H-60 crashes into American Airlines midflight on approach

[BushMasterBoy]

Army Blackhawk collides with jet from Wichita near Reagan International. Washington DC/Potomac area.

GFYS


Watch carefully!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

[.455_Hunter]

An absolute tragedy, but not surprising given Reagan's location. Probably not the best spot for a huge airport given the busy nature of the airspace. Let me guess, it's Trumps fault according to CNN and MSNBC

[BushMasterBoy]

The Army is on the hook for the lives lost. The lawyers are salivating over the legal fees. The PTB will offer a million dollars like the World Trade Center fiasco. The modus operandi is lies and theft. The pols...

[TRnCO]

a sad sad deal.
A or multiple humans errored. Was it traffic controller error, or pilot error, or both?
Traffic control apparently asked the heli if they had visual on the airliner, and they confirmed that they did. BUT did they have visual on the right airliner?

[eddiememphis]

...Let me guess, it's Trumps fault according to CNN and MSNBC

Yup.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/dc-plane-crash-cnn-apology-trump-b2689239.html

CNN pundit apologizes after sparking right-wing fury for blaming DC plane crash on Trump

And looking at BlueSky, the left's Twitter, it is obviously Trump's fault.

A military helicopter takes out an airplane full of figure skaters? Clearly part of Trump's anti-gay agenda.

[mb504]

I heard the helicopter pilots were wearing NVGs. Would the lack of peripheral vision be a factor?

[BushMasterBoy]

NVG is definitely a restricting factor in visual acuity. NVG is usually for combat missions, not for flying through congested airspace. Multiple contributing factors to this mishap. The rules will be rewritten.

98232

[BPTactical]

One would think that in that type of environment with so much light from various sources that NVG would be more of a hinderance than help

[def90]

Helo was also flying an established helicopter route with a max altitude of 200. Helo was at 300ish when the collision happened. Pilot was an instructor with 1000hrs, co pilot had 500hrs. They both had experience with this route.

Blue lines are helicopter flight routes, they were on route 4, the numbers next to them are the max altitudes allowed.

98233

[BushMasterBoy]

Point of impact was closer to the blue X. I watched the rescue helicopters last nite on ADS-B. Army Blackhawk should have been at 1000' minimum altitude. Since the Blackhawk is a L model there will not be a flight recorder installed. Not sure if the Blackhawk had CAS (collision avoidance system) avionics installed.


98239

[def90]

Point of impact was closer to the blue X. I watched the rescue helicopters last nite on ADS-B. Army Blackhawk should have been at 1000' minimum altitude. Since the Blackhawk is a L model there will not be a flight recorder installed. Not sure if the Blackhawk had CAS (collision avoidance system) avionics installed.


98239

Link to a current chart:

https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/12-26-2024/PDFs/Balt-Wash_Heli.pdf


The 1000 marks in the image above are for Route 6. On the current map linked above Route 6 shows max 1400 on either side to the east and west of the airport with a 1500ft lane over the top of the airport. The way you read these is a line on the botom of the number in a minimum altitude, a number with line on top and bottom is the recommended altitude, number with line on top is the maximum altitude. Blue line through the route is altitude change point, blue triangle is a compulsory reporting point.

Route 1 to the northwest of the airport and Route 4 which the helo was flying has a max 200 altitude and they are to hug the east bank of the river. You can see that where Route 4 turns to Route 1 it takes the east channel of the river to the northeast of the airport in order to give the airport a wider berth. The impact point was in line (southeast of the airport) with the end of the runway where the text "Boiling" is so further south than what you have marked.

Green airplane route, red helo route, where arrows meet is impact site.

98240

[def90]

Apparently the same issue occurred the night before with the incoming jet having to do a go around..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-updates-helicopter-potomac-reagan-airport/#link-6HHLTG5Q7JCODIOF26EZA2N5H4

"On Tuesday night, just 24 hours before a deadly collision between a military helicopter and a regional jet over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport, a different regional jet coming in for a landing at the airport alerted the air traffic control tower that it had to make a second approach.

The cockpit crew quickly reported the reason to the tower: A helicopter had appeared near the flight path."

[Hoser]

The Army is on the hook for the lives lost. The lawyers are salivating over the legal fees. The PTB will offer a million dollars like the World Trade Center fiasco. The modus operandi is lies and theft. The pols...

Until everyone gets all the details how about you just keep quiet.

[theGinsue]

BMB played stupid games & won stupid prizes; he's now banned for a month.

But, this wasn't done by the staff, it was aliens who done it. [ROFL1]

[Bailey Guns]

BMB played stupid games & won stupid prizes; he's now banned for a month.

But, this wasn't done by the staff, it was aliens who done it. [ROFL1]


OK... I hated to laugh given the nature of the thread. But that's funny!

[Hoser]

Lots of local connections to this crash. Lets try to be respectful to everyone involved.

Feel free to comment and discuss, but assigning blame and stating that you know things isnt helping anyone.

[kidicarus13]

Bradley Bowman, a former Black Hawk pilot who had flown the same path as the doomed craft, told CBS News that it was crucial for pilots to keep the helicopter below 200ft.

"You literally have aircraft coming in and out, and you have to stay at that altitude to make sure there isn't a collision. For some reason that failed last night."

[Eric P]

New video shows helicopter was at 350ft...
Reports coming out saying the same ATC was switching between the airplane and helicopter...

I blame Reagan International not being shut down after 9/11 to cut down on flying threats coming/going to an airport so close to DC. Only flights above DC should be military/gov flights. Keep the threat level lower to Capital without private aircraft in the close vacinity.

Dulles and Baltimore are close enough for tourism and business.

[kidicarus13]

https://www.totalprosports.com/general/authorities-reveal-army-pilot-made-critical-error-that-resulted-in-black-hawk-helicopters-fatal-collision-with-american-airlines-flight-5342-in-d-c/

Washington D.C. officials have since determined that the helicopter was flying too high, with the National Transportation Safety Board having determined that the military aircraft was around 100 feet higher than it should have been.

The crash happened at an altitude of 300-350 feet, but the helicopter wasn?t supposed to have gone higher than 200 feet.

[BushMasterBoy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmPIL30DDMk