And this was only 24 hours and 40 minutes before the tragedy. TCAS saved the day this time as the aircraft was above 1000 feet and is was still operative at that time. The close call with SWA3565 was evident as well coming 500 feet from each other. Time to review the helo routes along the Potomac and near DCA departure/arrival parhs?
@@stevevarholy2011 What gets me is they had a near collision with one jet and then swerved back into the traffic lane to have another near collision with another, at least that's how it looked.
I believe that on some liners the TCAS is limited or disabled when they are configured for landing, to avoid triggering against planes taxiing on the ground. But don't quote me on that. I think depending on make and model it might be triggered by a minimum speed and/or weight on the landing gear.
@@TomSherwood-z5l it alerts but doesnt give resolution advisory (RA) because the resolution could possibly be fly into the ground (it isnt certified to operate at this altitude)
@@LaggerSVK Well then we will listen to the CVR and see if the CRJ crew noticed any such alert. You are correct though. The display will show other planes even when you are setting on the ground.
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@@toadamine Below 1000 feet, the TCAS is not working in RA mode, because the system can't say that you need to descend or climb.
And when the pedestrians say "truck in sight" nobody can possibly figure out if they're actually looking at the same truck you warned them of, you just have to, like, pray it works better than two days ago. Madness in this airspace.
I was imagining the scenes from Asia, where you see 300 cars/scooters/bikes all going through an intersection at the same time. Total chaos, but everyone somehow makes it through. Until they don't...
Yes considering it seems like CAs happen regularly and the Helo and planes seem to trust ATC and ignore the CA, it’s quiet possible the accident Helo got used to just ignoring the CA on their screen because it showed many times before and was fine. If you get a warning enough times and it works out, you may ignore the warnings in the future.
near tragdy day before the fckng heliocopter wasn't at 200 feet more like a 1000 and it was in violation of rules apparently these helio pilots are violating rules and to hell with evey one else !!!!
That helocopter caused 3, not one, not two, three CA warnings in this 5 minute video (with the South West, the one with the RA and on right at the end near 4:39). At some point, you have to tell them to land and just walk.
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What the fuck is this? They should completely redo this airspace. If you are ROUTINELY getting TCAS warnings something has to be done. Either this airport have to move or the military bases
This top gun-wannabe ace pilot the day before scored three points in one night in that chicken game. The dude the day after just wanted to catch up with him.
Very smart of you to put your watermark there; don't let any lazy news outlet take credit for the actual information you are giving us. Thank you so much, and please keep up the good work.
During each close approach PAT11 started gaining altitude right before they closed distance, noticed similar on the accident video. Makes me wonder if this unit likes to intentionally get some close passes.
And that's when things happen that shouldn't. Breaking the rules in such an environment where everything should be strictly followed to a T to maintain safety is not if, but when some bad will happen. These rules are set in place for a reason.
there have been several near misses over the years. There is a very good Wall Street Journal article about it that quotes the airline pilots' scathing attacks on the situation written in their reports to the incident system. The article is called, "Washington’s Jam-Packed Airspace Has Prompted Warnings for Years"
It’s totally crazy that helicopters essentially slalom against commercial airliners on approach. I doubt there’s anywhere else in the world that would allow that even as on one off event. Madness! Utter madness!
I agree. Naysayers point out helos at different altitude. So ok any issue AT ALL that causes a helo to gain altitude could result in a mid air disaster. Mechanical, human eg disorientation health issue etc. and real potential for disaster as I liken the jets on final nearing runway like trains on tracks. If you collide with train on its track by definition you are at fault. This seems incredible normalization to me.
@@stevevenn1 Or anything that puts the plane too low. You could recover from a bad approach, do a go-around or whatever, but not if you've run into a helicopter first. (Not saying this is what happened to the plane in the accident; I know it's not. Just hypothetically.) I can't read this screen well, would love to know what the vertical separation is at closest approach for each of those three aircraft. The accident flight had (theoretically) about 100 feet above the highest the helicopter was supposed to be at, which is obviously far too little.
Exactly what I wanted to say! No where else in this world helicopters are allowed around runway paths! This is just insane! anybody following this channel knew that something will happen because of the non sens we see in the US airspace and unfortunately it did. It's time for a drastic change
For those who don't know, like me, RA means Resolution Advisory. It is a warning issued by an aircraft's collision avoidance system to the flight crew when there is a risk of collision.
Thanks now we know how they call it. This top gun-wannabe ace pilot the day before scored three RAs in one night in that chicken game. The dude the day after just wanted to catch up with him, end of month was nearing, he was losing on the bet.
TA (traffic advisory) notifies the crew of a risk of collison. An RA means it has calculated there WILL be a collision if action isn't taken, and it provides instructions to the crew on how to manuever to clear the conflict.
Yeah a TA (traffic advisory) is a warning, an RA is a specific instruction that must be executed immediately by the pilot, unless doing so will clearly endanger the aircraft
As an airline pilot, I have been figuratively screaming into the void about how dangerous and un-logical DCA is. Glad people are now seeing the nonsense of it all is.
Shame it takes 67 lives lost for the excuse of "that's how it's always been done" to wear off...but of course, politics are once again seeping in for no good reason. 🙄
@@C2828cc yea i was going to say it probably happens every day. Choppers bust the ceiling, RA and go around, vector round for another approach and its all in a days work. Normalisation of deviance i think they call it.
This is guaranteed to happen regularly. That's just how this airspace was designed. And this is the first mid air collision here, ever. In this video, PAT11 was flying following the ceiling just fine. PAT25 did not.
Note that the only reason this was avoided is that TCAS alerts were still enabled (below 1000 they aren’t according to Hover at Pilot Debrief). The helicopter appears to have exceeded his assigned altitude by 300 feet. This looks like the PAT flights habitually deviate from their assigned altitude and flight paths in Bravo airspace, and ATC controllers don’t effectively manage the airspace.
I don't have the chart in front of me but the corridor altitude raises north of the bridge above 200' to something a bit higher I think 700'? I would say Pat11 and Brickyard should have been warned of traffic and Pat11 to maintan visual just as he had with Southwest. But going forward the helos on this corridor should probably remain 1000' vertically from overhead aircraft and if unable then they need more lateral seperation to be safe and not to trigger TCAS.
Those helo deviations in altitude AND proximity are alarming to say the least. Dunno how true this is but, I've heard "military" operations pretty much operate independently and use ATC as "suggestions". I could be wrong but, I've seen it with their fixed wings at civilian airports. At MDW I've seen wake turbulence ignored and/or created with little regard to ATC's notifications (polite warnings).
@@ffemtx4VFR means the pilot is primarily responsible for separation. That applies to civilian and military. Things get tight in busy airpaces. NY were I fly mostly now is the same. It's a combination of coordination and trust. Trust that your pilot is sharp and does what he is supposed to with the idea everyone one else does their part. Sometimes mistakes unfortunately occur as we see. We had a very good streak the last 16 years though.
@@FalconX88 yep. You get the “Traffic” audible, and how it indicates where depends on system(visual on FD vs audible or both). But no RA because it couldn’t really tell one of the crafts to nose down when that low.
Wow you’re amazing to go through all of these ATC communications, find these 2 near collisions one after another, & post this for the public to see. Thank you. Your videos have been more informative than ANY of press conferences.
What I’m noticing is that they’ve created a system for managing the helo traffic wherein controllers seem to have tuned out the CA entirely, because the helos are constantly triggering CA’s on their scopes. I thought it was odd you could hear the CA warning tone in the audio from the fatal incident yet the controller didn’t react at all. Now, after listening to this audio and hearing this controller equally unfazed by two CA’s blaring, I see the pattern. I can imagine how easy it would be to normalize the warnings after hearing them many times a day. This creates a pretty dubious environment for commercial traffic where their only real safeguard against conflicting helicopter traffic is a trainee maintaining viz sep within a couple hundred feet vertically, often at night and on NVGs. There are so many holes in this block of swiss cheese.
My brother did work for Honeywell on terrain avoidance equipment. He showed me crash profiles were the Terrain avoidance equipment was screaming pull up and and the pilots were saying "shut up" until they hit the mountain.
Right! So many holes, that area SHOULD be restricted for training flights PERIOD. Especially at night, you have little to no depth perception under NVGs. And, WTF kinda shenanigans are going at on at DCA tower?? Who's assuming that level of risk?? I understand we need to cover down when we're playing shorthanded, but this situation stinks to high heaven and probably has for a while.
Note that TCAS saved the day here because 4514 was above 1000ft while the accident the day after happened below that limit (below 1000ft TCAS is inoperable)
Sort of- no traffic resolution call out but traffic still visible on screen as I understand. If that is the case it is amazing in to craft with 4 pilots no one seemed to reference traffic position on their screens. Seems like it would be routine/habit to glance at traffic screen for overall awareness particularly at night when visual separation is more challenging.
I just wanted to say thank you for the work you do, Victor. Anytime I hear about an aviation incident, I can count on you to compile the ATC audio of it, and get it out amazingly fast. You're a real blessing to aviation nerds like myself. THANK YOU!!
You can hear the CA alarms in the background on the transmissions for both SWA and RPA and the controller says nothing. So my guess with the PSA that collided is the controllers are so used to heading the CA alarms they no longer act or respond on them. So when the CA alarms sounded for PSA and PAT25 they didn't think anything of it. It's called "alarm fatigue" and is a MAJOR problem in hospitals where staff hears alarms from devices all day so they ignore them and miss major incidents. Maybe it's time to revisits these helicopter routes in the same proximity of landing/departing commercial airliners.
Helicopter assumed visual separation so the CA can be disregarded by ATC. Even TCAS could be if both are visual. However PAT25 also reported maintaining visual separation and crashed... and that's why I bring this video up today with PAT11. Maintaining visual separation is a pilot responsibility thing and it might become a nightmare in night conditions.
@VASAviation Agreed, the honus is on the PAT for maintain VisSep. But when something goes wrong, and a helo deviates off the route or above published altitude and sounds a CA, but the controllers are so used to hearing them they don't even react, that's where the problems can arise. Pretty sure this will be 100% on PAT for fault, but controllers shouldn't be so trained to ignore CAs that this can ever happen again.
I was about say the same thing. if you have CA alarms every five seconds that you can completely ignore, because of how the traffic patterns are designed around the airport, what is the point of having them at all? Just to brag "we have installed the latest technology" and create a false sense of extra safety?
@@VASAviationthank you, without thile work you do, we would really on the traditional media and politicians to understand the situation. With this we can how it really is
It’s military. The helos can’t hear the pilots and vice-versa. I don’t know if helo’s have the second radio to listen to guard. Damn, 2CA’s and the tower didn’t even comment.
TCAS technician here TCAS inhibits "descend" RAs below 1500', and inhibits ALL RAs below 1,000'. The only reason RPA4515 received an RA was because they were at 1400 feet. Also, aircrews tend to set TCAS to TA only, or standby while on approach, due to increased traffic density at airports.
As an international airline pilot, the only airspace that scares me is the US because of how much they rely on ''visual separation''. You wouldn't see that anywhere else in the world around major cities the size of Washington
Probably because this had become so commonplace. They've become complacent. I give all the credit in the world to the pilots and ATC, but there are simply too many airborne aircraft (fixed-wing and helos) in too small a space. Something has to give. Something gave two days ago, sadly... and it needs to be a wake-up call.
Because traffic was already exchanged, and PAT had already said they would maintain visual separation (which they did). I've worked in a tower before, and this is quite common to get conflict alerts like this. It certainly draws attention to the conflict, but sometimes the best action is no action.
@@keyser456 And if alarms are commonplace, they become expected. And if they are expected, they are no longer useful. They may as well not have any collision detection at that point. Alarms going off should be a rare thing, only when something has slipped thru all the other control layers.
You clearly have zero clue how or why the a CA would go off on a radar screen. Just bc they go off does NOT mean something will happen. We run triple approaches to three different runways and the CA will still go off even though all three aircraft are established on the final.
You know, it's insane that this helo traffic is allowed in this airspace at all. I know the Presidential helo fleet has been stationed at Bolling AFB for decades, I was stationed there 76-79, and that should be the only helo traffic allowed in that airspace.
Why single out the helicopters? They are used to support government functions. After 9/11 there was a recommendation to close DCA, as the new security measures impacted safety. Congress killed it because they like the convenience. In fact, flights have increased at DCA since 9/11. I don't think either eliminating helicopter traffic or shutting down DCA is the right answer. However, capping the number of flights in/out of DCA to facilitate deconfliction of helo and DCA traffic could make the airspace safer and more manageable.
@@dgax65 There should be no mixed airspace traffic around an airport as a normal occurrence is his point. That's a logically conclusion. What's nice about helicopters is they can go in an direction easily, so avoiding a small space like an airport to get to your destination is the most minor of inconveniences.
Just recently, the FAA has effectively shut down the low altitude helicopter corridor around DCA. If helo pilots are not staying at their assigned altitude, they don't need to be flying near DCA in the first place.
@@FamiliarAnomaly That's not how air safety thinks. find the flaw in the procedures first, human mistakes are inevitable and safe procedure prevents such mistakes from being catastrophic. your attitude is the "just blame the driver and ignore the conditions we put them in" type and it's why the roads are so dangerous.
In this case the controller warned the airliner crew to look out for the helicopter traffic. In the case of the accident the controller authorized visual separation for the helicopter but did not notify the airliner crew of the presence of the helicopter.
If you have any ex-military or high risk environment type of job experience and you also watch any of these flight after action report channels on youtube you know by now that there are a great many things BOUND TO HAPPEN in the skies of america
@@TheQwik512 PAT11 did NOT climb above the designated ceiling here. You can clearly see the ceiling marked on the map in the video @1:38. Stop spreading false information.
exactly and its now being reported that ATC was short handed that night and on top of that they allowed one ATC controller to go home early. My understanding is when they're shorthanded they rely more on on pilots "visual" as a form of backup....
I keep seeing people asking why TCAS wasn’t working during the accident. The answer is TCAS will audibly mute itself under 1000 ft due to multiple obstacles, other airplanes and buildings etc. Now, it’s ONLY audibly muted, however, pilots can still receive instrumentation warnings.
From a news interview, I heard it is only muted below 500ft. Between 500-1000ft there is a warning, but no resolution (TCAS instruct one aircraft to climb, other to descend).
@@afh7689as far as I’m aware 1000ft seems to be the standard but the system won’t directly tell the pilots what to do like go up or down etc. I believe some TCAS can be programmed for different altitudes due to type of plane , weight, passengers capacity etc.
Resolution Advisories are inhibited, so below 1000 ft there won’t be any instruction by the system. Still you should be able to see the traffic returns on your Navigation Display. But at that altitude you are more focused looking outside and to your Primary Flight Display. This is for the 737-800 version in particular.
I didnt realise that helicopters had such freedom. Bascially, "we are flying along the river, and we'll keep our eyes peeled". Edit: not blaming anyone, just surprised at the somewhat laissez-faire rules in place.
Great work! Noticed you zoomed on those "CA" events showing on that radar display, which ATC didn't mention or react to at all. (1:56 in video) This is the best evidence that these events are SOP at this airport, and they've been lulled into a false sense of security, reasoning that "we haven't had an accident yet so what we're doing must be alright!" Just as with the Space Shuttle.
As a person from the UK who has never had any dealings with aviation or military I find it astounding that military aircraft are allowed to practice close flying and avoidance of other aircraft as they would need to during wartime on working civilian aircraft.
Note that they weren't just practicing for the fun of it. The route being flown is one that these helicopters routinely fly to fulfill their missions. And you have to train on the real routes, not fake ones otherwise you will have accidents. Also, I think this was a recertification training flight, meaning that the pilots were just doing a dry run of missions they already were experienced at doing. Which might contribute to errors because of complacency....
@@Zhiroc Cool. You can volunteer your family as training dummies. Leave the rest of us alone. VFR training at night near an active airport isn't complacency... its criminal.
@@Zhiroc The military has tons of air space that is restricted to the military. They need to use that to practice and stop putting civilians at risk. The families of the civilians who were just killed because of the mistakes made by a military pilot during their military training flight will have to file lengthy and expensive lawsuits for compensation; however, the families of the military servicemen who died will automatically get compensation for spouses and children. The military should not be playing "war games" with civilians lives. Military training missions need to be held on the training grounds of the military bases...period.
So that airspace is just outright unsafe, got it. We have Helo's flying haphazardly on the Final Approach paths at will, and ATC ignores alarms and thinks visual separation is enough. Absolutely ridiculous.
In shipping, there is a saying, "If it's gray, stay away." In other words, always stay clear of navy vessels because they always disregard or simply don't know navigation rules and endanger other vesses. I guess military avaiation is just as bad.
Unbelievable that they let this go on for so long. This procedure of having helicopters flying under the approach path of Regan was an accident waiting to happen. Not to mention the fact that the controllers were used to hearing the CA alarm and so most likely ignored it during the accident
exactly and its now being reported that ATC was short handed that night and on top of that they allowed one ATC controller to go home early. My understanding is when they're shorthanded they rely more on on pilots "visual" as a form of backup....
The real misunderstanding by all is non-pilots think that "aircraft altitude" is some fixed point above whatever ground they are flying over. It is not. The other thing they don't understand is that there are significant errors in altimeters themselves. THERE IS NO GISMO IN COMMERCIAL AVAITION THAT IS ACCURATE ENOUGH TO SEPARATE AIRCRAFT BY ONE OR TWO HUNDRED FEET. To educate yourself read about aircraft altimeters and how they work. Learn about barometric pressure and how aircraft altimeters are set. There is no scenario ever where FAA standard procedures would allow 200 or 300 feet of separation. The absolute minimum is 500 feet due to the inherent inaccuracies of altimeters and altimeter settings.
@@Free-g8rI don’t think accuracy is the gripe per se, it’s more like covariance, or threshold around that accuracy. Maybe alt is accurate within 65ft plus or minus usually, but could vary up to plus or minus 100ft (for example) and whoops that sep is now zero. Also consider that gps alt is different from what I think is called barometric altitude? The one that is baro pressure dependent. I might have that term wrong. But standard handheld gps can have variance of something like 75ft when working well or up to 400 ft when at the boundary of capability (maybe due to signal?) In short (too late?) this is way too small of a sep on these craft at these speeds with these cargo. IMO DCA needs to be closed and moved. But they’ll never do that.
@@mostlyvoid.partiallystars I think you're talking about barometric altimeters. At low altitudes aircraft shift to their radio altimeters. These essentially bounce a radar beam off the ground and measure the time it takes to come back. According to ICAO, radio altimeters are accurate to 1-3 ft.
The army played with this so many times and now it happened. What in the hell are they doing there? Playing wargames??? THIS IS SO STUPID!!! CRIMINALS!!!
@@STOVL93 your comment? Yes it is. If you think killing 60+ people just because military can play with their helicopters making slalom between the civil aircrafts arriving is not a crime, then so it's not just your comment that's stupid
@@augustomartins9516 It's pure corruption and arrogance. These helicopter routes are simply there to give high ranking officials shortcuts around the DMV area. We can't have these VIP's flying longer routes further out from the airport now can we? It would hurt their fragile egos if their helicopter trips took 10 minutes longer.
There was good 600-700 ft between the aircraft, _and_ RPA4514 had the helo in sight. Nothing really hairy, just following RA as it is _advised_ in FAA AC 90-120 and, of course, out of an abundance of caution.
I must admit i felt a great deal of nausea just seeing the same pattern. Blackhawks flying directly through the landing approach for DCA. The first 'close call' was very similar to the crash too. Visual separation, but this time the helo saw the correct landing aircraft. Amazing that TCAS worked given the altitude. If TCAS can't work for below 1,000 then I think the helos shouldn't be able to fly through the landing approach outside of a high alert military situation. Amazing how similar the 1st incident is to the crash 25 hours later. Visual separation and there was another aircraft landing directly behind in sequence which COULD have been mistaken for the visual separation request. Eerily similar.
And according to @blancolirio, these military helicopters are supposed to operate no higher than 200 feet. PAT11 seems to have been well above that and cause three RAs or CAs during the time of this video alone, including one go-around. Surely this is unacceptable.
the helo was at 003 or 300 feet. the SWA was at 600 feet. and at the time of the conflict, there was at least 500ft separation between them(300 vs 800 ft) then later, they were at 600 ft, and the other jet was at 1400ft. just on the edge of TCAS (850ft)
Looked like it said 300 when tower stated that but he climbed to 600 as he got closer to the next plane. EIther way, it's a disaster waiting to happen if they are supposed to stay below 200.
Victor, you’re doing an excellent job. On this day, there were two close calls involving the same helicopter. The first occurred at timestamp 1:59 with Southwest 3565 and Pat 11, at a height of approximately 300 feet. The second incident followed just one minute later at timestamp 300. This raises some serious concerns. Juan at the Blancoliro channel stated the Helo flight was supposed to be below 200 feet according to the charts. Yet it appears the actual altitude started and remained at around 600 feet. This situation is alarming for both airplane and helicopter pilots; it's not safe. While I'm not an airline pilot, I strongly recommend you relay this information to the NTSB. They need to investigate further and assess the number of CA incidents over multiple days.
Not actually - between the Memorial Bridge and the Key Bridge, the height restriction is raised to 300', and north of the Key Bridge it is 700'. The helicopter appears to have been operating within the height limit at all times on this chart. Apparently the controller changeover meant that the Republic Airways flight wasn't aware that there was a helicopter coming up the river and so they called a go-around to be safe. They had 800' of separation at the time.
You probably need to do some more research beyond "Juan said it" before making such claims. The 200 foot limit along the Potomac is ONLY between the Memorial bridge and the Wilson bridge. The helo turned left at the Memorial bridge and started flying up the river.The limit is 300 feet at the key bridge, and then it is 700 feet a bit north of that. It's right there on the chart he keeps putting up on the screen. It looks to me like this helo pilot followed the restrictions pretty much to the letter.
PAT11 did NOT climb above the designated ceiling here. You can clearly see the ceiling marked on the map in the video @1:38. The ceiling raises to 300, then 700 and 1300 the further north you go.
Thank you so much for putting these together. I've been following for years now (not a pilot) and I can't tell u how much it helped me understand air traffic
For a friendly stranger listening in : 1 the detail on the instructions from the controller were more detailed in this 'prior event' eg '***° north of your nose' Nothing like that from the controller to the helicopter on the night of the accident. 2 It seems urgent to increase the number of ATC and very rapidly. 3 It is daft to have ATC changeovers that involve silence and no eyes whilst changing the hot seat. The takeovers should quite simply overlap for 10'/15', whatever, so the new person becomes au fait with the situation whilst the current ATC is working it. 4 Can't imagine all those very important government buildings are going to be moved meaning that the helicopters are an essential part of defense and a priority. 5 So seems like civilian traffic to the airport needs to be cut back. Maybe another airport nearby with passenger classification requirements for the more centralised?
This really makes it seem like it was only a matter of time before something catastrophic happened. I’m getting the impression that this type of close call was all too common.
How stupid it is to me to have a night ops training exercise where a helo flies across or near a congestion airport with passenger jets landing. Everyone involved in this decision making to allow this should be court martialed
This seems like an absolute cluster. To the layperson's eye, it looks like letting Kindergarteners walk to school unsupervised across I-95. "It's okay Johnny, just look at the cars coming at you. You can avoid them..." Geez.
@@VASAviation The standard routes are r*tarded and need to change ASAP. The gov/army helos have access to overland prohibited airspace, they shouldn't be using narrow river corridor which is the only airspace open to commercial traffic to get in/out of DCA. Even at the correct altitude it's still not an acceptable margin for helos to be near missing airliners by 1 or 200ft. 1000ft vertically, and 1 mile laterally should be as close as they ever get. That's very doable if the military uses the restricted airspace open to them and them alone.
@@metropodYes, unless they've got business in DC itself then why not fly around the metropolitan area,. Be great if there was perhaps a freeway all the way around DC that would act as the boundary.
Thank you and bravo to you for these videos and more information. Those of us who actually do get into the details (and not listen to just standard news outlets) really appreciate them. Glad I found your channel! And hats off to the ATC in Washington - they have one of the most intense flight spaces to manage. I myself never really thought about it until this tragedy.
This shows this was always going to happen. "Whatever happened happened because it couldn't have happened any other way, because it didn't" - Unbeliviable.
You can hear those CA alarms going off in the tower nearly constantly. They probably serve as normal background noise at this point, and that's another hole in the swiss cheese.
Projection for the possible revisions to procedures that are coming in the near future: - Helo Route 4 in the vicinity of DCA is eliminated or moved to the EAST side of Joint Base Anacostia/Bolling - Helo Route 4 is unchanged, but only authorized during the day -Helo Route 4 in the vicinity of DCA can only be used when traffic is landing to the south, or when no traffic is within 5 miles of the airport - Military helicopters will have to install (and use) brighter landing and/or air-frame illumination lights when operating in the surface area of DCA - DCA tower must have a dedicated VFR controller (who is NOT sharing duties with IFR controller) at all times, or helo traffic will not be authorized in the surface area of the airport.
Or, DCA will have to discontinue use of approaches and departures which foul the helo route. It runs where it does for a reason, and the national security missions involved can’t be made daytime VFR only. It’s staggering that DCA was ever allowed to reopen after 9/11 anyway. It would be like London having an airport in Vauxhall or Mayfair - approach threading between Buckingham palace and the Houses of Parliament.
How about they just stop granting visual separation to the hot shot chopper pilots? I don't understand why these cowboys can't just stick to their fucking routes.
@ Yes. It’s on the eastern end of a city much larger than DC. It doesn’t involve overflying any of the security sensitive areas, and it’s approach and departure coexist perfectly safely with the Thames helicopter route.
The fact that the controllers just do not seem to care about the RA at all says a lot about how many close calls probably happened before the accident.
It really was only a matter of time before a collision was going to happen. I flew to Dulles every other Tuesday for 2 years straight. On a clear blue day traffic going into DCA had to regularly hold just due to volume.
@ I don’t think the airport needs to close but the helicopter routes definitely need to be reevaluated and daily slots need to decreased. The Mayor upped the volume May of last year and they were already waaay over capacity.
@@cyclonetrain1 It is an extremely convenient airport for congressmen to take, and anyone living in Northern Virginia. It’s not going to close anytime soon. If 9/11 didn’t shut it down (which was a real possibility due to its proximity to the National Mall) then this isn’t going to.
Is the commercial aircraft volume the problem or the fact that helicopters are needlessly flying through the airspace? No helicopters, no problems. Easy solution. Two planes didn't run into one another.
@@cyclonetrain1 I mean closing it is the ultra extreme option. An option that is never going to happen but that would already make operations way less complex and more safe would be to only use the main runway and not use the circlings to the shorter runways. This would however reduce efficiency so it probably won't happen.
The first thing that strikes me, both of those planes were told to keep an eye out for the chopper. That was missing from the accident. The Blackhawk had the wrong plane, the plane had no idea. The second thing that strikes me is we can clearly hear the TCAS alarms going off and controllers treat it as completely fucking normal.
That won't happen because Trump and the GOP are defunding the federal government. The FAA director was fired, the FAA froze new hires, and the Aviation Safety Advisory Committee was disbanded over the course of just three days. Where's all this extra money going to go? Into the pockets of the "establishment" (aka ruling class, ultra-wealthy billionaires, etc). Everyone calls them something else because they don't want us to agree that we have a common enemy. They are robbing us blind and making our lives miserable.
Exactly for all of the complicated or long term solutions necessary for aviation, how is “maybe dont fly helicopters in commercial descent path” not one of them?
The ATC directions, instructions and conflicting aircraft location / vector information is MUCH more clear in this event... than what was given in the recent mid-air collision between PAT-25 and CRJ... Neither aircraft was given info on the other... for example, the helo wasn't given ANY details like "Pat 25, confirm you have a visual on CRJ traffic at your 11 o'clock, 1 mile out, descending from 700 feet on short approach to runway 33". That also seems to be a gap !
I made this exact comment on another video yesterday. I was wondering if it wasnt normal for ATC in the US to do this.. Anywhere I've flown in Canada the ATC will give you a bearing and distance to the offending traffic. In this video they clearly do. I'm not the least bit surprised the BH couldnt correctly identify which traffic he was supposed to be watching out for. Especially at night in the dark there is almost NO way to differentiate between the CRJ comming in, and the following traffic. Just picked out the wrong one, and kept telling ATC he had it in sight and was going to maintain separation :(
That's not true, ATC did indeed give instructions to PAT25 almost identical to what you suggested in your comment, however this communication is on a different video than the one you were likely watching due to the different frequencies between military and civilian aircraft.
@@javier11544 I DID hear that exact audio. 1) At NO point did ATC inform CRJ about the approaching PAT25 Helo... 2) He gave EARLY info to PAT25 Helo on CRJ being at 1200 feet initially... BUT... as CRJ approached for landing and approach for short final, he didn't say, "PAT25, CRJ is now at your 11:00 , half mile out, 700 feet and descending into you"... as I stated, the communications to these two aircraft was brief, terse and hurried with NO specifics other than "Do you have CRJ in sight"? and "pass behind the CRJ"... PAT25 saw the WRONG CRJ because NOT enough info was given. He didn't have TIME, too much traffic to tend to ! Bad flight corridor with too much mixed traffic...
This is vital background information. Thank you. This procedure is literally unbelievable. It's not just unsafe... its inevitable to cause such a tragedy to happen.
Damn. As a non-American, all I got from my local news is Trump blaming all this on DEI, which makes 0 sense. Glad there are channels like you out here to give info for us to make our own judgement.
For future reference if you ever hear someone from the government blame "DEI" what it really means is "We fucked up and don't want to take responsibility"
This is alarming. I betcha if one digged, they could find more incidents of this exact same nature in this same airspace. NTSB recommendations incoming.
I wonder if the military perhaps needs to re route departures during nighttime operations. If there were 2 incidents; one a crash with no survivors in a short period of time there may be a systemic flaw in traffic conflicts.
YT Channel "Two Bit da Vinci" has a good suggestion, imo. Says make that airfield military only, since it's such close proximity to so many national landmarks. Says install a high speed rail to commute pax to another airfield. I think it'd be wise to do this.
okay wtf 1. am I seeing this right? the landing plate calls for the planes to be directly above the helo corridors for the entire approach?? 2. the fact that the controllers are just ignoring the CA chimes in the background (which you can hear in ATC calls at 1:55, 2:18, 3:05) is insane, if this is a common pattern then DCA ATC may easily fall into normalising this sort of thing and ignoring all CA chimes?? My understanding (as a layman) is that there is a procedure to be followed when there is a CA??
This is disgusting. It seems the PATs routinely "request visual separation" before even confirming they actually have the traffic in sight. Almost sounds like a tactic used by PAT to shut up ATC's traffic advisories. This makes it seem like this egregious application of visual separation has been normalized in this airspace. Disaster was only a matter of time.
I have lived in Fairfax County, Virginia nearly all my life. I grew up within 1/2 mile of Mount Vernon (one block from the Potomac River). I have also lived in several homes within a few miles of Davison Army Airfield (DAA), Fort Belvoir, VA. NOTE*** The volume of UH-60 Blackhawk traffic flying in & out of DAA could be described as EXTREMELY heavy. The UH-60s routinely buzz our homes at 500 feet. There are also large numbers of civilian medical helicopters transporting patients to/from the major hospitals in the region. Overall, the D.C. metro area is literally swarming with low-altitude military and civilian helicopters.
And this was only 24 hours and 40 minutes before the tragedy. TCAS saved the day this time as the aircraft was above 1000 feet and is was still operative at that time. The close call with SWA3565 was evident as well coming 500 feet from each other.
Time to review the helo routes along the Potomac and near DCA departure/arrival parhs?
I would expect that aviation and especially in US high profile city would do a lot better. Why waiting for swiss cheese holes to align?
What's astounding to me is that the HELO pilots keep plowing full speed along despite supposedly seeing the jets.
@@stevevarholy2011 What gets me is they had a near collision with one jet and then swerved back into the traffic lane to have another near collision with another, at least that's how it looked.
I believe that on some liners the TCAS is limited or disabled when they are configured for landing, to avoid triggering against planes taxiing on the ground. But don't quote me on that. I think depending on make and model it might be triggered by a minimum speed and/or weight on the landing gear.
@@Synergiance Is that not to avoid violating P-56A around White House and US Capitol? I believe that’s what the box in the centre of the screen is.
This is important background information to the investigation. Thanks for getting right on this Victor.
curious as to your Opinion on what happened to TCAS on the one that crashed. thanks Juan.
@@toadamine He said that it does not alert at the altitude they were flying at the incident.
@@TomSherwood-z5l it alerts but doesnt give resolution advisory (RA) because the resolution could possibly be fly into the ground (it isnt certified to operate at this altitude)
@@LaggerSVK Well then we will listen to the CVR and see if the CRJ crew noticed any such alert. You are correct though. The display will show other planes even when you are setting on the ground.
@@toadamine Below 1000 feet, the TCAS is not working in RA mode, because the system can't say that you need to descend or climb.
This seems like putting a crosswalk across a busy freeway and telling pedestrians to watch out for 80mph vehicles.
And when the pedestrians say "truck in sight" nobody can possibly figure out if they're actually looking at the same truck you warned them of, you just have to, like, pray it works better than two days ago. Madness in this airspace.
They lie about aviation being safe
@@JimNortonsAlcoholism It never was.
@@HongyaMa it’s safer than driving
I was imagining the scenes from Asia, where you see 300 cars/scooters/bikes all going through an intersection at the same time. Total chaos, but everyone somehow makes it through. Until they don't...
This is textbook normalization of an unsafe procedure. It's a small miracle there hasn't been a mid-air in this VFR corridor prior to this.
Or as it was coined during the Challenger investigation “normalization of deviance”
Yes considering it seems like CAs happen regularly and the Helo and planes seem to trust ATC and ignore the CA, it’s quiet possible the accident Helo got used to just ignoring the CA on their screen because it showed many times before and was fine. If you get a warning enough times and it works out, you may ignore the warnings in the future.
I agree completely. This procedure needs to be revisited.
This was an accident waiting to happen, unfortunately.
near tragdy day before the fckng heliocopter wasn't at 200 feet more like a 1000 and it was in violation of rules apparently these helio pilots are violating rules and to hell with evey one else !!!!
That helocopter caused 3, not one, not two, three CA warnings in this 5 minute video (with the South West, the one with the RA and on right at the end near 4:39). At some point, you have to tell them to land and just walk.
What the fuck is this? They should completely redo this airspace. If you are ROUTINELY getting TCAS warnings something has to be done. Either this airport have to move or the military bases
And they violated their 200 ft ceiling for that path the entire time.
Seems like it is a TCAS Resolution Advisory @khosrowzare8301
This top gun-wannabe ace pilot the day before scored three points in one night in that chicken game. The dude the day after just wanted to catch up with him.
Some army fanboys are pretending this is all normal and acceptable
The entire thing looks and sounds like an uncontrolled VFR airfield in the middle of summer. And yet it's supposed to be the absolute opposite
It's a free for all our there, scary
"but VFR saves the airport capacity"
Right... and americans becoming more competent or less competent as days go by? Individually? Would you say?
Less is the plan as far as I can tell @@FamiliarAnomaly
Friend of mine flies medevac in the area and he said they avoid the river and DCA at all costs, and if they can they transition way over the top
Very smart of you to put your watermark there; don't let any lazy news outlet take credit for the actual information you are giving us. Thank you so much, and please keep up the good work.
You dont have to worry about news networks looking for facts or pertinent information by informed experts
Helicopter clearly break 200ft ceiling all the time. They suppose to be diciplined enough to obey the rules.
During each close approach PAT11 started gaining altitude right before they closed distance, noticed similar on the accident video. Makes me wonder if this unit likes to intentionally get some close passes.
I saw a video of active duty marines the other day where they were calling each other by first names
This. At 1:52, it went from 200 to 300 and then all the way to 700 later.
And that's when things happen that shouldn't. Breaking the rules in such an environment where everything should be strictly followed to a T to maintain safety is not if, but when some bad will happen. These rules are set in place for a reason.
@@foolmouse I hope that was not part of the training.
Before seeing this, I was wondering how something like this could even happen. Now I'm wondering how it didn't happen *before!* 😢
there have been several near misses over the years. There is a very good Wall Street Journal article about it that quotes the airline pilots' scathing attacks on the situation written in their reports to the incident system. The article is called, "Washington’s Jam-Packed Airspace Has Prompted Warnings for Years"
It’s totally crazy that helicopters essentially slalom against commercial airliners on approach. I doubt there’s anywhere else in the world that would allow that even as on one off event. Madness! Utter madness!
And nobody questioned it until now. These helicopters fly VIPs around, war mongers like Netanyahu.
I agree. Naysayers point out helos at different altitude. So ok any issue AT ALL that causes a helo to gain altitude could result in a mid air disaster. Mechanical, human eg disorientation health issue etc. and real potential for disaster as I liken the jets on final nearing runway like trains on tracks. If you collide with train on its track by definition you are at fault. This seems incredible normalization to me.
@@stevevenn1 Or anything that puts the plane too low. You could recover from a bad approach, do a go-around or whatever, but not if you've run into a helicopter first. (Not saying this is what happened to the plane in the accident; I know it's not. Just hypothetically.)
I can't read this screen well, would love to know what the vertical separation is at closest approach for each of those three aircraft. The accident flight had (theoretically) about 100 feet above the highest the helicopter was supposed to be at, which is obviously far too little.
Exactly what I wanted to say! No where else in this world helicopters are allowed around runway paths! This is just insane! anybody following this channel knew that something will happen because of the non sens we see in the US airspace and unfortunately it did. It's time for a drastic change
Maybe having helicopters fly through an active runway is a very stupid idea that would only happen in Washington DC, the home of stupid ideas.
totally. I mean which dimwit thought it'd be a good idea.........EVER?
Absolutely.
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
SFO is a big contender for the first place, too.
DCA is outdated. They need a new airport down by National Harbor.
For those who don't know, like me, RA means Resolution Advisory. It is a warning issued by an aircraft's collision avoidance system to the flight crew when there is a risk of collision.
Thanks. I was wondering that, as well.
Thanks now we know how they call it. This top gun-wannabe ace pilot the day before scored three RAs in one night in that chicken game. The dude the day after just wanted to catch up with him, end of month was nearing, he was losing on the bet.
RA isn't the warning itself, it's actually a resolution to the potential collision, giving a pilot instructions on how to avoid the collision.
TA (traffic advisory) notifies the crew of a risk of collison. An RA means it has calculated there WILL be a collision if action isn't taken, and it provides instructions to the crew on how to manuever to clear the conflict.
Yeah a TA (traffic advisory) is a warning, an RA is a specific instruction that must be executed immediately by the pilot, unless doing so will clearly endanger the aircraft
As an airline pilot, I have been figuratively screaming into the void about how dangerous and un-logical DCA is. Glad people are now seeing the nonsense of it all is.
Shame it takes 67 lives lost for the excuse of "that's how it's always been done" to wear off...but of course, politics are once again seeping in for no good reason. 🙄
You don't have to have a pilots license to see that, just common sense...
@ you would think…
The fact thay this happened just 24hours prior to actual collision is insane
probably happened many many other times as well
@@C2828cc yea i was going to say it probably happens every day. Choppers bust the ceiling, RA and go around, vector round for another approach and its all in a days work. Normalisation of deviance i think they call it.
@@carosel43 exactly
This is guaranteed to happen regularly. That's just how this airspace was designed. And this is the first mid air collision here, ever. In this video, PAT11 was flying following the ceiling just fine. PAT25 did not.
it happens all the time
Note that the only reason this was avoided is that TCAS alerts were still enabled (below 1000 they aren’t according to Hover at Pilot Debrief). The helicopter appears to have exceeded his assigned altitude by 300 feet. This looks like the PAT flights habitually deviate from their assigned altitude and flight paths in Bravo airspace, and ATC controllers don’t effectively manage the airspace.
I don't have the chart in front of me but the corridor altitude raises north of the bridge above 200' to something a bit higher I think 700'?
I would say Pat11 and Brickyard should have been warned of traffic and Pat11 to maintan visual just as he had with Southwest.
But going forward the helos on this corridor should probably remain 1000' vertically from overhead aircraft and if unable then they need more lateral seperation to be safe and not to trigger TCAS.
Those helo deviations in altitude AND proximity are alarming to say the least.
Dunno how true this is but, I've heard "military" operations pretty much operate independently and use ATC as "suggestions". I could be wrong but, I've seen it with their fixed wings at civilian airports. At MDW I've seen wake turbulence ignored and/or created with little regard to ATC's notifications (polite warnings).
@@ffemtx4VFR means the pilot is primarily responsible for separation. That applies to civilian and military. Things get tight in busy airpaces. NY were I fly mostly now is the same. It's a combination of coordination and trust. Trust that your pilot is sharp and does what he is supposed to with the idea everyone one else does their part. Sometimes mistakes unfortunately occur as we see. We had a very good streak the last 16 years though.
Shouldn't alerts be also there below 1000, just no RA?
@@FalconX88 yep. You get the “Traffic” audible, and how it indicates where depends on system(visual on FD vs audible or both). But no RA because it couldn’t really tell one of the crafts to nose down when that low.
Wow you’re amazing to go through all of these ATC communications, find these 2 near collisions one after another, & post this for the public to see. Thank you. Your videos have been more informative than ANY of press conferences.
Agreed. Watching these play out without a narrative allows the viewer to make their own assessments. Media tells people what to believe.
Looks like 3 nears from the radar! Easy to see how normalisation of deviance might affect this airspace
This were NOT a near collisions!
@@AgonxOC do you actually know the definition of a near collision?
@@AgonxOC I just did 1 google search and (according to the FAA) 2 aircraft being within 500 feet of each other is considered a near collision.
What I’m noticing is that they’ve created a system for managing the helo traffic wherein controllers seem to have tuned out the CA entirely, because the helos are constantly triggering CA’s on their scopes.
I thought it was odd you could hear the CA warning tone in the audio from the fatal incident yet the controller didn’t react at all. Now, after listening to this audio and hearing this controller equally unfazed by two CA’s blaring, I see the pattern.
I can imagine how easy it would be to normalize the warnings after hearing them many times a day. This creates a pretty dubious environment for commercial traffic where their only real safeguard against conflicting helicopter traffic is a trainee maintaining viz sep within a couple hundred feet vertically, often at night and on NVGs.
There are so many holes in this block of swiss cheese.
Chemically pure definition of alarm fatigue...
My brother did work for Honeywell on terrain avoidance equipment. He showed me crash profiles were the Terrain avoidance equipment was screaming pull up and and the pilots were saying "shut up" until they hit the mountain.
Good point
Right! So many holes, that area SHOULD be restricted for training flights PERIOD. Especially at night, you have little to no depth perception under NVGs. And, WTF kinda shenanigans are going at on at DCA tower?? Who's assuming that level of risk?? I understand we need to cover down when we're playing shorthanded, but this situation stinks to high heaven and probably has for a while.
Agreed! Not so much as holes, but so many its nothing more than one HUGE bubble waiting for that one poke to blow it all to smithereens!😢
Note that TCAS saved the day here because 4514 was above 1000ft while the accident the day after happened below that limit (below 1000ft TCAS is inoperable)
As I understand, it's not inoperable, it just doesn't give you the RAs, but it tells when there is traffic and it shows it on screen.
@@javiTests The RA tells the pilots what to do, that doesn't work under 1000.
@@javiTests- can you remind me, what does RA stand for? Plz
Sort of- no traffic resolution call out but traffic still visible on screen as I understand. If that is the case it is amazing in to craft with 4 pilots no one seemed to reference traffic position on their screens. Seems like it would be routine/habit to glance at traffic screen for overall awareness particularly at night when visual separation is more challenging.
It’s inoperable at 2000 at night 1000 in daylight.
I just wanted to say thank you for the work you do, Victor. Anytime I hear about an aviation incident, I can count on you to compile the ATC audio of it, and get it out amazingly fast. You're a real blessing to aviation nerds like myself. THANK YOU!!
You can hear the CA alarms in the background on the transmissions for both SWA and RPA and the controller says nothing. So my guess with the PSA that collided is the controllers are so used to heading the CA alarms they no longer act or respond on them. So when the CA alarms sounded for PSA and PAT25 they didn't think anything of it. It's called "alarm fatigue" and is a MAJOR problem in hospitals where staff hears alarms from devices all day so they ignore them and miss major incidents. Maybe it's time to revisits these helicopter routes in the same proximity of landing/departing commercial airliners.
Helicopter assumed visual separation so the CA can be disregarded by ATC. Even TCAS could be if both are visual. However PAT25 also reported maintaining visual separation and crashed... and that's why I bring this video up today with PAT11. Maintaining visual separation is a pilot responsibility thing and it might become a nightmare in night conditions.
helicopter constantly asking visual seperation and super close to traffics just as same as the another day
@VASAviation Agreed, the honus is on the PAT for maintain VisSep. But when something goes wrong, and a helo deviates off the route or above published altitude and sounds a CA, but the controllers are so used to hearing them they don't even react, that's where the problems can arise. Pretty sure this will be 100% on PAT for fault, but controllers shouldn't be so trained to ignore CAs that this can ever happen again.
I was about say the same thing. if you have CA alarms every five seconds that you can completely ignore, because of how the traffic patterns are designed around the airport, what is the point of having them at all? Just to brag "we have installed the latest technology" and create a false sense of extra safety?
@@VASAviationthank you, without thile work you do, we would really on the traditional media and politicians to understand the situation. With this we can how it really is
At this point it would seem the helicoper pilots are playing "who can get the closest to the inbound planes".
Absolute insanity!
That's how it looks to me, but it can't be true, can it?
GPS spoofing? Maybe they think they are further away than they really are?
@tepon1fanithe helos?
@tepon1fani TCAS is not GPS, and they're using visual separation, not using instruments.
It’s military. The helos can’t hear the pilots and vice-versa. I don’t know if helo’s have the second radio to listen to guard. Damn, 2CA’s and the tower didn’t even comment.
So this death trap was well established and accepted. Alarms going off are ignored, CA ignored. Totally normal. Insane.
Because CA warnings at low altitude around airports are very normal.
That chopper (PAT11) had three CAs in this video alone.
TCAS technician here
TCAS inhibits "descend" RAs below 1500', and inhibits ALL RAs below 1,000'. The only reason RPA4515 received an RA was because they were at 1400 feet.
Also, aircrews tend to set TCAS to TA only, or standby while on approach, due to increased traffic density at airports.
As an international airline pilot, the only airspace that scares me is the US because of how much they rely on ''visual separation''. You wouldn't see that anywhere else in the world around major cities the size of Washington
visual separation allows them to lawfully(?) fly these stunts. it is an american heritage.
I hear a lot of other countries don’t even allow night VFR
@@nick066hu Like the airspace equivalent of FrEEdOm? Crazy.
@@arjankroonen4319too much freedūmb is lethal
@@arjankroonen4319you're slipping down the slope just the way they want you to. Better shut it all down
The reliance upon so much vis is really outrageous for this amount of traffic
You can hear the alarms in the background and absolutely no reaction to it. Good god
Probably because this had become so commonplace. They've become complacent. I give all the credit in the world to the pilots and ATC, but there are simply too many airborne aircraft (fixed-wing and helos) in too small a space. Something has to give. Something gave two days ago, sadly... and it needs to be a wake-up call.
Because traffic was already exchanged, and PAT had already said they would maintain visual separation (which they did). I've worked in a tower before, and this is quite common to get conflict alerts like this. It certainly draws attention to the conflict, but sometimes the best action is no action.
@@keyser456 And if alarms are commonplace, they become expected. And if they are expected, they are no longer useful. They may as well not have any collision detection at that point. Alarms going off should be a rare thing, only when something has slipped thru all the other control layers.
@ 100% agreed. I can't even imagine the stress-level of ATCs in high-traffic airspace like this.
You clearly have zero clue how or why the a CA would go off on a radar screen. Just bc they go off does NOT mean something will happen. We run triple approaches to three different runways and the CA will still go off even though all three aircraft are established on the final.
You know, it's insane that this helo traffic is allowed in this airspace at all. I know the Presidential helo fleet has been stationed at Bolling AFB for decades, I was stationed there 76-79, and that should be the only helo traffic allowed in that airspace.
Why single out the helicopters? They are used to support government functions. After 9/11 there was a recommendation to close DCA, as the new security measures impacted safety. Congress killed it because they like the convenience. In fact, flights have increased at DCA since 9/11. I don't think either eliminating helicopter traffic or shutting down DCA is the right answer. However, capping the number of flights in/out of DCA to facilitate deconfliction of helo and DCA traffic could make the airspace safer and more manageable.
Congress huh?
we want hundreds of govt officials to feel the prestige of being important... so have tons of 'VIP's that want Helo rides !
@@dgax65 There should be no mixed airspace traffic around an airport as a normal occurrence is his point. That's a logically conclusion. What's nice about helicopters is they can go in an direction easily, so avoiding a small space like an airport to get to your destination is the most minor of inconveniences.
Andrews AFB could also be used.
This a totally f*cked up air space. I used to fly out of DCA, and they have always catered to the "VIPs".
Your channel is one of the best out there for aviation enthusiasts. Keep up the excellent work. 💪🏽
Just recently, the FAA has effectively shut down the low altitude helicopter corridor around DCA. If helo pilots are not staying at their assigned altitude, they don't need to be flying near DCA in the first place.
I know rules are written in the red stuff, but you'd think common sense would deem this unsafe
The phrase "an accident waiting to happen" springs to mind.
When there is such a small margin for error, there is a problem in the system
Maybe the generation in the past could work in those margins and the current generation can't.... 🤐
There is very little margin for error in most busy airports. ATCs have an incredibly challenging job
@FamiliarAnomaly pointing out the obvious There were Less Planes in the past 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
That's why there are high standards for many jobs, to be able to work successfully within very small margins of error.
@@FamiliarAnomaly That's not how air safety thinks.
find the flaw in the procedures first, human mistakes are inevitable and safe procedure prevents such mistakes from being catastrophic.
your attitude is the "just blame the driver and ignore the conditions we put them in" type and it's why the roads are so dangerous.
In this case the controller warned the airliner crew to look out for the helicopter traffic. In the case of the accident the controller authorized visual separation for the helicopter but did not notify the airliner crew of the presence of the helicopter.
With those choppers flying above 250 feet, a collision was bound to happen.
With a mex altitude restriction of 200 for helos. Both were above at ~300+.
If you have any ex-military or high risk environment type of job experience and you also watch any of these flight after action report channels on youtube you know by now that there are a great many things BOUND TO HAPPEN in the skies of america
@@TheQwik512 PAT11 did NOT climb above the designated ceiling here. You can clearly see the ceiling marked on the map in the video @1:38. Stop spreading false information.
@@georgehill3087 You are spreading false information. 5 seconds later the helo was on 300.
@@AeroGraphica And what's the ceiling there? Maybe go see an optometrist.
So this tells me a few things: these seem to be a common occurrence and ATC and PATs are complacent in procedures
exactly and its now being reported that ATC was short handed that night and on top of that they allowed one ATC controller to go home early. My understanding is when they're shorthanded they rely more on on pilots "visual" as a form of backup....
In this example, the controller was being more specific in describing traffic location for the helicopter.
Thanks for finding this. Everyone should share this so the world knows how crazy this is. Insane.
Uncle Sam needs to move their dumb VIP transports elsewhere.
I keep seeing people asking why TCAS wasn’t working during the accident. The answer is TCAS will audibly mute itself under 1000 ft due to multiple obstacles, other airplanes and buildings etc. Now, it’s ONLY audibly muted, however, pilots can still receive instrumentation warnings.
From a news interview, I heard it is only muted below 500ft. Between 500-1000ft there is a warning, but no resolution (TCAS instruct one aircraft to climb, other to descend).
@@afh7689as far as I’m aware 1000ft seems to be the standard but the system won’t directly tell the pilots what to do like go up or down etc. I believe some TCAS can be programmed for different altitudes due to type of plane , weight, passengers capacity etc.
It still gives TA but no RA, to my knowledge.
Unless it was deferred on an MEL.
Resolution Advisories are inhibited, so below 1000 ft there won’t be any instruction by the system. Still you should be able to see the traffic returns on your Navigation Display. But at that altitude you are more focused looking outside and to your Primary Flight Display. This is for the 737-800 version in particular.
Air traffic controllers are amazing to me. Their level of concentration is mind boggling.
WTF!!! This entire airspace cannot function like this EVER again. Ridiculous!
It’s absolutely disgraceful. This airport has existed for a long time and the military should not be flying so close to landing aircraft.
This has been going on as long as they have been training there. Which means it is a part of the military arrogance that they call "Tradition".
I didnt realise that helicopters had such freedom. Bascially, "we are flying along the river, and we'll keep our eyes peeled".
Edit: not blaming anyone, just surprised at the somewhat laissez-faire rules in place.
Military aircraft generally do have such freedom.
Same with the Hudson in New York and all the tourist flights flying VFR.
At night with goggles, where an airport runway happens to be............not a bright idea, any day of the week.
Playing chicken with civilian lives. Nice.
Their "freedom" is essentially limited to the river (and other published routes, like 7 that follows a road) in that area, with altitude restrictions.
Great work! Noticed you zoomed on those "CA" events showing on that radar display, which ATC didn't mention or react to at all. (1:56 in video) This is the best evidence that these events are SOP at this airport, and they've been lulled into a false sense of security, reasoning that "we haven't had an accident yet so what we're doing must be alright!" Just as with the Space Shuttle.
30 years in the USAF on various aircraft and this is insanity !
Thank you for your tireless dedication & hard work Victor!
Amazing job getting these videos out so fast. Keep up the Good Work!!!
As a person from the UK who has never had any dealings with aviation or military I find it astounding that military aircraft are allowed to practice close flying and avoidance of other aircraft as they would need to during wartime on working civilian aircraft.
Note that they weren't just practicing for the fun of it. The route being flown is one that these helicopters routinely fly to fulfill their missions. And you have to train on the real routes, not fake ones otherwise you will have accidents. Also, I think this was a recertification training flight, meaning that the pilots were just doing a dry run of missions they already were experienced at doing. Which might contribute to errors because of complacency....
@@Zhiroc Cool. You can volunteer your family as training dummies. Leave the rest of us alone. VFR training at night near an active airport isn't complacency... its criminal.
"Otherwise you will have accidents" 🤔@@Zhiroc
@@Zhiroc The military has tons of air space that is restricted to the military. They need to use that to practice and stop putting civilians at risk. The families of the civilians who were just killed because of the mistakes made by a military pilot during their military training flight will have to file lengthy and expensive lawsuits for compensation; however, the families of the military servicemen who died will automatically get compensation for spouses and children. The military should not be playing "war games" with civilians lives. Military training missions need to be held on the training grounds of the military bases...period.
So glad to find this. Thank you very much for posting this as well as the crash. It's obviously important to that story!
So that airspace is just outright unsafe, got it. We have Helo's flying haphazardly on the Final Approach paths at will, and ATC ignores alarms and thinks visual separation is enough. Absolutely ridiculous.
It's not haphazard. They are on the published flight path.
Agreed sir !
@@regould221no - the helo seemed near their assignment … near is unacceptable .
Note to self: If I ever fly to DC I’ll fly into Dulles not Reagan.
@@regould221 The published flight path has an altitude restriction, too.
Sure, let's have a helicopter disobeying it's altitude restriction just sitting in the final approach path. What could possibly go wrong
In shipping, there is a saying, "If it's gray, stay away." In other words, always stay clear of navy vessels because they always disregard or simply don't know navigation rules and endanger other vesses. I guess military avaiation is just as bad.
ATC ignoring the alarms going off in the tower is not a good sign, those must be so frequent they tune them out
Unbelievable that they let this go on for so long. This procedure of having helicopters flying under the approach path of Regan was an accident waiting to happen. Not to mention the fact that the controllers were used to hearing the CA alarm and so most likely ignored it during the accident
100%!
exactly and its now being reported that ATC was short handed that night and on top of that they allowed one ATC controller to go home early. My understanding is when they're shorthanded they rely more on on pilots "visual" as a form of backup....
This happens at a lot of airports the airspace is cleared for slower traffic a lower levels.
The real misunderstanding by all is non-pilots think that "aircraft altitude" is some fixed point above whatever ground they are flying over. It is not. The other thing they don't understand is that there are significant errors in altimeters themselves. THERE IS NO GISMO IN COMMERCIAL AVAITION THAT IS ACCURATE ENOUGH TO SEPARATE AIRCRAFT BY ONE OR TWO HUNDRED FEET.
To educate yourself read about aircraft altimeters and how they work. Learn about barometric pressure and how aircraft altimeters are set. There is no scenario ever where FAA standard procedures would allow 200 or 300 feet of separation. The absolute minimum is 500 feet due to the inherent inaccuracies of altimeters and altimeter settings.
I agree with you about the separation. But aren't radio altimeters pretty accurate at low altitude?
@@Free-g8rI don’t think accuracy is the gripe per se, it’s more like covariance, or threshold around that accuracy. Maybe alt is accurate within 65ft plus or minus usually, but could vary up to plus or minus 100ft (for example) and whoops that sep is now zero.
Also consider that gps alt is different from what I think is called barometric altitude? The one that is baro pressure dependent. I might have that term wrong.
But standard handheld gps can have variance of something like 75ft when working well or up to 400 ft when at the boundary of capability (maybe due to signal?)
In short (too late?) this is way too small of a sep on these craft at these speeds with these cargo. IMO DCA needs to be closed and moved. But they’ll never do that.
@@mostlyvoid.partiallystars I think you're talking about barometric altimeters.
At low altitudes aircraft shift to their radio altimeters. These essentially bounce a radar beam off the ground and measure the time it takes to come back.
According to ICAO, radio altimeters are accurate to 1-3 ft.
The army played with this so many times and now it happened. What in the hell are they doing there? Playing wargames??? THIS IS SO STUPID!!! CRIMINALS!!!
The only thing criminal is how stupid this comment is.
@@STOVL93 your comment? Yes it is. If you think killing 60+ people just because military can play with their helicopters making slalom between the civil aircrafts arriving is not a crime, then so it's not just your comment that's stupid
@@augustomartins9516 It's pure corruption and arrogance. These helicopter routes are simply there to give high ranking officials shortcuts around the DMV area. We can't have these VIP's flying longer routes further out from the airport now can we? It would hurt their fragile egos if their helicopter trips took 10 minutes longer.
There was good 600-700 ft between the aircraft, _and_ RPA4514 had the helo in sight. Nothing really hairy, just following RA as it is _advised_ in FAA AC 90-120 and, of course, out of an abundance of caution.
Wow! Thank you for all your hard work, Victor.
I must admit i felt a great deal of nausea just seeing the same pattern. Blackhawks flying directly through the landing approach for DCA. The first 'close call' was very similar to the crash too. Visual separation, but this time the helo saw the correct landing aircraft. Amazing that TCAS worked given the altitude. If TCAS can't work for below 1,000 then I think the helos shouldn't be able to fly through the landing approach outside of a high alert military situation.
Amazing how similar the 1st incident is to the crash 25 hours later. Visual separation and there was another aircraft landing directly behind in sequence which COULD have been mistaken for the visual separation request. Eerily similar.
ATC said helo was at 300ft, but radar visual shows 006 (600ft).
And according to @blancolirio, these military helicopters are supposed to operate no higher than 200 feet. PAT11 seems to have been well above that and cause three RAs or CAs during the time of this video alone, including one go-around. Surely this is unacceptable.
the helo was at 003 or 300 feet. the SWA was at 600 feet. and at the time of the conflict, there was at least 500ft separation between them(300 vs 800 ft) then later, they were at 600 ft, and the other jet was at 1400ft. just on the edge of TCAS (850ft)
Looked like it said 300 when tower stated that but he climbed to 600 as he got closer to the next plane. EIther way, it's a disaster waiting to happen if they are supposed to stay below 200.
Helo was climbing to 700ft allowed on this portion of the route
Wrong. They were last at 300 when ATC called it.
Victor, you’re doing an excellent job. On this day, there were two close calls involving the same helicopter. The first occurred at timestamp 1:59 with Southwest 3565 and Pat 11, at a height of approximately 300 feet. The second incident followed just one minute later at timestamp 300.
This raises some serious concerns. Juan at the Blancoliro channel stated the Helo flight was supposed to be below 200 feet according to the charts. Yet it appears the actual altitude started and remained at around 600 feet.
This situation is alarming for both airplane and helicopter pilots; it's not safe. While I'm not an airline pilot, I strongly recommend you relay this information to the NTSB. They need to investigate further and assess the number of CA incidents over multiple days.
Not actually - between the Memorial Bridge and the Key Bridge, the height restriction is raised to 300', and north of the Key Bridge it is 700'. The helicopter appears to have been operating within the height limit at all times on this chart. Apparently the controller changeover meant that the Republic Airways flight wasn't aware that there was a helicopter coming up the river and so they called a go-around to be safe. They had 800' of separation at the time.
You probably need to do some more research beyond "Juan said it" before making such claims. The 200 foot limit along the Potomac is ONLY between the Memorial bridge and the Wilson bridge. The helo turned left at the Memorial bridge and started flying up the river.The limit is 300 feet at the key bridge, and then it is 700 feet a bit north of that. It's right there on the chart he keeps putting up on the screen. It looks to me like this helo pilot followed the restrictions pretty much to the letter.
PAT11 did NOT climb above the designated ceiling here. You can clearly see the ceiling marked on the map in the video @1:38. The ceiling raises to 300, then 700 and 1300 the further north you go.
Caused by DEI: Donald's Extreme Incompetence.
Thank you so much for putting these together. I've been following for years now (not a pilot) and I can't tell u how much it helped me understand air traffic
For a friendly stranger listening in :
1 the detail on the instructions from the controller were more detailed in this 'prior event'
eg '***° north of your nose'
Nothing like that from the controller to the helicopter on the night of the accident.
2 It seems urgent to increase the number of ATC and very rapidly.
3 It is daft to have ATC changeovers that involve silence and no eyes whilst changing the hot seat. The takeovers should quite simply overlap for 10'/15', whatever, so the new person becomes au fait with the situation whilst the current ATC is working it.
4 Can't imagine all those very important government buildings are going to be moved meaning that the helicopters are an essential part of defense and a priority.
5 So seems like civilian traffic to the airport needs to be cut back. Maybe another airport nearby with passenger classification requirements for the more centralised?
This really makes it seem like it was only a matter of time before something catastrophic happened. I’m getting the impression that this type of close call was all too common.
Why do you say this was a close call?
How stupid it is to me to have a night ops training exercise where a helo flies across or near a congestion airport with passenger jets landing. Everyone involved in this decision making to allow this should be court martialed
Thank you for all you do.
Especially given the events a day later. Great job finding this and posting!! It’s kinda unbelievable this has been an issue for so long. RIP
Sounds like Experimental Aircraft Association fly in at Oshkosh
Long time subscriber. You've outdone yourself, creating and uploading these videos in the last couple of days.
"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."
that's the whole country now bro - the real wake up call comes if they have to fight a real battle
“Andre, you’ve lost *another* submarine??”
This seems like an absolute cluster. To the layperson's eye, it looks like letting Kindergarteners walk to school unsupervised across I-95.
"It's okay Johnny, just look at the cars coming at you. You can avoid them..."
Geez.
Why would you let a helicopter which can basically go anywhere fly about infront of an active runway. This boggles my mind.
that's one of their standard routes. At 300' should be no problem at that point.
Unfortunately maybe the army fields were there before the airport was.
@@VASAviation The standard routes are r*tarded and need to change ASAP. The gov/army helos have access to overland prohibited airspace, they shouldn't be using narrow river corridor which is the only airspace open to commercial traffic to get in/out of DCA. Even at the correct altitude it's still not an acceptable margin for helos to be near missing airliners by 1 or 200ft. 1000ft vertically, and 1 mile laterally should be as close as they ever get. That's very doable if the military uses the restricted airspace open to them and them alone.
@@TomSherwood-z5ltheir field is miles away to the south. Near Mount Vernon.
@@metropodYes, unless they've got business in DC itself then why not fly around the metropolitan area,. Be great if there was perhaps a freeway all the way around DC that would act as the boundary.
Thank you and bravo to you for these videos and more information. Those of us who actually do get into the details (and not listen to just standard news outlets) really appreciate them. Glad I found your channel!
And hats off to the ATC in Washington - they have one of the most intense flight spaces to manage. I myself never really thought about it until this tragedy.
This shows this was always going to happen. "Whatever happened happened because it couldn't have happened any other way, because it didn't" - Unbeliviable.
You can hear those CA alarms going off in the tower nearly constantly. They probably serve as normal background noise at this point, and that's another hole in the swiss cheese.
As a previous Brickyardian and shooting the River visual countless times I have had numerus TA with Helicopters out there.
Projection for the possible revisions to procedures that are coming in the near future:
- Helo Route 4 in the vicinity of DCA is eliminated or moved to the EAST side of Joint Base Anacostia/Bolling
- Helo Route 4 is unchanged, but only authorized during the day
-Helo Route 4 in the vicinity of DCA can only be used when traffic is landing to the south, or when no traffic is within 5 miles of the airport
- Military helicopters will have to install (and use) brighter landing and/or air-frame illumination lights when operating in the surface area of DCA
- DCA tower must have a dedicated VFR controller (who is NOT sharing duties with IFR controller) at all times, or helo traffic will not be authorized in the surface area of the airport.
and 115 knots through a high traffic zone with nvgs.
Or, DCA will have to discontinue use of approaches and departures which foul the helo route. It runs where it does for a reason, and the national security missions involved can’t be made daytime VFR only.
It’s staggering that DCA was ever allowed to reopen after 9/11 anyway. It would be like London having an airport in Vauxhall or Mayfair - approach threading between Buckingham palace and the Houses of Parliament.
How about they just stop granting visual separation to the hot shot chopper pilots?
I don't understand why these cowboys can't just stick to their fucking routes.
@@DanielsPolitics1 Have you heard of London City Airport?
@ Yes. It’s on the eastern end of a city much larger than DC. It doesn’t involve overflying any of the security sensitive areas, and it’s approach and departure coexist perfectly safely with the Thames helicopter route.
The fact that the controllers just do not seem to care about the RA at all says a lot about how many close calls probably happened before the accident.
It really was only a matter of time before a collision was going to happen. I flew to Dulles every other Tuesday for 2 years straight. On a clear blue day traffic going into DCA had to regularly hold just due to volume.
They need to close Reagan
@ I don’t think the airport needs to close but the helicopter routes definitely need to be reevaluated and daily slots need to decreased. The Mayor upped the volume May of last year and they were already waaay over capacity.
@@cyclonetrain1 It is an extremely convenient airport for congressmen to take, and anyone living in Northern Virginia. It’s not going to close anytime soon. If 9/11 didn’t shut it down (which was a real possibility due to its proximity to the National Mall) then this isn’t going to.
Is the commercial aircraft volume the problem or the fact that helicopters are needlessly flying through the airspace? No helicopters, no problems. Easy solution. Two planes didn't run into one another.
@@cyclonetrain1 I mean closing it is the ultra extreme option. An option that is never going to happen but that would already make operations way less complex and more safe would be to only use the main runway and not use the circlings to the shorter runways. This would however reduce efficiency so it probably won't happen.
Wow, CA alerts all over like a Christmas tree on fire. 😮
The first thing that strikes me, both of those planes were told to keep an eye out for the chopper. That was missing from the accident. The Blackhawk had the wrong plane, the plane had no idea.
The second thing that strikes me is we can clearly hear the TCAS alarms going off and controllers treat it as completely fucking normal.
With the accident, there would have been basically nothing the jet could do even if he did see the helo. They were at
Thank you! I hope this will raise awareness.
As always, it takes someone dying to get someone to "take a serious look" at procedures.
That won't happen because Trump and the GOP are defunding the federal government. The FAA director was fired, the FAA froze new hires, and the Aviation Safety Advisory Committee was disbanded over the course of just three days.
Where's all this extra money going to go? Into the pockets of the "establishment" (aka ruling class, ultra-wealthy billionaires, etc). Everyone calls them something else because they don't want us to agree that we have a common enemy. They are robbing us blind and making our lives miserable.
If they reopen with the same procedures (surely they won't), every pilot who hears 'helicopter traffic' is going to say NO THANKS! and go around
Something needs to be done immediately.
The problem has existed since Regan fired the controllers. There has never been enough since.
I think the simple solution is just don't let helicopters fly in the approach zone. It's utter nonsense that was ever allowed in the first place.
Exactly for all of the complicated or long term solutions necessary for aviation, how is “maybe dont fly helicopters in commercial descent path” not one of them?
@MSRTA_Productions Ya think?! 🙄
Change your name to *“BOY_GENIUS_PRODUCTIONS”*
It will take the FAA a few years.
The ATC directions, instructions and conflicting aircraft location / vector information is MUCH more clear in this event... than what was given in the recent mid-air collision between PAT-25 and CRJ... Neither aircraft was given info on the other... for example, the helo wasn't given ANY details like "Pat 25, confirm you have a visual on CRJ traffic at your 11 o'clock, 1 mile out, descending from 700 feet on short approach to runway 33". That also seems to be a gap !
I made this exact comment on another video yesterday. I was wondering if it wasnt normal for ATC in the US to do this.. Anywhere I've flown in Canada the ATC will give you a bearing and distance to the offending traffic. In this video they clearly do. I'm not the least bit surprised the BH couldnt correctly identify which traffic he was supposed to be watching out for. Especially at night in the dark there is almost NO way to differentiate between the CRJ comming in, and the following traffic. Just picked out the wrong one, and kept telling ATC he had it in sight and was going to maintain separation :(
That's not true, ATC did indeed give instructions to PAT25 almost identical to what you suggested in your comment, however this communication is on a different video than the one you were likely watching due to the different frequencies between military and civilian aircraft.
@@javier11544 Not according to the audio that was published... he didn't specify ANYTHING about CRJ, just asked if PAT25 had visual ! ?
@cdncitizen4700 Look at the pinned comment for this channel's first video on the crash there you will find a link to the video with this communication
@@javier11544 I DID hear that exact audio. 1) At NO point did ATC inform CRJ about the approaching PAT25 Helo... 2) He gave EARLY info to PAT25 Helo on CRJ being at 1200 feet initially... BUT... as CRJ approached for landing and approach for short final, he didn't say, "PAT25, CRJ is now at your 11:00 , half mile out, 700 feet and descending into you"... as I stated, the communications to these two aircraft was brief, terse and hurried with NO specifics other than "Do you have CRJ in sight"? and "pass behind the CRJ"... PAT25 saw the WRONG CRJ because NOT enough info was given. He didn't have TIME, too much traffic to tend to ! Bad flight corridor with too much mixed traffic...
This is vital background information. Thank you. This procedure is literally unbelievable. It's not just unsafe... its inevitable to cause such a tragedy to happen.
Incredible! Looks like having the CA alert displayed on radar is routine. Is it a game for army helicopters to get that close to other traffic?
Worst game of Frogger ever.
Damn. As a non-American, all I got from my local news is Trump blaming all this on DEI, which makes 0 sense. Glad there are channels like you out here to give info for us to make our own judgement.
For future reference if you ever hear someone from the government blame "DEI" what it really means is "We fucked up and don't want to take responsibility"
This is absolutely ridiculous.
You're absolutely ridiculous.
This is alarming. I betcha if one digged, they could find more incidents of this exact same nature in this same airspace. NTSB recommendations incoming.
2:30 ATC gives such good information out here compared to the other situation, sad all around.
Seems absolutely ridiculous!
I wonder if the military perhaps needs to re route departures during nighttime operations. If there were 2 incidents; one a crash with no survivors in a short period of time there may be a systemic flaw in traffic conflicts.
YT Channel "Two Bit da Vinci" has a good suggestion, imo.
Says make that airfield military only, since it's such close proximity to so many national landmarks.
Says install a high speed rail to commute pax to another airfield.
I think it'd be wise to do this.
And in the meantime, let the gov't muckie-mucks Uber from Dulles.
okay wtf
1. am I seeing this right? the landing plate calls for the planes to be directly above the helo corridors for the entire approach??
2. the fact that the controllers are just ignoring the CA chimes in the background (which you can hear in ATC calls at 1:55, 2:18, 3:05) is insane, if this is a common pattern then DCA ATC may easily fall into normalising this sort of thing and ignoring all CA chimes?? My understanding (as a layman) is that there is a procedure to be followed when there is a CA??
This is disgusting. It seems the PATs routinely "request visual separation" before even confirming they actually have the traffic in sight. Almost sounds like a tactic used by PAT to shut up ATC's traffic advisories. This makes it seem like this egregious application of visual separation has been normalized in this airspace. Disaster was only a matter of time.
So the choppers are just out there bobbing along randomly poking their spinning metal blades up into the sea of 300 mph jumbo jets I guess?
Get those god damn helicopters outta there. Two TCAS warnings during one flight is two too many.
I have lived in Fairfax County, Virginia nearly all my life. I grew up within 1/2 mile of Mount Vernon (one block from the Potomac River). I have also lived in several homes within a few miles of Davison Army Airfield (DAA), Fort Belvoir, VA. NOTE*** The volume of UH-60 Blackhawk traffic flying in & out of DAA could be described as EXTREMELY heavy. The UH-60s routinely buzz our homes at 500 feet. There are also large numbers of civilian medical helicopters transporting patients to/from the major hospitals in the region. Overall, the D.C. metro area is literally swarming with low-altitude military and civilian helicopters.