CRJ 700, Helicopter Midair In Washington

Yes, a deviation, I looked at the charts and the ADS-B exchange replay. The problem is a deviation is inevitable and the separation was nowhere near enough to mitigate that. Noise? Helicopter noise at a military base and over a highway is not a sufficient concern to jeopardize safety. There is no way nobody ever saw an issue with this, of course it’s glaringly obvious in hindsight but even without the benefit of hindsight placing airliners on an approach that has less than 1,000’ of separation with a helicopter route when both are flown textbook is absurd from the word go.

Bottom line, if the helo had been at 200’ over the eastern shoreline of the river, where he was supposed to be, this would have been a non event. The helo was over the middle of the river at 350’. I don’t put this on the controller.

The evening prior to the crash there was a near miss between a military helo and a RJ from another company. Tower ordered a go around but likely separation was compromised. There were 19 near misses in airport areas in 2024. Controller staffing is was below desired levels.
DC supervisor determined that traffic level was low enough for transition from 2 tower controllers to 1.
If the helo was at the proper 200’ or below this gives a vertical clearance of approximately 2-300’ with traffic on the 33 VASI. This also depends on the helo following the East shore as charted. With this compromised, non standard vertical separation the controller is essential helpless.There is simply not enough time for the controller to take any meaningful action.

I’ve flown that route many times from Quantico. It’s far too easy to speculate on this preventable accident. Why did the helicopter violate airspace and altitude limits and why didn’t ATC issue a go-around for the CRJ when the helicopter’s flight path placed almost mid channel just before they increased altitude I hope that this doesn’t turn into a criminal investigation too.

The military helis have Mode S transponders, which sends data to ATC screens. We know ATC knew the heli was there because ATC contacted the heli with an instruction (however inadequate).

The Mode S data actually doesn’t show an increase in altitude of the heli right at the airport area. The FAA controllers have somewhat rigidly defined job requirements that sometimes serve as an escape clause. We’ll see. Either way, it’s not criminal. Seems like the controller’s instructions to go behind the accident jet didn’t take into account there were more than one jet in the sky, and the two didn’t work it out if they were both talking about the same plane. However, none of that would have mattered if the Blackhawk had been below 200 ft MSL. So you have a primary cause, altitude, and a contributing cause, the controller’s instructions.

The more I think about it, the more I am coming to believe that the helicopter pilot’s intention was to avoid wake turbulence from the CRJ. At the location of the impact, the CRJ would likely be carrying full flaps or nearly so, with a full load of pax, do it was likely churning the air pretty good. When I google Wake Turbukence Avoidance the second entry is from the FAA website, and it reads: “ If a pilot accepts a clearance to visually follow a preceding aircraft, the pilot accepts responsibility for separation and wake turbulence avoidance.” And the helicopter pilot had requested and accepted Visual Separation twice according to reports. Can anyone with more knowledge shed some light on this possibility?

NTSB’s second public briefing advised that all recorders from both aircraft have been recovered, with optimism data is recoverable. (There is some contamination such as water in one or two of them, NTSB is accustomed to dealing with that.)

The entire DC area is Class Bravo Airspace from the surface to 10,000’ The airliner was operating under Instrument flight rules which would typically require 1000’ vertical separation with other IFR traffic and 500’ separation from visual traffic (the helicopter) However the helicopter route provided much less than 500’ separation in a best case scenario. Had the helo maintained the charted routing the collision would not have occurred. Had the helo been at or below 200’, which was mandatory, the collision would not have occurred.
However the starting point for this accident was the officials who approved that helo route and the Army officials who allowed night training flights on that route, especially with night vision goggles

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Anyone know if the Blackhawk had TCAS?

If I understand the reported paths correctly, from the POV of the helo pilot, the RJ is approaching the pilot from slightly above and between her 10 and 11-o’clock position (approx 50 degrees to port). That very well could have put the RJ at least partially hidden behind the canopy framing. And with two aircraft flying in straight lines, there might have been little or no apparent motion with respect to that frame. From a see and avoid perspective, looks like it could be a challenge, especially if the pilot already sees other close aircraft that do have the apparent motion.

Such a sad and totally avoidable incident.
Any pilot who flies into DCA knows this crash could have happened any day. Everything just happened to line up that evening. I am close to retirement, and have flown all over north America and Europe. I have never flown into a busy commercial airport where it’s normal for military traffic to routinely fly so close. I have commented many times at being uncomfortable about a military helicopter being so close. ATC routinely reply “they have you insight and maintaining visual separation .” From the BH perspective that night, they would have been looking south along the Potomac. There would have been many aircraft being filtered from the arrivals in use onto the final for the visual for 01. Different size aircraft at different altitudes with different lighting configurations at different distances. A distant larger aircraft with the latest high intensity lights could appear the same distance as a smaller closer aircraft with older lighting systems. Very difficult to say you have picked out the same aircraft ATC just told you about , but that was all that was needed, out of the maybe 15 aircraft visible to the BH that night, for everyone to proceed.
What will never be mentioned is the ridiculous politics that make DCA such a prize. How many politicians in that city have worked to get a flight from their home town or state to DCA . There is a much larger, more suitable airport what , just 40 miles away? You can’t take the train? No , everyone wants their flight right to and from the capital!
At the end of the day, every politician who fought for their DCA flight, and every one of us who didn’t go around when a helicopter was a little too close for comfort, but accepted " they have you in sight, maintaining visual separation," is a contributing factor to this accident that the NTSB will never mention.

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Not to mention the spray-tanned buffoon in the White House!

Political hate identifies you as a sub human who belongs in a padded cell for your own protection. If you are a certificated airperson your certificates should be revoked.

A statement of fact cannot be political. Wake up. You probably voted for him, so it YOU that is politicising this.

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