, Army Helicopter Collision

No one knows what caused the accident.

A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with three soldiers collided with an American Airlines plane with 60 passengers over the Potomac River around 9 PM ET on Wednesday.

The soldiers were on a training mission.

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO Jack Carter confirmed the mission has become a recovery operation.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t unable to rescue anyone,” said Carter, according to Fox News. “But we are in the recovery mode right now.”

Chief of the District of Columbia Fire Department, John Donnelly, told the press the first responders “recovered 27 people from the plane and one from the helicopter.”

The U.S. Figure Skating team lost several members on the AA flight:

US Figure Skating: U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C. These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas

We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.

We don’t know what happened. I found this great post on X. He told someone that “it is necessary and incredibly common” to have training missions in a crowded air space.

But here’s his original post:

I was a Blackhawk helicopter crew chief in the Army.

I was even a Flight Instructor. This means that I trained Crew Chiefs and ensured that they completed all training annually to maintain their flight ratings.

One massive responsibility we had was to be the eyes for the pilots. We handled airspace obstacle avoidance and communicated potential risks to the pilots.

Quite often we would train as a flight of 2 or 3 birds flying in formation.

It was my job to have my head out the window and tell the pilots that the aircraft behind us was “staggered right at 3 discs”. (We measured close distances in terms of the diameter of our rotor discs).

I can tell you after doing this for hundreds of hours, even when you know EXACTLY where a Blackhawk is, and you have night vision goggles on, it is EXTREMELY hard to SEE the aircraft.

These birds are designed to be hard to see at night.

The red and green lights on the side get lost in the lights of the city below. The only “lights” on top of the aircraft are called “slime lights” because they are a very very very dim green.

Incredibly difficult to see.

If you are above the helicopter, even if it has it flood light or spot light (2 different lights) on, underneath it, it is still hard to see the bird because all of that illumination is below the airframe.

Another thing people should know is just how busy things can get on the aircraft.

Pilots are talking to each other about what they are observing on the instrument panels. This means neither are looking outside the aircraft.

The crew chief might be conducting a fuel check, where we would also be looking up into the cockpit at the fuel gages and the clock.

This CAN lead to moments where all 3 people on the aircraft are all looking inside the aircraft.

It’s not supposed to happen that way. We are supposed to announce when we are “coming inside” or are “back outside” the aircraft. But that doesn’t always happen.

Also, in cities like DC, the radio traffic is constant and can make it hard to filter out what is important for you to listen to.

Checking instruments, doing math, reading checklists, and listening to multiple radios all at the same time is HARD. Mistakes happen.

Anyone out there telling you that they find the aircraft collision to be suspect, have NEVER been in a flight crew and they have ZERO idea what they are talking about.

Ignore them all. Better yet, mock the hell out of them.

999 times out of 1000 aircraft incidents always come down to a series of pilot and crew errors.

Humans are involved. They aren’t perfect.

Tonight, my heart and mind is with the families of those involved in this tragic event.

I won’t join the chorus of idiots making speculations.

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Comments

What caused the accident was that see and be seen doesn’t work at night. The helicopter was told to pass behind the jet but the helicopter didn’t see the jet. Why?

Constant bearing means collision. The jet’s lights were not “moving” relative to the background lights and could not be picked out by the helicopter. As far as they could tell, there was nothing there.

The jet’s bright landing light only shines forward and is no help to the helicopter to the side.

    steves59 in reply to rhhardin. | January 30, 2025 at 10:15 am

    “What caused the accident was that see and be seen doesn’t work at night.”

    … he states with complete certainty, fully ignoring not only the embedded tweet but also thousands upon thousands of successful “see and be seen” encounters that have happened over the years.

      rhhardin in reply to steves59. | January 30, 2025 at 12:34 pm

      Long ago Flying Magazine published an article on how to spot aircraft from the air. Fix your gaze at a distant spot on the ground and look for motion in side-vision. It works! But, as with the mariners’ axiom “Constant bearing means collision,” it only works on aircraft that you’re going to collide with. They have no motion, in side vision or otherwise.

      At night you rely on lights that are moving relative to the ground. In this case, since it’s a collision course, there’s no motion of the jet’s lights relative to lights on the ground, making the jet invisible to the helicopter.

      The controller said go behind the jet. The only jet the helicopter sees is one departing. Maybe the controller means that one …

      A hole in the system.

    alaskabob in reply to rhhardin. | January 30, 2025 at 12:31 pm

    True, constant bearing to collision has happened multiple times… even a window sill blocking the one view of the other airplane. The landing lights won’t be seen from the side but the chopper quartered in on the jet ND, YES, and background CITY lights. But there is collision avoidance lighting on the jet including color and strobe and the chopper is crossing the final…. we will have to seen but the chopper motored right into the jet at the same altitude expected for jet approach.

    Since the chopper was on a different frequency, those communications will be important.

    My check ride for my private pilot license was the day an Eastern Airlines DC-9 ran down a Cessna which was number one to land and cleared. The Eastern was notified of traffic and Cessna as number one… “do you have them in sight”…. the jet never lowered its nose to see. The jet’s landing gear caught the Cessna and its debris finally dislodged mid runway. I didn’t witness the crash but one of the instructors rushed into the office to see which planes were up and the crash… and I went out and watched and listened as the scene unfolded with the jet ,checked in flight by another jet, finally landed with a punched up wing.

May they all rest in peace.

“It is necessary and incredibly common to have training missions in a crowded air space.”

I bet it won’t be incredibly common any more.

    rhhardin in reply to Paula. | January 30, 2025 at 8:58 am

    High traffic at uncontrolled airports worked fine with no radio either but responsibilities were not divided then. That was pretty long ago now.

    Paula in reply to Paula. | January 30, 2025 at 9:08 am

    The only ray of hope is that we have a new president who will get to the bottom of it.

      Ghostrider in reply to Paula. | January 30, 2025 at 9:46 am

      Sean Duffry was sworn in as Secretary of Transportation on Tuesday. The accident happened on his first day on the job.

      JohnSmith100 in reply to Paula. | January 30, 2025 at 9:56 am

      I bet that the FAA has been hiring Affirmative and DEI controllers, and the same is true for or Military. This has been a ticking bomb for years.

        alaskabob in reply to JohnSmith100. | January 30, 2025 at 12:34 pm

        It has been a known bomb with ATC. I wold have put the DEI lower on the list for now but we don’t know all that Trump admin knows now.

And look at that, Democrats couldn’t even wait for the bodies to be cold before piling in and blaming the accident on Trump.

If you couldn’t hate a group of people enough they then give you even more reason to detest them.

    henrybowman in reply to mailman. | January 30, 2025 at 3:54 pm

    “999 times out of 1000 aircraft incidents always come down to a series of pilot and crew errors.
    Humans are involved. They aren’t perfect.”

    I suspect this was for the benefit of congressional Democrats, who are all busy today filing bills to ban “semiautomatic assault helicopters.”

This is probably the only airport in America where this kind of crash is even possible because at all other US airports, the substantial exclusion/prohibited zones don’t allow any traffic – not even police or military traffic – anywhere near the takeoff and approach paths. At DCA, because of all the specialty military missions that are necessary, they share the same space as aircraft on takeoff and departure routinely. Honestly, it’s surprising this hasn’t happened before now. Absolute tragedy, RIP to all the dead and condolences to the families. I hope this doesn’t renew calls to shutter DCA.

    RandomCrank in reply to TargaGTS. | January 30, 2025 at 9:45 am

    The calls should be to keep military aircraft away from the approaches to civilian airports. If the pilots are too stupid to be able to stay away from aircraft taking off and landing, then keep them away altogether. The military’s job is to serve us, not to kill us.

    henrybowman in reply to TargaGTS. | January 30, 2025 at 3:55 pm

    DCA will never be shuttered. Congressmen will never accept the “long limo ride” to Dulles.

I certainly hope our newly confirmed Transportation Secretary demonstrates more competence than his predecessor.

as the jet was on final and descending am not sure they could have done anything (other than a go around)–about like flying a grand piano at that airspeed and close to the ground–likely they’d have stalled it

    TargaGTS in reply to texansamurai. | January 30, 2025 at 9:58 am

    Yep. Below FL100, TCAS doesn’t even tell pilots to climb or descend (a resolution advisory). Instead, it just screams ‘traffic, traffic, traffic). There’s literally no space to descend much less increase descent. I’m sure when the CRJ’s voice recorder is played, there will be non-stop TCAS alerts audible. They knew it was coming (for some brief period of time) but couldn’t do anything about it.

I do not understand why military aircraft fly near civilian landing approaches. This makes no sense to me. In fact, it seems stupid, reckless, and dangerous. But then I’m just some stupid taxpaying fool who pays the bills for this country, so ignore me. Ignore all of us.

    henrybowman in reply to RandomCrank. | January 30, 2025 at 3:58 pm

    Congressmen have privileged parking spots literally on the dropoff roundabout feeding the front door of DCA. DW and I used to joke that those were the “morally handicapped” parking spots.

The army helicopter pilot crew chief info included was helpful – the plane and the helicopter might not have been aware of each other. But where was the control tower? Couldn’t they see they were on a collision path? A training mission at night at one of the busiest airports, with lots of important people flying at all hours??

MoeHowardwasright | January 30, 2025 at 9:47 am

In listening to the ATC recordings the Controller was not clear and did not take control of the situation. His proper response when confronted with converging aircraft and warnings is to tell the helicopter to make a 90 degree left turn and descend 150 ft and tell the jet to go around and climb to 3000 feet. That is SOP for this very situation. The helicopter is the more maneuverable aircraft.

    Bruce Hayden in reply to MoeHowardwasright. | January 30, 2025 at 9:55 am

    DEI hire? Apparently a number of highly qualified candidates for flight controllers were turned away for being the wrong race, sex, or gender affiliation.

    healthguyfsu in reply to MoeHowardwasright. | January 30, 2025 at 11:07 am

    Definitely on the helicopter to avoid….a plane is called a plane for a reason.

    texansamurai in reply to MoeHowardwasright. | January 30, 2025 at 11:07 am

    His proper response when confronted with converging aircraft and warnings is to tell the helicopter to make a 90 degree left turn and descend 150 ft and tell the jet to go around and climb to 3000 feet. That is SOP for this very situation.
    ___________________________________________________________________________________

    exactly–when my father and my uncle were teaching my brother and i they were both crystal clear about this: when atf issues a command (such as you reference above), do it–don’t waste even an instant replying–do it–they can see you–you can acknowledge afterward

      texansamurai in reply to texansamurai. | January 30, 2025 at 11:11 am

      atf= atc

      alaskabob in reply to texansamurai. | January 30, 2025 at 11:19 am

      Only on c-mode so altitude not displayed, ATC should have said traffic is a CRJ is to your left circling approach to on final 33.. However, passing directly across the active final flight path to a major airport means eyes out….. You ALWAYS look BOTH ways..

      The chopper crew appears to have assumed the landing plane to their right was the plan ATC was talking about. It usually takes more than one blunder to cause a disaster.

      The Jet ‘s crew is busy landing the plane at that point…..if you have flown into Reagan you know the Potomac approach.

    It was a helicopter. The ATC could have told it to STOP or do a 180 degree turn and head in the opposite direction.

    The crew chief’s comments aside, the helo crew knew they were entering airspace used for approaches and departures from a major airport. If there’s a time for all eyes to be “outside” the aircraft, that was the time.

    RandomCrank in reply to MoeHowardwasright. | January 30, 2025 at 12:31 pm

    From what I have read, I don’t think the jet would have had enough time to do anything. This was all about the helicopter, which was much more maneuverable and never should have been there to begin with. Why in hell are military aircraft doing night maneuvers anywhere near the takeoff and landing paths of a busy civilian airport?

This tragic incident has me thinking of Ridley Scott’s 2001 war film Black Hawk Down, based on the 1999 book by journalist Mark Bowden, about the crew of a Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down during the Battle of Mogadishu. May the soldiers, passengers, and crew members who lost their lives last night rest in peace.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Juan Brown, former military pilot and (I believe) current commercial pilot, reports on aviation mishaps great and small with knowledge, professionalism, and MINUS the MSM’s drama / emotionalism.

A little bit jargon-y (tailored for av-folk), but most reasonably intelligent people can catch on pretty quick.

His latest update (9 hrs old): https://youtu.be/ouDAnO8eMf8?si=doUECdP_WuPmLixZ