Plane crash at DCA

[mspart]

Training flights no longer go into commercial landing and approach airspace.   Period.   That is how he could do it.  Quite easy. 

Obviously the training flight did not follow ATC directions.   Keep these flights away from this airspace and that will prevent this from happening again. 

As to RVs comment, yes, I'm sure the first thing Trump did \or should have done was to stop all training flights and ensure they didn't do anything improper by design.   You would have screamed about that and would never have known that 70 people were saved by such an action.   These training profiles were put in long before Trump got there and there was no problem.   But there is a problem now and I'm wagering that he will take measures that this does not happen again.   Who in their right mind creates a training profile that flies directly into the flight path of incoming traffic on approach.   It is a wonder there wasn't an incident before yesterday.

Pick another river to fly along that has no aviation infrastructure to be a problem with.   Not difficult.

mspart

 

[fishbane]

16 minutes ago, mspart said:

Training flights no longer go into commercial landing and approach airspace.   Period.   That is how he could do it.  Quite easy. 

Obviously the training flight did not follow ATC directions.   Keep these flights away from this airspace and that will prevent this from happening again. 

As to RVs comment, yes, I'm sure the first thing Trump did \or should have done was to stop all training flights and ensure they didn't do anything improper by design.   You would have screamed about that and would never have known that 70 people were saved by such an action.   These training profiles were put in long before Trump got there and there was no problem.   But there is a problem now and I'm wagering that he will take measures that this does not happen again.   Who in their right mind creates a training profile that flies directly into the flight path of incoming traffic on approach.   It is a wonder there wasn't an incident before yesterday.

Pick another river to fly along that has no aviation infrastructure to be a problem with.   Not difficult.

mspart

 

This wasn't a training flight as in someone learning to fly.  The helicopter pilots were experienced and operating out of Fort Belvoir, which is ~12mi from DCA.  There will be military helicopters flying around the Potomac.  Too many important military things along that stretch of river. 

[red viking]

Entire chain of command should be relieved of duties, all the way up to the commander in chief. No excuse for such incompetence. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

2 hours ago, mspart said:

Is there any doubt that Trump's admin will address this and do so with immediacy?  That is taking responsibility.   The training flight plans were no doubt established long before Trump was inaugurated.   Yet you guys are blaming him.    My guess is he will make sure military flights do not encroach on established commercial flight paths.  And he will do so relatively quickly. 

mspart

So far the only thing Trump has done with immediacy is disgusting. He is trying to score political points from this tragedy. It would be one thing if he had any real reason to believe DEI initiatives were somehow resoponsible. But he does not. Instead he went with his most base instinct. Demonize The Other. 

[mspart]

Is it not germane to point out that the FAA was not intent on hiring the best, but to hire based on skin color, sexual persuasion, etc?   The point of DEI is to hire a group so that it looks like the rest of society, not to get the best qualified.   If the best qualified are darker skinned, then they should get the job.  If they are from a sexual persuasion that is different than normal, they should be hired.   But to hire someone that is not the best qualified does a disservice to those they are to protect.  I do not think FAA or ATC was the problem here.   Those experienced pilots that were not on a training flight did not obey ATC orders.   Period.  

mspart

[Wrestleknownothing]

3 minutes ago, mspart said:

Is it not germane to point out that the FAA was not intent on hiring the best, but to hire based on skin color, sexual persuasion, etc?   The point of DEI is to hire a group so that it looks like the rest of society, not to get the best qualified.   If the best qualified are darker skinned, then they should get the job.  If they are from a sexual persuasion that is different than normal, they should be hired.   But to hire someone that is not the best qualified does a disservice to those they are to protect.  I do not think FAA or ATC was the problem here.   Those experienced pilots that were not on a training flight did not obey ATC orders.   Period.  

mspart

No it is not germane, as you yourself stated at the end of your post. And because it is not germane it smacks of political opportunism. He used other people's pain to try to score political points. Truly disgusting.

[mspart]

You have a safety incident, you look at all factors.   I agree, he could have left this out, but it should be considered, perhaps in the background.   I notice you agree that it should be the intent of the FAA to hire the best period by your conspicuous silence.   

mspart

[headshuck]

No it is not germane, as you yourself stated at the end of your post. And because it is not germane it smacks of political opportunism. He used other people's pain to try to score political points. Truly disgusting.

I see that point, but it goes both ways. For 4 years the Biden admin answered tough questions blaming Trump.

[billyhoyle]

Can we not just have a national tragedy without everybody arguing and being annoying about it?

[Tripnsweep]

1 minute ago, billyhoyle said:

Can we not just have a national tragedy without everybody arguing and being annoying about it?

Trump and Vance started it. That was literally the first thing out of their mouth. 

[headshuck]

Nope again. CNN started it.

[1032004]

10 hours ago, mspart said:

If they are from a sexual persuasion that is different than normal, they should be hired.  

So do you think Trump was wrong to want to ban trans folks from serving in the military?

[Tripnsweep]

2 hours ago, 1032004 said:

So do you think Trump was wrong to want to ban trans folks from serving in the military?

If you can do the job and aren't a liability, I don't care what you're packing or who/what you like. All of that shouldn't matter. 

[fishbane]

14 hours ago, mspart said:

Is it not germane to point out that the FAA was not intent on hiring the best, but to hire based on skin color, sexual persuasion, etc?   The point of DEI is to hire a group so that it looks like the rest of society, not to get the best qualified.   If the best qualified are darker skinned, then they should get the job.  If they are from a sexual persuasion that is different than normal, they should be hired.   But to hire someone that is not the best qualified does a disservice to those they are to protect.  I do not think FAA or ATC was the problem here.   Those experienced pilots that were not on a training flight did not obey ATC orders.   Period.  

mspart

It highly likely to be irrelevant.  The FAA hiring practices really only apply to one of the many people that may be involved in this - the ATC.  Military helicopter pilots, airline pilots, mechanics, the military officers that set the helicopter's route the FAA hiring practices wouldn't apply to any of them, since none were hired by the FAA.   It might apply to the controller, but if that individual was hired before DEI practices started under Obama or during Trump's last term when he suspended them it would be irrelevant.  It would also be irrelevant if the controller was hired under Biden's administration and he would have been hired even after the powerful executive order Trump signed last week.   Finally, even if the controller would not be hired today after the powerful executive order it would still be irrelevant if the controller was doing what any other controller in that position would do immediately before the accident.  Why spend so much time talking about something that only has remote chance of being relevant?

You even blame the helicopter pilots, which would make it germane, but you shouldn't be doing that.  The goal of an investigation for something like this should be to make aviation safer not to assign blame.  Sure if the helicopter pilots maintained visual separation the crash would not have happened, but don't put a "Period." on that.  The next obvious question is why didn't they follow ATC's direction?  If crash was caused by a mistake that a competent pilot could make then it is bound to happen again, so the process should be adjusted.  If simply a case of an incompetent pilot then the question would be how did an incompetent pilot come to be operating a helicopter in the vicinity of DCA and what processes could be changed to prevent that in the future.  In any case the failure will go farther than a single mistake by a pilot or ATC.

[mspart]

11 minutes ago, fishbane said:

You even blame the helicopter pilots, which would make it germane, but you shouldn't be doing that.  The goal of an investigation for something like this should be to make aviation safer not to assign blame. 

Assigning blame is exactly  what an accident investigation does fishy.   If you don't assign blame, nothing can be fixed.

Blame:  Military flight path running into the established flight path of commercial aircraft.   Let's fix that.

Blame:  Helicopter was in an area they should not have been in.   Let's fix that.

Blame:  ATC was understaffed at the time, 19 of 30 assigned showed up.   Let's fix that.

Blame:  ATC person on this was doing both helicopter and airliner communication and direction.   Let's fix that.

Blame:  The day before, they had a close call with a helicopter and an airliner.   Let's fix that.

Ancillary blame:   DEI  not directly to blame here but could be if a person with less than stellar qualifications causes an accident where lives and property are lost.     Let's fix that and hire just the best, whoever they are.   Once you start with DEI, it is suspect if you have the best and brightest and most qualified working in a capacity where human safety is the point of the job.    Let's fix that.

Assigning blame at the end of an investigation is the thing that is done.   Did you ever watch the movie  about the A320 that went into the river in NYC?   They tried to blame the pilot.   That's blame.   That's what an investigation uncovers is the ultimate blame for the incident and then measures are taken to avoid that scenario in the future.   As a result, air travel is the safest way to travel.  

mspart

[fishbane]

35 minutes ago, mspart said:

Assigning blame is exactly  what an accident investigation does fishy.   If you don't assign blame, nothing can be fixed.

I am talking about NTSB investigations.  The goal of those

• Determine the facts, conditions, and circumstances relating to an accident; 
• Determine one or more probable causes; and 
• Issue safety recommendations to prevent or mitigate the effects of a similar accident

The last item is really the most important, but can't be done without the other two steps.  It seems like the first two were largely skipped over.  Why Trump would spend so much time discussing DEI?  He's largely skipped the first two steps and went straight to eliminating DEI as the answer.  That's not productive. 

50 minutes ago, mspart said:

Blame:  Military flight path running into the established flight path of commercial aircraft.   Let's fix that.

How?  It seems inevitable that the flight paths of commercial and military aircraft's will intersect.  It cannot be eliminated.

51 minutes ago, mspart said:

Blame:  Helicopter was in an area they should not have been in.   Let's fix that.

This raises more questions than solutions.  Why was the helicopter there?

52 minutes ago, mspart said:

Blame:  ATC was understaffed at the time, 19 of 30 assigned showed up.   Let's fix that.

Was it?  I heard that the controller was managing two stations/sectors at the time.  Was that because 11 people were assigned to be working at the time of the accident and did not show up?  I am skeptical of this.  There is probably more to it.

54 minutes ago, mspart said:

Blame:  ATC person on this was doing both helicopter and airliner communication and direction.   Let's fix that.

Is this a problem that needs fixing?  If both helicopters and airlines are operating in the same area one person directing both might be needed to keep everyone on the same page.

56 minutes ago, mspart said:

Blame:  The day before, they had a close call with a helicopter and an airliner.   Let's fix that.

It should be separately investigated.  May or may not be related.  

1 hour ago, mspart said:

Ancillary blame:   DEI  not directly to blame here but could be if a person with less than stellar qualifications causes an accident where lives and property are lost.     Let's fix that and hire just the best, whoever they are.   Once you start with DEI, it is suspect if you have the best and brightest and most qualified working in a capacity where human safety is the point of the job.    Let's fix that.

If an incompetent ATC ended up directing air traffic at a commercial airport then investigate how that happened.  Too many assumptions are needed to blame DEI or anything in the hiring or training process at this point.

1 hour ago, mspart said:

Assigning blame at the end of an investigation is the thing that is done.   Did you ever watch the movie  about the A320 that went into the river in NYC?   They tried to blame the pilot.   That's blame.   That's what an investigation uncovers is the ultimate blame for the incident and then measures are taken to avoid that scenario in the future.   As a result, air travel is the safest way to travel.  

mspart

The ultimate goal of the investigation should be to make recommendations to prevent future accidents.  You are talking about the plane that was landed in the Hudson by Sully, right?  I haven't seen the movie, but I am somewhat familiar with the incident.  I don't believe the pilots were identified as one of the causes by the NTSB.  The NTSB had real pilots in simulators attempt to make it to back LaGuardia and to Teterboro.  Seven of the 13 simulations resulted in the plane making it to LaGuardia and one of the two Teterboro simulations were successful.  Ultimately these simulations were unfair as the pilots executing them knew exactly what they had to do.  When adding a 35s buffer to simulate the time a pilot would need to assess the situation in real life the pilot in the simulators not able to make it back to LaGuardia.  The actual NTSB report had dozens of recommendations none of which were to hire genius pilots.

[mspart]

FAA closed down the airspace to routine military training helicopter flights.   So step 1. 

You are conflating finding what went wrong with blame.   As I  noted, blame does not necessarily apply to a person.   What went wrong is the blame.   Otherwise there would be no recommendations to give.  Otherwise, we would not have had the safety advancements over the decades that we have had.  

If you don't like the word blame, that;s on you.   Blame is what NTSB finds and recommends fixes for.   FAA makes their own moves and in this case, moved before NTSB gets its investigation done.   If there is no blame, there is no fix. 

There was speculation that the helicopter saw the wrong plane.   Now there are reports that the voice recordings show they saw the American Airlines plane and flew right into it anyway.   New video shows the collision with more clarity. 

mspart

[1032004]

Still speculation of course, but thought this was good insight without any politics

 

 

[Tripnsweep]

*January 20: Trump FIRES the FAA director
*January 21: Trump FREEZES all Air Traffic Controller hiring
*January 22: Trump DISBANDS the Aviation Safety Advisory Committee
*January 28: Trump sends a buyout/retirement ransom letter to existing FAA employees
*January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years, 67 fatalities.

[Offthemat]

1 hour ago, Tripnsweep said:

*January 20: Trump FIRES the FAA director
*January 21: Trump FREEZES all Air Traffic Controller hiring
*January 22: Trump DISBANDS the Aviation Safety Advisory Committee
*January 28: Trump sends a buyout/retirement ransom letter to existing FAA employees
*January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years, 67 fatalities.

Where do you get your conspiracy theories?  Not from the AP:

“There’s no evidence that the White House effort to downsize government played any role in the collision, with shortages of air traffic controllers long predating Trump taking office.”

https://apnews.com/article/jet-helicopter-crash-air-traffic-controllers-caee8a1e14eb5d156725581d41e6a809