PSA CRJ-700 AA midair collision

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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I believe in the latest media briefing they mentioned they have recovered the CVR from the Blackhawk.
 
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.
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Just don't hit each other? The Pentagon transition over memorial bridge can get sporty when two helos commence their 180 reversals at the same time from opposite sides of the river...more fun when its multi ship.

By then time one enters the freeze one is already queued up on the frequency with who's where when and their intentions. HMX-1 and Park Police are the only ones that pop up right next to Rte 1 with limited time to get SA, but even then its a few minutes before they lift after making their request to tower. But generally, the controllers are super heroes when it comes to herding these helicopters like cats.
 
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arkavgal said:
So why wasn't the controller alerted? Why wasn't it seen on radar?
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They were with the conflict alert. But conflict alerts go off ALL the time for benign situations where current laws of physics make any kind of collision impossible. When someone confirms they have something in sight and asks to maintain visual, one generally assumes they don’t fly into it.

greg1016 said:
I personally prefer to put everyone on the same frequency when I am working multiple, but not everyone does that.

However, in this case the Helo is reported to be on UHF which is military only. Larger military aircraft usually have both UHF and VHF radios, but smaller ones often only have UHF radios, so putting both on the same frequency would be impossible.

At the time of the incident, there were 3 controllers on duty, not one. It is not uncommon for the Local Controller to be working what they call the helicopter control at times when there is not a lot of traffic at one or both positions.
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They were on VHF just in the river frequency. LiveATC doesn’t have UHF freqs afaik and you can hear them on there.
 
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NovemberEcho said:
They were with the conflict alert. But conflict alerts go off ALL the time for benign situations where current laws of physics make any kind of collision impossible. When someone confirms they have something in sight and asks to maintain visual, one generally assumes they don’t fly into it.


They were on VHF just in the river frequency. LiveATC doesn’t have UHF freqs afaik and you can hear them on there.
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Yeah but VASAviation has some sort of inside info, thought he might have had the FAA tapes
 
arkavgal said:
Why a traffic alert is TCAS is disabled?
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In this scenario, the CRJ could be landing 33 with an aircraft in position on 01, and if the TCAS alert wasn’t inhibited it would tell the CRJ to climb, then eventually clear of conflict. It seems counterintuitive but in the terminal environment you’d never land at an airport with parallel runways.
 
CFI A&P said:
In this scenario, the CRJ could be landing 33 with an aircraft in position on 01, and if the TCAS alert wasn’t inhibited it would tell the CRJ to climb, then eventually clear of conflict. It seems counterintuitive but in the terminal environment you’d never land at an airport with parallel runways.
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We don't have to explain that, given the circumstances.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
We don't have to explain that, given the circumstances.
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Sometimes it is a fine line between being an instructor and plane-splaining, but I think If I’m follow this thread properly, my understanding is that user isn’t flying professionally and unfamiliar with TCAS systems.
 
CFIscare said:
I believe in the latest media briefing they mentioned they have recovered the CVR from the Blackhawk.
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The CVR/FDR is a single combined unit in this helo according to the NTSB briefing versus the 2 separate boxes in civilian aircraft.

They said they have high confidence that they can successfully extract both from the the recorder.

Now if the crew turned off the voice recorder, that some people mentioned is possible in this thread …
 
I
woodreau said:
The CVR/FDR is a single combined unit in this helo according to the NTSB briefing versus the 2 separate boxes in civilian aircraft.

They said they have high confidence that they can successfully extract both from the the recorder.

Now if the crew turned off the voice recorder, that some people mentioned is possible in this thread …
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The turning on/off the recorder in fighter jets isn’t for a CVR, it’s for the HUD tape/voice recorder in the cockpit. It has an on/off switch because the tapes we used for them were only 1-2 hours long. So the standard was to turn them on prior to target ingress and turn them off on egress, in order to capture the meat of the mission, and not run out of tape filming routine admin nothing coming and going, and potentially not record the weapons employment portion of the mission.
 
Yeah, like mike said, sorry if I misrepresented the device in my previous post. What I meant was that "CVR" in the case of a tactical military aircraft, is a misnomer. It is a cockpit video/audio recorder designed to be used for debriefing purposes, not really accident investigations (though if it happens to be turned on at the time, and undamaged, it would of course be used for such things). I have no idea what the case is in a Blackhawk though. In my world, you switch the recorder to ON with a switch on the instrument panel when you "fence in" for combat or training, and you turn it off when you fence out, normally. No expectation whatsoever for it to be running throughout the entire sortie. Before solid state recorders, we had a hard limit of an hour or so on the old 8mm tapes. Nowadays with SSRs, we have several hours worth of video/audio recording, but it is not the norm to use it outside the tactical phase of flight.
 
At a certain unrelated virtual airline, new procedures as of Jan 31:


Cannot apply a TCAS MEL if at a virtual airline’s hub. Must fix before fly.

If not at a virtual airline hub, TCAS MEL allowed but application to fix in one day instead of three. Plane fixed at hub in that one day when it touches a hub.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
At a certain unrelated virtual airline, new procedures as of Jan 31:


Cannot apply a TCAS MEL if at a virtual airline’s hub. Must fix before fly.

If not at a virtual airline hub, TCAS MEL allowed but application to fix in one day instead of three. Plane fixed at hub in that one day when it touches a hub.
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Probably not a great idea to accept a plane with TCAS inop no matter where you’re at. Certain airline MECs recommend CAs refuse aircraft that have certain deficiencies and TCAS has always been top of the list. Every CA has to individually evaluate the plane and all related factors before accepting an aircraft of course, but TCAS isn’t a bad recommendation.
 
Ian_J said:
Probably not a great idea to accept a plane with TCAS inop no matter where you’re at. Certain airline MECs recommend CAs refuse aircraft that have certain deficiencies and TCAS has always been top of the list. Every CA has to individually evaluate the plane and all related factors before accepting an aircraft of course, but TCAS isn’t a bad recommendation.
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I’ve accepted it for a redeye from LAX to EWR that lands at about 520am. Very low risk IMO, there just isn’t that much traffic in those hours. But you are correct, that’s one MEL that’s icky.
 
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