PSA CRJ-700 AA midair collision

It looks like my post vanished. Here goes again. The crj was initially going to land on 1. Controller asked crew last minute if they could land on 33. Crew accepted the change in runway. 30 minutes after the crew accepted the runway change, the Blackhawk crew was asked to verify they had the CRJ in sight. It's quite possible the crew had this plane in sight before the plane changed its approach, or they had another plane in sight, didn't see the plane on a circling approach, and assumed the plane already in sight was the plane the controller was asking them to verify in sight.

The plane changing landing runways last minute may have been the swiss hole that made then all line up. Do crews normally accept a change in runways so close to landing, especially one on a different angle? Were they tired and in a hurry to get home?
 
arkavgal said:
It looks like my post vanished. Here goes again. The crj was initially going to land on 1. Controller asked crew last minute if they could land on 33. Crew accepted the change in runway. 30 minutes after the crew accepted the runway change, the Blackhawk crew was asked to verify they had the CRJ in sight. It's quite possible the crew had this plane in sight before the plane changed its approach, or they had another plane in sight, didn't see the plane on a circling approach, and assumed the plane already in sight was the plane the controller was asking them to verify in sight.

The plane changing landing runways last minute may have been the swiss hole that made then all line up. Do crews normally accept a change in runways so close to landing, especially one on a different angle? Were they tired and in a hurry to get home?
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So…who are you again?
 
arkavgal said:
It looks like my post vanished. Here goes again. The crj was initially going to land on 1. Controller asked crew last minute if they could land on 33. Crew accepted the change in runway. 30 minutes after the crew accepted the runway change, the Blackhawk crew was asked to verify they had the CRJ in sight. It's quite possible the crew had this plane in sight before the plane changed its approach, or they had another plane in sight, didn't see the plane on a circling approach, and assumed the plane already in sight was the plane the controller was asking them to verify in sight.

The plane changing landing runways last minute may have been the swiss hole that made then all line up. Do crews normally accept a change in runways so close to landing, especially one on a different angle? Were they tired and in a hurry to get home?
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IMG_6504.jpeg


Oowe Ahh Ya?
 
NovemberEcho said:
The V tag is probably the approach/final controllers tag in the Tracon, and the 4 is the towers. If positions are combined up all tags he’s working would be the same as whatever position they’re combined to (in this case the 4).
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Doh! Sorry, I forgot final leaves them tagged up all the way in. So like you said V is probably the final sector at PCT.
 
BobDDuck said:
Not sure if things have changed since I was still flying out of DCA (12 years ago...) but there was no restriction on route operations no matter which way aircraft were landing. Also, as long as the helo was on the published route and at the correct altitudes, they didn't need clearance to operate. They were required to check in with tower for traffic advisories (normally on UHF so we would never hear their side of the conversation) and that was it. Unfortunately, rotor traffic was just part of doing business there. I did get broken off a MTV Visual 1/Circle 33 approach once (maybe in 2009?) because rotor traffic flying down the river low level but in the wrong place but other than that it was just see(ish) and avoid. Countless inhibited TAs, all the time, but mostly if traffic was called out by ATC, we were told they had us in sight, which was never comforting but normalized enough I don't think anybody gave it anything thought.

Side note... I've got just over 100 hours in that plane. Her sister ship (708) was a demon plane that caused problems from the Friday she rolled off the assembly line in Mirabel. Fortunately she ended up in Star Alliance paint and picked up the name Casper, so you'd see her coming a long ways away. But 709 was always a good jet and I have no bad stories or memories from flying her. Terrible end for her and the crew and pax.
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Sounds like it may be a policy of "works out most of the time", where the traffic is either well north or south of landing traffic. I just dont believe that ATC could have been banking this all on a clerance of less than 200 feet at the shoreline. I cant think of any specific examples ive had there, but I know ive had traffic called out low level as we are well above. If the H60 was seconds faster and already through the final this never even makes it into a report.
 
greg1016 said:
I don't know if DCA has a class b airspace like NYC, I feel like if they did they would be a lv 10 instead of a 9. In the VAS video, both aircraft are on * tags, which to me indicates they probably don't have a separate sector. However it is likely when running this config there would be separate arrival and departure local controllers.
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Confirmed DCA has a CBA position. They actually call it Helicopter Position but it’s the same function as EWR/LGA CBA. Work with someone who is a former DCA sup.
 
arkavgal said:
It looks like my post vanished. Here goes again. The crj was initially going to land on 1. Controller asked crew last minute if they could land on 33. Crew accepted the change in runway. 30 minutes after the crew accepted the runway change, the Blackhawk crew was asked to verify they had the CRJ in sight. It's quite possible the crew had this plane in sight before the plane changed its approach, or they had another plane in sight, didn't see the plane on a circling approach, and assumed the plane already in sight was the plane the controller was asking them to verify in sight.

The plane changing landing runways last minute may have been the swiss hole that made then all line up. Do crews normally accept a change in runways so close to landing, especially one on a different angle? Were they tired and in a hurry to get home?
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This is a pretty close knit community for the most part. If you've got a genuine interest and want to be part of the conversation, introduce yourself (in a general sense). Otherwise, you're going to get a kind of cold shoulder, especially in this type of situation.

To answer your question in a general sense, it is not unusual for a crew to accept a runway change, especially at DCA, especially if they have been flying in and out of there for a while. Where they accepted the change was nowhere close to "close to landing".
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Say it has recorders. Who gets to decode them? The military or the NTSB?
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There will be two concurrent accident investigations running: NTSB and US Army Safety Center, due to this being a civilian vs military accident. The two entities should be sharing general information with one another. The Army report will have some portions that will be privileged and non-releasable.
 
inigo88 said:
Fair point, I actually don’t remember the specifics with the LEX crash, but wasn’t he the only one in the tower at the time?
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My recollection is (and Pilot Fighter or anyone else can correct me here) that he was working alone but that it was A) "appropriate staffing" for the circumstances and more importantly B) didn't materially contribute the crash (outside of I suppose the idea that if there had been more people around one of them might have seen the RJ lining up on the closed runway). Which had no lights.
 
Boris Badenov said:
My recollection is (and Pilot Fighter or anyone else can correct me here) that he was working alone but that it was A) "appropriate staffing" for the circumstances and more importantly B) didn't materially contribute the crash (outside of I suppose the idea that if there had been more people around one of them might have seen the RJ lining up on the closed runway). Which had no lights.
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Yes to A and B. It was very normal to have a single person in the cab at lots of smaller airports during early/late hours. And the way those two runways used to be, it is unlikely that a controller in the cab would have noticed that somebody lined up on the wrong runway. Possibly once they started rolling the controller might have seen it, but unlikely.
 
Boris Badenov said:
My recollection is (and Pilot Fighter or anyone else can correct me here) that he was working alone but that it was A) "appropriate staffing" for the circumstances and more importantly B) didn't materially contribute the crash (outside of I suppose the idea that if there had been more people around one of them might have seen the RJ lining up on the closed runway). Which had no lights.
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In the LEX accident, I don’t think the tower was even open yet for business that morning, when the RJ taxiied for takeoff.
 
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