4w ago

Passenger jet collides with helicopter while landing at Reagan Washington National Airport, FAA says

apnews.com Passenger jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Airport near DC

There was no immediate word on casualties, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport near Washington have been halted.

A passenger jet has collided with a helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington.

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72 comments

This is a failure of communication. Why wasn't air traffic control made awhere of the military aircraft? This was a 100% avoidable incident. People need to be put on trial for incompetence, negligence, I bet their is a protocol to follow to avoid such incidents, I bet it wasn't followed under Trump's america. Tragic to the magnitude of maximum. This was 100% avoidable.
- RIP to all on those flights.
  VASAviation has the raw ATC audio. If you're not used to listening to ATC, read the comments for interpretation. Lots of experienced folk there.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiOybe-NJHk
  https://youtu.be/r90Xw3tQC0I
  In general, the aviation industry doesn't assign individual "fault" the way many do. It's taken as a collective responsibility. It seems at this stage that there's a lot of responsibility on the helo pilot, but there's also some communication ambiguity. Let's let the pros do their work and not jump to conclusions.
- they were aware and made several attempts. the failure is with the military ignoring the tower.
  
  ATC had contact with the helicopter. They advised it of the regional jet and asked them to confirm they could see it. The helicopter replied that they had it in sight and asked for permission to maintain visual separation, which was granted, and they were advised to fly behind it. Essentially that means the helicopter advised they could see it, and would ensure they avoided it. About 5 seconds later they flew into it.
  Before anyone says that it was crazy for the aircraft to just be told to avoid the other one, that is absolutely normal ATC operation, for aircraft in relatively close proximity to be told to be aware of each other and to maintain visual separation. If there was a failing, or room for improvement here, it was that ATC didn't tell the regional jet about the helicopter (they were on two different frequencies - quite normal for helicopters to be on a different one)
  In my keyboard-expert opinion, the pilot of the helicopter identified something he thought was the regional jet and moved to avoid it, and the angles that the two aircraft were approaching each other from would have made it very difficult for either of them to see each other, especially at night.
  
  Remotely controlled helicopter needs no regard for commands from Air Traffic Control.
  
  This wasn't someone's RC chopper?? It was, like, a full military helicopter thing.
  
  Read about the MATRIX system from Lockheed Martin. The tests done on a remote flying Blackhawk helicopter in November 2024.
- Read the article. The person you want to put on trial is dead. And all of trumps "changes" have hardly taken effect yet. Unless the helo piolot was a transgender pilot that was intentionally committing suicide, this one isn't on trump. But don't worry, there will be no shortage of things to blame on trump for at least the next decade.
  
  your kidding me right? what did musk do to the FAA chairman? pushed him out and made him resign because he was giving spacex fines. on January 20th he resigned. the trump administration replaced him with a yes man who ended up being an incompetent person unable to avoid this disaster this was 100% avoidable.
  
  Since you seem so sure of your opinion. Tell me how the new head of the faa directly caused this. Should be easy if you read the article.
  
  he probably ignored some documents or disregarded/unaware of his duties as the title and requirement of that job is needed. all i know for sure is in the last 16 years no accidents. trump makes executive orders that directly affect the faa and the safety of the airline industry and plans and helicopters fall from the sky. it doesn't take an idiot to put those dots together,
  
  Thats a lot of mental gymnastics there. What you are describing is correlation. And it proves nothing, in fact it is often very misleading. It is also great proof that the right doesn't have a monopoly on people who don't care about facts when spouting their opinion. See, if you had read... the air traffic controlled told the helo pilot about the plane. The helo pilot said they saw the plane and requested permission to avoid it on their own, rather than get specific instructions. That was granted. The ATC even called back when they didn't see the helo change course, and got the same basic response. So the FAA had nothing to do with causing this. The helo pilot was the cause. Some assume the helo pilot was looking at a different plane. We will probably never know. But it seems they made a mistake.

72 comments