The Army Blackhawk helicopter crew involved in the mid-air collision with an American Eagle CRJ700 last January at Reagan National Airport had turned off ADS-B because they were practising a classified flight profile according to a New York Times investigation. The Times story released Sunday said the crew was rehearsing the extraction of high-level government officials because of an attack on Washington when it collided with the CRJ. All 67 people on both aircraft died and the aircraft crashed into the Potomac. It was also a qualification flight for Capt. Rebecca Lobach, who was flying with instructor CWO2 Andrew Eves.
I always practice my classified flights in the busiest airspace of the nation with my transponder turned off. Especially at night. What could possibly go wrong?
Their Mode S transponder was on, just not ADS-B. ATC could see them just fine, so could the TCAS on the CRJ. Sure, ADS-B would have provided better information to the CRJ, but the helo was still visible to them.
A wilder fact than their ADS-B Out being off is that military helicopters generally do not show ADS-B In traffic on their displays. Theyâll usually have TCAS, but ADS-B In is far better for picking out which jet is which and which way theyâre headed. All TCAS gives you is a dot.
Iâm a controller who works at an airport with a STARS display. Ads-B mean nothing to me or changes what I see on the scope. Thereâs a button I can press to display it which I use to help identify 1200s, but thatâs pretty much it. My understanding is that aircraft equipped with TIS will still see see other aircraft if their transponder is on with Mode C/S. Is this correct?
The problem was that they were looking at the wrong airplane. The altitude issues are misdirection. Given that the jet was on a visual, they could have just as easily been at 200 feet and collided there. Feel better?
The solution here wasnât vertical separation: no sane controller would allow these two to be in the same place at the same time and count on 15 feet or 100 feet altitude difference to keep them from colliding. They needed to be in laterally different places, which was the intent and expectation of both the original and second âmaintain visual separationâ and âpass behindâ instructions.
Does the military not teach/order instructor/check pilots to take over the controls when the student//trainee has failed to follow proper procedures or instructions which put the aircraft into a dangerous position? Sure, this would have resulted in a failed check ride. So what. Lives may not have been lost. As far as ADS-B, even without it, the controller had all the information necessary to properly manage the situation.
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markdenari
(Mark E. Denari, CAPT U.S. Navy (ret))
16
Iâm a retired Naval Aviator with an ATP and over 10,000 flt hrs. I instructed at all three levels in the Navy - training command, squadron and Fleet Replacement Squadron. And, Iâve flown a number of light civil acft., including my own PA-128.
As an instructor and Acft. Cmdr. in the P3-C, I had to âtake an acftâ on a rare occassion. Yes, the Navy teaches this and very well.
Although there are a number of factors being assesed in the DC mishap, the one thatâs so fundamental and appears to be missing is - " see and avoid." No what the circustances, when flying in VMC conditions, see and avoid is paramount.
If the helo instructor saw the CRJ and told the pilot at the controls to avoid, then itâs absolutely perplexing as to why the instructor didnât âtake the acft.â Iâm at a loss here.
I recall several times when I had to take an acft for one reason or another. In one situation, I was junior to the person flying.
Finally, I believe the primary casual factors were spatial disorientation and situational awaerness. I believe the pilots didnât see the CRJ and flew into it unwittingly.
I offer this as a Navy mishap investigator who was invoved in investigating several tragic P3 mishaps.
The New York Times just repackaged facts that were already known. They didnât break any new ground, the NTSB, AVweb, and others had already covered the real issues. Theyâre writing for the general public, not pilots or controllers. The route design should have been recognized as a primary cause too, because it forced a bad setup that was bound to fail, even though pilot, controller, and equipment failures still played a role.
What a crock of baloney. It took the Army lawyers 3 months to think of that excuse (for not having ADSB-out turned on)? A mea culpa would go a long way here.
Iâm reading that internal discussions between the Capt. pilot and the CWO2 were ârevealed.â Does that mean the helicopter had a cockpit voice recorder? The NYT article said that Capt Lobach ârepeatedly ignored warnings from the right (?) seater about altitude.â âShe did not turn left (toward the river bankâ when directed.
Elsewhere, I read where there was no ADS-B âinâ in the helicopter. So thereâs a single point failure mode. They had an assigned path and altitude and didnât follow it. They couldnât âseeâ the CRJ because (I believe) they were fixated on the other departing traffic at DCA AND NVGâs hindered their scan. And insufficient local controller staffing in the tower added to the problem. Once the helicopter reported âin sight,â however, the âonusâ was off the tower. Still, another controller might have discerned the problem?
In the end â no matter how you cut it â this was a comedy of errors that came together to form a perfect storm. Flying a simulated âclassifiedâ mission which really wasnât in such busy airspace with NVGâs was the main culprit here.
An ADS-B âinâ device ⌠even a civil Garmin GPS or an iPad w/ an âinâ box feeding it, would have allowed the crew chief to ride herd on the situation. I read where there were insufficient iPads available to the Army people.