American Airlines Jet Midair Crash Into Blackhawk

[Rudi]

IIRC, the ATC computers are very old.

 

[Rule3]

What a tragedy. Hard to imagine how this could happen.?

 

[tlawler]

If you've ever flown into Reagan, you know about the steep banks the pilots sometimes have to make to avoid restricted airspace. It looks like they had just come out of a turn and were lining up on the runway when the collision occurred. The Navy Research Lab is just adjacent to where the collision happened. I circled it in red. I've spent some time there and we would go up on the roof and watch the planes make their approach and landing. Some pretty hairy flying for a passenger jet.

 

[JcMack]

This exert from NWI Times:
It suggests that there was a rapid loss of altitude on the part of the Jet and a possible change in runways moments before the crash

What happened
The FAA said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over 3 miles south of the White House and the Capitol.

American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet (122 meters) and a speed of about 140 mph (225 kph) when it rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight-tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: "PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ." Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.

The plane's transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.

Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.

The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Military aircraft frequently conduct such training flights in and around the nation's capital.

___

 

[LVSteve]

The air traffic radio and the Flightaware data was on The War Zone website last night. The ATC called "Visual separation" after telling the army helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. The track data for the Blackhawk would indicate that the airliner would be well to the left from the pilots' seats. What followed suggests to me that either the pilots never picked up the airliner visually or were looking at the wrong plane.

 

[DWalt]

The air traffic radio and the Flightaware data was on The War Zone website last night. The ATC called "Visual separation" after telling the army helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. The track data for the Blackhawk would indicate that the airliner would be well to the left from the pilots' seats. What followed suggests to me that either the pilots never picked up the airliner visually or were looking at the wrong plane.

Exactly what my thought was last night.

 

[DoubleNickel]

It's terrible. There was a group of guys coming home from a hunting trip. A guy I know from work was one of them.

 

[sigp220.45]

What? The tin-foil hat crowd missed the boat? It wasn't kamikazee US Army soldiers taking down renegade ice skaters?

C'mon folks. Be better than this.

 

[quikdraw67]

Nothing to add, except prayers for the families of the victims.

 

[llowry61]

It is a tragedy; the unfortunate reality is these things happen. They are accidents people are fallible as is technology.

I am not trying to minimize what happened it is a tragedy, and my prayers are with the families and friends of those affected.

 

[S-W4EVER]

The two things you hope never happen. You get THAT call to report for a mass casualty incident. The second one is you arrive, and there is nothing you can do.

I'm thankful MCI's are so rare in our Country that I never responded to one of this magnitude. Been praying for the First Responders too...

 

[dben002]

The air traffic radio and the Flightaware data was on The War Zone website last night. The ATC called "Visual separation" after telling the army helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. The track data for the Blackhawk would indicate that the airliner would be well to the left from the pilots' seats. What followed suggests to me that either the pilots never picked up the airliner visually or were looking at the wrong plane.

According to what I read tonight, there were two planes...the incoming plane and another larger plane in takeoff position on another runway....theory is the Blakhawk was seeing the plane on the runway and not seeing the the plane on approach and moved into the path of the incoming plane...Whichever...it is a terrible event.

 

[mckenney99]

Copied from my post over on another forum.

Not a pilot but a simple observer.
Has the US reached a point where we have TOO MANY aircraft and flight routes for the number of ATC's available?
Do we simply have too many aircraft/flights for the out of date equipment available to those ATC & aircraft?
Have we let the greed of airlines wanting to create more routes to increase their profits, to overload ATC's & airports ability to safely handle all the aircraft?

Put another way. You have a group of say 12 or 15 jugglers, juggling the near maximum number of hand grenades they can safely handle and then 2 or 3 jugglers quit, retire or get fired. Common sense tells us it is only a matter of time before something really bad happens to those jugglers remaining. You don't expect the remaining jugglers to handle even more grenades you throw them, while telling the crowd it will be OK because you are looking to hire more jugglers.

 

[wood714]

Copied from my post over on another forum.

Not a pilot but a simple observer.
Has the US reached a point where we have TOO MANY aircraft and flight routes for the number of ATC's available?
Do we simply have too many aircraft/flights for the out of date equipment available to those ATC & aircraft?
Have we let the greed of airlines wanting to create more routes to increase their profits, to overload ATC's & airports ability to safely handle all the aircraft?

Put another way. You have a group of say 12 or 15 jugglers, juggling the near maximum number of hand grenades they can safely handle and then 2 or 3 jugglers quit, retire or get fired. Common sense tells us it is only a matter of time before something really bad happens to those jugglers remaining. You don't expect the remaining jugglers to handle even more grenades you throw them, while telling the crowd it will be OK because you are looking to hire more jugglers.

This is the number of flights as of around 5 minutes ago. It's a pretty cool app. If you click on a flight it will show what type aircraft, where it took and and where it's going.

I would not want to be a ATC!

 

[wood714]

On the above app, if it's a military aircraft it doesn't give any info.

 

[mckenney99]

On the above app, if it's a military aircraft it doesn't give any info.

Thank You, Wood 714,
I was going to mention checking Flight Aware also. I wasn't aware how many planes were in the air at any given time until I started watching FightAware a couple years ago. If someone wants to really be amazed, look at the entire map of the US and then think about the fact you are only looking at the flights at that particular instant. Now multiply that number by minutes or hours in a day. Yes the sky is a very big space but all those flights have one thing in common, they all have to land and all those flights wind up in a very small part of that very big sky.
I truly believe that the capacity of ATC's & technology has been exceeded with the current number of aircraft/flights.

 

[DWalt]

According to what I read tonight, there were two planes...the incoming plane and another larger plane in takeoff position on another runway....theory is the Blakhawk was seeing the plane on the runway and not seeing the the plane on approach and moved into the path of the incoming plane...Whichever...it is a terrible event.

The opinion is being formed that the Blackhawk pilot misidentified the passenger plane. The ATC was unclear as to which plane the Blackhawk pilot was told to avoid, and he picked the wrong one. Maybe it is time to deploy a lot more AI to the ATC profession.

 

[quikdraw67]

I'm thankful MCI's are so rare in our Country that I never responded to one of this magnitude. Been praying for the First Responders too...

Ditto to both.

 

[wood714]

Another screen shot. I don't know how there isn't more plane crashes.

 

[Beemerguy53]

The two things you hope never happen. You get THAT call to report for a mass casualty incident. The second one is you arrive, and there is nothing you can do.

Fire and Police Departments from throughout the region have deployed resources to the crash site...there are a lot of first responders' families who are about to see the effects of this crash on their loved ones in the days and weeks to come...