PSA CRJ-700 AA midair collision

🦈💜 said:
This, among many other things, is why I've written multiple letters to congress critters trying to get them to push the FAA to reinstate fam flights, ideally on a space-available basis just like our jumpseat agreements.

I, for one, WANT controllers to jumpseat around a few times a year to have an idea what it looks like from our side. I think we could smooth things out and improve safety.

But then staffing was a bigger priority, something I also touched on.

Not that I ever even got a single response on any of those letters.

And not that anything governmental matters at this point.
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Union tells us fam flights are coming back, but I have my doubts under this administration. Problem is the fam flights are very restrictive for us, we can't take PTO in conjunction with a fam flight, and when we get home we have to write a book report about it. If we could get it back like it was pre 9-11 that would be great.

You would probably have better results writing your union and your company. The FAA does what the companies want, and the companies really don't want it.
 
Phraseology pet-peeve:

When both aircraft are taxing, landing, and to a lesser extent, taking off, the “pass behind” instruction seems unambiguous. It makes sense when both aircraft are someway perpendicular to each other.

When two aircraft are nose-to-nose, a little clarity is lost, especially if one aircraft really isn’t maneuvering to follow the other in an approach. It would have been clear to me as an instruction to give way or yield to the approach traffic, but “pass behind” just bothers me.

I haven’t flown much in the U.S. in the past twenty years, what happened to the “give way” instruction? I don’t hear it much. Was there a change for ICAO consistency?

As hard as it may seem to consider, I wonder if the Blackhawk really understood that PSA was turning in front of them. Was there a cockpit issue or just an unexplained loss of SA?

I’m also curious about the unofficial SOP for helicopter traffic. Was it, fly the route and ATC will handle separation without coordination with helicopter traffic? Did the Blackhawk face instructions they weren’t mentally prepared for?

While trusting pilots to maintain visual separation is a cornerstone in our system, damn I wish the Blackhawk would have been instructed earlier to turn ~ 300 and not exceed 200’. I’ve never heard of military pilots complaining about training wheels as they often have limitations compared to 121 traffic.
 
greg1016 said:
Union tells us fam flights are coming back, but I have my doubts under this administration. Problem is the fam flights are very restrictive for us, we can't take PTO in conjunction with a fam flight, and when we get home we have to write a book report about it. If we could get it back like it was pre 9-11 that would be great.

You would probably have better results writing your union and your company. The FAA does what the companies want, and the companies really don't want it.
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Our company is fine with it. We don't have a union, but you're already in our operations manuals as allowed on the JS.

The only gatekeeper here is the FAA. Part of my letters to various congress critters is an emphasis that fam flights should be unrestricted and allow for leisure travel. Jumpseats already have priority, and ATC is pretty close to the bottom, so you're only getting it if nobody else is on it . . . but most jumpseats are empty. Hell, we allow other airline dispatchers on our JS.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Phraseology pet-peeve:

When both aircraft are taxing, landing, and to a lesser extent, taking off, the “pass behind” instruction seems unambiguous. It makes sense when both aircraft are someway perpendicular to each other.

When two aircraft are nose-to-nose, a little clarity is lost, especially if one aircraft really isn’t maneuvering to follow the other in an approach. It would have been clear to me as an instruction to give way or yield to the approach traffic, but “pass behind” just bothers me.

I haven’t flown much in the U.S. in the past twenty years, what happened to the “give way” instruction? I don’t hear it much. Was there a change for ICAO consistency?

As hard as it may seem to consider, I wonder if the Blackhawk really understood that PSA was turning in front of them. Was there a cockpit issue or just an unexplained loss of SA?

I’m also curious about the unofficial SOP for helicopter traffic. Was it, fly the route and ATC will handle separation without coordination with helicopter traffic? Did the Blackhawk face instructions they weren’t mentally prepared for?

While trusting pilots to maintain visual separation is a cornerstone in our system, damn I wish the Blackhawk would have been instructed earlier to turn ~ 300 and not exceed 200’. I’ve never heard of military pilots complaining about training wheels as they often have limitations compared to 121 traffic.
Click to expand...
I never cared for pass behind either, but it is quite common. Give way is still used frequently on ground, but I would never use it talking to airborne aircraft.
 
NTSB presser covering the FDR, sounds just horrible. Last second visual with time to actually make a control input was about my worst fear and that seems to be the exact scenario.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Phraseology pet-peeve:

When both aircraft are taxing, landing, and to a lesser extent, taking off, the “pass behind” instruction seems unambiguous. It makes sense when both aircraft are someway perpendicular to each other.

When two aircraft are nose-to-nose, a little clarity is lost, especially if one aircraft really isn’t maneuvering to follow the other in an approach. It would have been clear to me as an instruction to give way or yield to the approach traffic, but “pass behind” just bothers me.

I haven’t flown much in the U.S. in the past twenty years, what happened to the “give way” instruction? I don’t hear it much. Was there a change for ICAO consistency?

As hard as it may seem to consider, I wonder if the Blackhawk really understood that PSA was turning in front of them. Was there a cockpit issue or just an unexplained loss of SA?

I’m also curious about the unofficial SOP for helicopter traffic. Was it, fly the route and ATC will handle separation without coordination with helicopter traffic? Did the Blackhawk face instructions they weren’t mentally prepared for?

While trusting pilots to maintain visual separation is a cornerstone in our system, damn I wish the Blackhawk would have been instructed earlier to turn ~ 300 and not exceed 200’. I’ve never heard of military pilots complaining about training wheels as they often have limitations compared to 121 traffic.
Click to expand...

Pass behind is fine as an instruction, and I get it often when flying the PHX LOA and LAX helo routes (which aren’t remotely as complicated as BWI or DFW, but still have areas where stuff can go wrong). But this depends on me being able to understand what the traffic I’m supposed to be passing behind is doing. Part of that comes from gaining SA on just listening to what instructions ATC is giving, and who is who in the air. If tower isn’t busy, they’ll describe what the traffic is doing (“pass being the 727 turning visual final for RW 26”); but if they are busy with other traffic, they may not (you’ve got the 737 at 11 o’clock and 3 miles? pass behind that 737, maintain visual separation”) and then the onus is on me to have the SA as to what he is doing (notmally obvious), and if unsure, to query ATC.
 
greg1016 said:
I never cared for pass behind either, but it is quite common. Give way is still used frequently on ground, but I would never use it talking to airborne aircraft.
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Obviously quite common, not so common is a case of nose-to-nose aircraft, one of which isn’t landing.

Like I said, it would have been clear to me, PSA has the right-of-way. If the Blackhawk understood this, I would have expected them to slow, veer to the east, and decrease altitude. Why did they veer west?

What are the possibilities? Blackhawk never saw PSA. Blackhawk mistook another aircraft for PSA. Blackhawk didn’t understand that PSA was turning in front of them. Blackhawk incorrectly assumed that they had priority to fly the route and ATC would deconflict with other aircraft. Loss of SA for some reason.

Not sure if we will ever have definitive answers.
 
schloopy said:
NTSB presser covering the FDR, sounds just horrible. Last second visual with time to actually make a control input was about my worst fear and that seems to be the exact scenario.
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Yep. I had a thought as well, that the FO probably saw it in his peripheral once it was too late.
 
schloopy said:
NTSB presser covering the FDR, sounds just horrible. Last second visual with time to actually make a control input was about my worst fear and that seems to be the exact scenario.
Click to expand...

Man, that is terrible. To have been able to pick up the helicopter visually, I can only imagine that it would’ve been nearly under their right wing at their perhaps 3 or 4 o’clock, and thus would likely be unseen until it bloomed from underneath there as it appeared at the last 1-2 seconds.

Sometimes, you can be doing everything right. And things will still go wrong.

I’m curious as to what the flight dynamics and aircraft structures investigative teams finds with regards to actual impact angles and position on the aircraft, as it relates to angle-off of both aircraft (heading crossing angle), and taking into account the bank angle of the CRJ, and any pitch/bank of the Blackhawk indicating whether they saw anything at all last second. And, what damage was taken in the impact by both aircraft. Be interesting to see.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Obviously quite common, not so common is a case of nose-to-nose aircraft, one of which isn’t landing.

Like I said, it would have been clear to me, PSA has the right-of-way. If the Blackhawk understood this, I would have expected them to slow, veer to the east, and decrease altitude. Why did they veer west?

What are the possibilities? Blackhawk never saw PSA. Blackhawk mistook another aircraft for PSA. Blackhawk didn’t understand that PSA was turning in front of them. Blackhawk incorrectly assumed that they had priority to fly the route and ATC would deconflict with other aircraft. Loss of SA for some reason.

Not sure if we will ever have definitive answers.
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Unless there is a CVR in that model of Hawk, we may never know. I can’t imagine that the Blackhawk crew would be unaware of DCA airliner ops with approaches to RW 1 that end up circling to RW 33. These helos, military and civilian, fly these routes nearly daily. And an LAO, or Local Area Orientation, is required to operate not only on these routes, but inside the airspace, with as many different areas of airspace and the constraints of the special use airspace there. It was a pain in the ass for me to be able to fly there for my missions, but I understood why it was necessary. Plus, the controller, if solo and working two freqs, would’ve been able to be heard what instructions he was giving to the airliners, even if perhaps the Hawk crew couldn’t hear the responses if they were on the helo freq, due to simulcasting. Unless there was some major distraction of some kind in the cockpit, which is entirely possible, spotting the wrong aircraft seems far more likely, but none of this will be known without a CVR from their bird.
 
🦈💜 said:
This, among many other things, is why I've written multiple letters to congress critters trying to get them to push the FAA to reinstate fam flights, ideally on a space-available basis just like our jumpseat agreements.

I, for one, WANT controllers to jumpseat around a few times a year to have an idea what it looks like from our side. I think we could smooth things out and improve safety.

But then staffing was a bigger priority, something I also touched on.

Not that I ever even got a single response on any of those letters.

And not that anything governmental matters at this point.
Click to expand...
Would the reverse be true, with the pilot shadowing the controller providing benefit?
 
MikeD said:
Unless there is a CVR in that model of Hawk, we may never know. I can’t imagine that the Blackhawk crew would be unaware of DCA airliner ops with approaches to RW 1 that end up circling to RW 33. These helos, military and civilian, fly these routes nearly daily. And an LAO, or Local Area Orientation, is required to operate not only on these routes, but inside the airspace, with as many different areas of airspace and the constraints of the special use airspace there. It was a pain in the ass for me to be able to fly there for my missions, but I understood why it was necessary. Plus, the controller, if solo and working two freqs, would’ve been able to be heard what instructions he was giving to the airliners, even if perhaps the Hawk crew couldn’t hear the responses if they were on the helo freq, due to simulcasting. Unless there was some major distraction of some kind in the cockpit, which is entirely possible, spotting the wrong aircraft seems far more likely, but none of this will be known without a CVR from their bird.
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Do helicopters fly in both directions on these routes at the same time? How do they avoid collision? The Patomic is not very wide.

Wouldn't installing VHF radios on military equipment solve the problem with 2 frequencies?
 
arkavgal said:
Do helicopters fly in both directions on these routes at the same time? How do they avoid collision? The Patomic is not very wide.

Wouldn't installing VHF radios on military equipment solve the problem with 2 frequencies?
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All Blackhawks have UHF and VHF. Not sure if this hawk was on UHF, as the helo freq is a VHF freq.

The routes are either direction, unless noted with an arrow to be single direction. Rules of the road apply, and these routes are procedural, unless you're passing through someone’s airspace, then you are on their freq. These routes, while procedural, can be modified if the pilot requests such from ATC and it is approved, or as ATC directs, in the cases of segments that run through designated airspace areas
 
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