Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport | Hacker News Reader

Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport

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668 pointsmzmzmzm675 comments

I just listened to the ATC recording from immediately before the collision. ATC instructs the helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. I’m fairly certain a few minutes before that, ATC instructed the helicopter to maintain visual separation, which is common. They typically ask, “do you have the aircraft in sight” and if you respond in the affirmative they rely on you to maintain safe distance.

I should mention that in the recording you can only hear one side of the conversation, so I don’t know whether or not the helicopter said whether or not they had visual contact with the plane they collided with.

Either way it doesn’t seem to be the fault of ATC. Of course we’ll know more as additional information becomes available.

Here is the ATC audio between the Tower and PAT-25. Helos that transition DCA's airspace use a separate VHF frequency from traffic landing and departing, but talk to the same tower controller.

https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...

* At 5:41 - 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33.

* At 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial

* At 7:06 - tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation

* At 8:12 - tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight and tells him to pass behind the CRJ. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation.

* At 8:28 - crash occurs, exclamations, go arounds issued

This is wild to listen to. A) this is a busy atc channel and it's amazing how much complexity is coordinated over noisy radio. B) within minutes of the accident happening (at 11:48) the ATC controller is calmly asking helicopters in the air if they can assist in search rescue operations asking, if they have search lights and direction them. This is whilst diverting and grounding flights.

> over noisy radio

I've been told the noise on the recordings is always a lot worse than in practice due to the location of the recording antenna not being ideal. I have no idea if this is correct or not. Maybe someone can enlighten this.

Yep. Radios are much clearer in the air. VHF is mostly line of sight and planes have the benefit of altitude. Approach/center comms can get a bit scratchy at times mostly due to distance, but approach/tower is almost always perfectly clear.

Yes, having tried to listen to ATC with an SDR— the public recordings are made from antenna that placed near the airport, while the official recordings are made from the feeds that the ATC is listening to— and those antenna have their lobes pointed toward the sky.

I watch a lot of pilots on Youtube. Most of them use some kind of audio splitter to record sound. You hear what the pilot hears. But minus the plane noise, vibrations, etc (unless that's mixed in via some open microphone). So, it's actually better.

So, it really is that bad. Especially when flying low, on the edge of the range of the radios, etc. VHF radio is ancient technology. It's not great even under ideal conditions.

If your phone calls sounded that bad, you'd want to upgrade your phone or switch operator. Really not acceptable for consumer grade communication. Not even close. This is how phones sounded half a century ago. "can you hear me .... are you there ..... can you talk louder ....". My grand mother never really unlearned 1930s phone etiquette. Phone calls with her were short (cause expensive) and she'd be shouting at you because that's what you did. Be brief, loud, hang up as soon as possible. That's what pilots still do. My grand mother was born during WW I (not II) and she's been dead for nearly 20 years.

The aviation world is very conservative with new/better/any technology. They stick with "what works". Even if arguably it barely works. Like pretty much the vast majority of radio exchanges between pilots and controllers over VHF radio. Learning how to talk on the radio is the second hardest part of getting an instrument rating. The only thing that's harder is flying a plane with zero visibility ... while suffering extreme information overload because of the constant radio chatter and dealing with confused/stressed/pissed off controllers who have to juggle you and 20 other planes.

A lot of radio exchanges are routine exchanges that involve very basic information: call signs, transponder codes, codes for approaches/departures, courses, altimeter settings, altitudes, weather information, etc. And then a lot of double checking the other side heard correctly, repeating back what you heard, etc. Radio communication compensates for the lack of a more robust/sane way of exchanging information. There literally is no way for a controller to send you information in written format. Other than using their private phones. So, it all gets spelled out over low quality VHF radio.

There's no good technical reason to not do something vastly more reliable, less intrusive, and less error prone. Some might say safer. Many planes have star link connections these days. The passengers get better connectivity than the pilot. They could be having video calls with the controller with crystal clear audio from anywhere on this planet instead of yelling to them over VHF only when they are in range. They could be sending each other emails, documents, digital maps, and lots of other machine readable information, etc. Not a thing.

It's more a challenge of agreeing on what such a vastly better thing would be and then updating each and every plane and tower, airport, controller world wide with equipment that supports that. Add design by committee to the mix and the "state of the art" is something that would make any competent engineer born after 1970 blush.

> This is how phones sounded half a century ago. "can you hear me .... are you there ..... can you talk louder ...."

No, landlines in 1975 sounded outstanding. I didn’t hear the phrase “can you hear me now” until I got my first oki (1992?)

YouTube is not a good representation of what you hear in a headset. Half the time the mic taps aren't impedence matched and sound like shit.

Besides that, most "controlling" (i.e. instructions that require action) comms have a handshake of sorts - the pilot repeats back the instruction for the controller to confirm. They don't just bark out instructions and hope you heard it, they listen for you to read them back, and will keep doing so until successful. So, even in cases when the comms are degraded, you will go back and forth until there has been positive confirmation (readback) you heard the instruction correctly (or they'll just give you a new frequency).

> A lot of radio exchanges are routine exchanges that involve very basic information: call signs, transponder codes, codes for approaches/departures, courses, altimeter settings, altitudes, weather information, etc.

They are also in a fairly standardized format with reserved "keywords" for many important aspects of operation ("hold short", "line up and wait", "cleared to X"):

* https://skybrary.aero/sites/default/files/bookshelf/115.pdf

English is the lingua franca of ATC, but it is recognized it is obviously not everyone's first language.

Honestly a lot of those recordings probably do sound a lot worse than the radio audio. I rarely see YouTube recordings that are as audible as the radio is in person. Here's what seems to be the reason:

The common splitters you can buy to break out your headset connector to a recorder don't account for the signal level, which is very high on the headset connectors as aviation headsets are traditionally pretty high impedance. I've struggled with the headset audio blowing out even a fairly nice recorder (a Zoom) with the gain turned all the way down. Phones and pocket reporters don't even offer a gain adjustment and the recording can end up almost unusable. In a lot of YouTube videos of pilots, even most, it's pretty obvious that it's clipping at the recorder the whole time. Perhaps even worse, a lot of people are using like a GoPro with auto-gain, so you get the worst of both worlds: it ramps up gain until the noise is loud, and then when someone starts talking, it ramps down the gain, but a little too slowly, and it's still clipping even when it hits minimum.

It's not very common to have trouble understanding the controller when in the air. AM radio at line of sight (as is the case when you're flying) is pretty robust. Maybe the hardest thing to understand are helicopter pilots because there's often rotor noise on their end.

>>>They could be having video calls with the controller with crystal clear audio from anywhere on this planet instead of yelling to them over VHF only when they are in range.

Your forgetting about latency, which matters when you are trying to land an airplane. Also who cares if you could talk to the aircraft from anywhere in the world with different technology? The only thing that matters is there is a low latency audio connection between the traffic controller and all the planes coming in. Direct line of site VHF communications is better in every conceivable metric then any alternative. It has nothing to do with old technology or design by committee.

Besides the "we already have it everywhere" bit, the big advantage of analog AM over UHF/VHF is that it degrades fairly gracefully. As you're getting too far away the signal gets harder to pick out from the noise, but it's not an all-or-nothing digital signal.

That doesn't matter much over Washington DC, but when you get out towards the western half of the country the transmitters are a lot more widely spread out. There's mountains in the way. There's limitations to how low you can be and still be reachable, which sometimes has to be balanced against how high a GA plane can comfortably fly, or oxygen requirements for the occupants.

A better sounding "modern" system is generally going to be worse at handling those marginal situations, which would probably require building a lot more radio outposts in fairly remote areas to compensate.

But the big problem with requiring anything new is getting it into the existing fleet of thousands of decades old certified aircraft. You need a new radio stack. You probably need new antennas. Changing anything on certified aircraft needs tons of paperwork and things like Supplemental Type Certificates for each individual model of aircraft that make it cost 5-50x what you'd think it should cost. Military aircraft are probably 10x worse beyond that.

A handheld COM radio is maybe $200 from Sporty's. Take basically the same thing but package it as a basic Garmin COM radio (GTR 205) and it's now $2,300. If you want a NAV radio in it too (GNC 215) now it's $5,400. Add GPS and ADSB-Out (GNX 375) and now you're at $9,000. You can buy an entire currently airworthy (really old) plane for maybe $30,000.

For some uses you don't even have to have any radio or transponder/ADSB installed on your aircraft. Some aircraft don't even have an electrical power system to run one. Granted they're not allowed in the middle of Washington DC, but still trying to require the entire fleet gets fancy new digital radios would be a monumental challenge and fantastically expensive.

There are some existing better ways to communicate. Larger planes usually have CPDLC (Controller Pilot Data Link Communications), which is basically text messaging from ATC to the plane avionics. That's how they receive their IFR clearance at major airports. In an airliner you're not generally reading it out over the radio and scribbling out your "CRAFT" acronym on a scratchpad like you see on YouTube. (Even your 4-seat steam gauge Cessna can do this via PDC (Pre-Departure Clearance) at supported airports with something like ForeFlight on an iPad).

CPDLC can also be used in the air to communicate less time-sensitive things like altitude changes and reroutes, talking to the operations department of the airline, etc. There's no reason you couldn't put this in smaller GA planes and towers, other than cost.

Airliners that do transatlantic and -pacific routes also have satellite communications instead of using old-school HF radios (which are even worse than VHF).

I think the crash was at 8:22 or 8:21, you can hear sudden commotion at that time.

In the video from the webcam there's another plane which is much easier to see. Could they have asked about "the aircraft" and the helicopter pilot mistook which one they referred to? "yes I can see the plane flying much higher"

It's possible but generally there's implied context to ATC. ATC would only instruct you to watch out for possible vector interceptions. flying over an approach path, the context would be that you would look for aircraft on approach, not ones in holding or other patterns above.

That said, it's possible they mistook which aircraft to look for, but it's unlikely imho and we will likely never know for sure, as I would presume the pilots are deceased.

I got a lesson in how ATC works with helicopters up close and personal on a helicopter tour. ATC had the helo pilot hold position while an airplane was on final approach. I asked the pilot why we needed to hold as we could clearly see the aircraft and were to my lack of knowledge on the subject "plenty" far away. (It actually took me a second to locate the airplane as my sense of scale was not expecting the plane to be so small which is part of why I made the assumption we were plenty far away.) That's when the pilot told me we were not in the way of the approach but if the pilot had to declare a miss (or whatever they call it) and climb to circle around. The helo was near the path for the plane on the abort flight path. Once the plane was on the ground, ATC allowed us to continue.

It was my first experience in an aircraft seeing how ATC controlled the airspace directly. Lots of respect to the folks in ATC with a fraction of understanding in just how much they have to deal with other than the obvious take-off/landings.

There was a second American Airlirns flight only a couple miles and a thousand feet higher in altitude in the same approach course. You can actually see it in the video that’s circulating.

It's pretty dang easy to misjudge distances and closing rates in a plane or helicopter, especially at night.

Is this true for the trained pilots as well?

It's next to impossible to know at night.

The only thing you have visually is direction / angular velocity.

And if you're on a collision course the other vehicle will appear motionless, with no change in direction.

If the airliners was approaching faster than the helicopter it could have been approaching from behind. How large is the field of view of a UH-60?

Yes.

No, that aircraft (having taken off from Reagan, visible in the full not-cropped videos) is close to the Kennedy Center camera but is nowhere near where the CRJ and helicopter were.

> easier to see.

One has radars even on recreational boats. That was a military helicopter. At night. It would be hard to believe that it doesn't have nor radar nor IR cameras, and the plane would be lightened up like X-mas tree in both.

Marine radar is trivial compared to air-to-air radar. The Black Hawk, like most aircraft, does not have an air-to-air radar. IR cameras would be completely inappropriate for the situation but night vision goggles are a possibility I guess - though still have all the same drawbacks as using your eyes - you have to look in the right direction and recognise what that small dot is that you’re seeing.

>Marine radar is trivial compared to air-to-air radar.

like in the case of a boat, the air-to-air radar is still peanuts compare to the cost of the plane/helicopter

>The Black Hawk, like most aircraft, does not have an air-to-air radar.

Pretty surprising for the military. You'd like to know when an enemy fighter or a missile coming for you. And military frequently operates in the territories without any ATC, so you'd like to see even the friendly planes and helicopters too. Say at night over Iraq.

And even without radar - simple ADS-B receiver attached to notebook plotting onto the screen of the notebook would be a great improvement in that situation over DC or anywhere over US.

> IR cameras would be completely inappropriate for the situation ...recognise what that small dot is that you’re seeing.

in visual at night you have a sea of city lights with some low flying lights you can easily mistake for ground lights. In IR all those city lights would pretty much disappear, while the plane's engines and exhaust would be a very bright light against very dark background of the sky.

>>The Black Hawk, like most aircraft, does not have an air-to-air radar.

>Pretty surprising for the military. You'd like to know when an enemy fighter or a missile coming for you.

I'd guess the answer to "when is an enemy missile heading towards me" would usually be "shortly after you turn on your radar transmitter and reveal your location"...

Lack of air search radar on military utility transport helicopters is only surprising to aggressively ignorant people who can't be bothered to do a few minutes of basic research. Even some tactical jets that operate over hostile territory lack air search radar, although they do have other defensive systems.

The air-to-air radar is not necessarily peanuts compared to the helicopter. A recent sale of blackhawks to Greece was priced at 1.95B for 35 helos. A past sale of 36 Apache Longbow radars and support to Korea was priced at 3.6B.

A helo is a sitting duck for a fighter so what would it do anyways. AEW will tell the helicopter about a fighter and vector them to safety. An active military radar will only be lit when necessary.

I do agree that an iPad with flight radar should have been able to help avoid this incident, much less the engineered solution that is warranted in a combat aircraft.

The common mistake with this is seeing a plane, reporting "traffic in sight" but looking at a different plane than the one the controller meant. Especially at night where distance is near impossible the estimate and you can't see differences in types of planes.

I have no extra information on this incident so this is only generic input.

Do you want to post a link the recording?

it's linked in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42874330

It wasn't a police chopper, it was a military VH-60, also known as a "White Hawk" [1]. It's a VIP transport helicopter, the same type that is used to transport the president.

~The flight track of the helicopter [2] starts at a property in McLean, VA (edited to remove likely inaccurate info)~

The chopper was based out of Fort Belvoir, and based on similar past flight tracks, looks like it probably took off from there too. CNN is reporting that there were 3 soldiers onboard, and no VIPs.

1: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_VH-60N_White_Hawk

2: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d&lat=38.952&lon=-...

> The flight track of the helicopter starts at a property in McLean, VA

that's almost certainly not where the flight started, due to intricacies of how this sort of flight tracking works.

if you look at [0] it has tracks of both flights. toggle the right-hand sidebar, if it's not open already, and you'll see a table containing both planes. the helicopter (PAT25) is yellow, the plane (JIA5342) is blue. the legend right below that explains the color-coding - the plane's data came from ADS-B, while the helicopter's data came from multilateration (MLAT).

MLAT [1, 2] works by having multiple ADS-B feeder stations cooperate in real-time and deduce an aircraft's position based on timestamps of when the signal is received. it allows tracking aircraft that only broadcast the more limited Mode S data, instead of the newer and more detailed ADS-B.

because it requires multiple cooperating receivers, the start of the track in suburban McLean does not mean it took off from there. it just means that was the point in its flight where it became visible to enough receivers that MLAT was able to pin down a position.

you can also see this difference just by looking at the tracks - the plane is broadcasting its own position continuously, so its track is nice and smooth. meanwhile the helicopter's flight looks "jagged" in a way that does not match what its actual flight path would have been. this is an artifact of the small errors introduced by MLAT.

0: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d,a97753

1: https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/

2: https://adsbx.discourse.group/t/multilateration-mlat-how-it-...

And just to be clear, the POTUS/super-special VIP transport is run by the USMC out of Quantico[1], a bit further to the south along the Potomac. Belvoir is US Army, and does have VIP heelicopters (obviously), but it's not the same group that lands at the White House.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMX-1 They have some Ospreys and other things as well, but HMX-1 is the most famous and recognizable.

[2] shows the helicopter taking off 2 miles away from the old saudi embassy in McLean marked “permanently closed” on google maps. (The current embassy is in DC proper, directly across the river from DCA airport)

I don’t think thats strong evidence that it took off from the old Saudi Embassy - thats pretty far away even given your caveat about accuracy.

Edit: it looks to me like the black hawk was coming from somewhere else with its ADS-B turned off entirely, and then turned on ADS-B once it reached the potomac to approach DCA. The first two datapoints of that flight already show it going 110mph, which its unlikely to be able to accelerate to in just 0.2miles after take off.

Edit 2: The route also looks very similar to this flight from 11 days earlier (but reversed in direction): https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/PAT25 This shows the Blackhawk at 300 feet passing by DCA on what seems like a routine or training flight? I don't know how to look up historical flights to see if this is a commonly-flown route. On that flight, the Black Hawk flew past DCA at 300 feet of altitude, and the last FlightAware data for the American Eagle passenger flight showed 400 feet of altitude.

I didn't say it took off from the old embassy. The flight track starts at the backyard of a house that is currently owned by the embassy. You can see the owner of that property by searching that address here (the site doesn't support a direct link): https://icare.fairfaxcounty.gov/ffxcare/search/commonsearch....

That house doesn't seem to have enough clearance vs the trees to land a helo. Note that Langley (CIA) is nearby.

Thank you!

Regarding your edit: that's a good point, but the vertical ascent rate of the chopper at those first few data points shows 400-800 feet per minute, which is consistent with a chopper taking off...'

edit: your second edit makes me think you're right though, tonight's flight track was pretty consistent with the past flight track where it looks like it both took off from and landed at Fort Belvoir.

811 Lawton St, Mc Lean, VA 22101 Name: SAUDIA ARABIA ROYAL EMBASSY OF, Mailing Address: 8500 HILLTOP RD STE 301 C/O FINANCIAL DIRECTOR FAIRFAX VA 22031 4310

Note that that track is not ADS-B at all. It’s triangulated from mode S pings (“MLAT”, https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/). I don’t know how accurate these are.

CNN is reporting the helicopter came from Fort Belvoir.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was...

The helicopter seems like it is typically stationed at Fort Belvoir. Does "out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia" strictly mean that the helicopter's flight started at Fort Belvoir, or that the helicopter itself is considered to be "out of Fort Belvoir" in a similar manner that LeBron James could be said to be "out of Akron, OH"?

The current embassy is indeed in DC proper, but it isn't directly across the river from DCA.

It's about a mile upriver, near the Watergate.

Military flights do not fly ADB hot outside of the DC FRZ. It was also clearly exactly following flight route 4.

There are a few locations in that area it could have been coming from. Anything else would have made no sense flying through the FRZ from/to Belvoir.

What is "flight route 4"?

The FAA publishes supplemental charts specifically for helicopters in areas with high concentrations of helicopter activity: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/productc...

Specifically the Baltimore-Washington route chart was relevant for these flights: https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/10-31-2024/PDFs/Balt-Wash_Hel...

If you find the DCA airport on that chart, you’ll find routes 1 and 4 which roughly correspond to the helicopter’s flight path.

Right.

Helicopter was on Helicopter Route 4, per the map, apparently on course.

Aircraft was on approach to Runway 33, apparently on course.

That helicopter route crosses the approach to runway 33.

That's controlled airspace. How did they both have clearance to be there?

We'll know more tomorrow as all the audio and radar recordings are examined.

That was clearly a training flight

But does that provide any context? Military pilots perform training flights regularly - it's not necessarily indicative of an inexperienced pilot.

Not really. I wasn't a pilot, just a lowly ABF in the Navy. But when we deployed, on an LHD, most of our flights were what you could probably "classify" as training. We ran flight ops every day because pilots have to maintain hours. We flew every day for 7 months and only 2-3 of those months were we in the gulf. And even in the gulf, not all flights were missions, I would say less than half were. That also isn't counting 4-6 months prior to deployment of work ups where we would go out to sea for a week and come back, everyday pilots flew training missions off our deck. All in all, all in the military probably spend most of their air time training then actually flying missions.

I also recall, even experienced pilots, would rotate out to training units as their "shore" (break from a deploy able unit) duty.

This wasn't a Navy aircraft, but I imagine a lot of that is the same regardless of branch.

It's a "Gold Top", callsign PAT25

https://helicoptersofdc.com/helicopters/5-us-army-12th-aviat...

BBC is reporting that the Army has confirmed that it was a UH-60, not a VH-60, ie: not a VIP transport: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy7kxx74yxlt?post=asset%3A62b9...

Although it's early on and these communications are often chaotic/inaccurate.

I thought it was a VH-60 given that it was callsign PAT25 (PAT is Priority Air Transport and they use the VH-60 for those flights), but if this was a training flight, they may have still used the PAT callsign while flying a UH-60.

Both are "Black Hawk" airframes, right? The VH-60 variant is just a UH-60 that was build/configured for VIP transport vs the normal UH-60 utility variant.

IE, other than paint, they look the same to a casual observer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-30/washingto... | https://archive.today/n1ark

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was... (CNN live updates)

https://old.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1idbkyd/crash_at_dc...

https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1idba8i/plane_cra...

https://x.com/aletweetsnews/status/1884789306645983319

https://archive.liveatc.net/kdca/KDCA1-Twr-Jan-30-2025-0130Z... | https://web.archive.org/web/20250130025411/https://archive.l... (event starts at 17:25)

https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200... contains the ATC feed in addition to the PAT-25 (helo) radio.

~5:41 mark 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33. ~6:45 mark PAT-25 reports Memorial ~7:06 mark tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation ~8:12 mark tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation. ~8:21 mark, crash occurs, exclamations, go arounds issued

I'm impressed by your, and their, hearing comprehension here! Granted, English isn't my native language but even with concentration I struggle to hear what they say.

It's easy to forget how many skills and "heuristics" go into listening. I once read a scale of language proficiency that placed "Can converse over a poor phone connection" at a very high level. When a word is garbled or lost, you have to quickly think of all the possible words that could've fit the grammar and whatever sound you heard, consider them in the context, and choose one or two. Then the next part of the conversation should let you pick one. Then add the complication of not seeing body language.

I forget where I read this. I think it was from the US Department of State, but I can't find it now.

Previous experience with aviation radio comms helps a lot. Typical radio comms essentially follow a template, and it’s done in a way where you can safely approximate a LOT (…just not numbers). But the…phraseology if you will, can be approximated quite easily with experience.

Funnily enough, American ATC / pilots are, I find, a lot more frequently ‘fast and loose’ compared to other areas, even English-speaking ones. Countless recordings online of EALD pilots being befuddled by some self-identified hotshot air traffic controller using overly casual / sloppy language, sometimes resulting in near misses or worse.

Any takeaways from this? ATC not responding with separation but Blackhawk continuing anyway?

BBC live updates: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy7kxx74yxlt

Obviously it will take some time for the full accident analysis but there have been quite a few near misses lately due to air traffic controller errors. Flight volume has been growing, airspace near airports is more congested, and controllers are overworked. Eventually all of the "Swiss cheese" holes line up. We're going to need to hire more controllers.

Also, it appears that one of the aircraft was a military (not police) H-60 Blackhawk helicopter.

Hiring controllers is not easy. A friend's daughter just went through the hiring process. She graduated from college with an appropriate degree right as COVID hit. Her FAA application wasn't accepted for four years.

This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Again, applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. She passed. Only half her class of 20 passed. In the prior class, only 4 of 15 passed.

She declined the position when they could not offer a position within reasonable proximity of her family. She, too, may not re-enter the program. On top of all that, the program has strict age requirements because there's a mandatory retirement age (55, I believe).

There isn't a large pool of applicants and the percentage of successful ones is not high. Considering the amount of lives on the line, it's understandable the hiring criteria is strict. All told, it's not an easy position to fill and even explicit efforts to increase the number of applicants will take years. Just like many other skilled fields.

Their candidate success rate would probably be higher if they weren’t rejecting the vast majority of their most-qualified applicants for reasons that are clearly pretextual: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

Another problem is the maximum entry age for the ATC school - if you are over the age of 31 you can't apply.

Not being allowed to re-enter the program is just insane.

And current controllers are often working 60-70+ weeks because of the understaffing...

This is, justifiably, very similar to nuclear reactor operators. Pay needs to reflect the working conditions to attract more people (it does for reactor operators).

> appropriate degree

what's considered an appropriate degree for ATC?

In addition, ATC is not allowed to go on strike, limiting the degree to which they can bargain for better working conditions, pay, etc.

> the four-week interactive online courses

Yikes, is that paid, or is the candidate supposed to do that on their own time?

> In addition, the White House has put a hiring freeze in place, prohibiting the replacement of open government positions or the creation of new ones while the administration evaluates reductions in the workforce. The White House plans to release a memorandum with further guidance within 90 days. This has drawn criticism from lawmakers as the FAA has been ramping up controller hiring.

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2025-0...

Meanwhile, San Carlos Airport (KSQL, near San Francisco) is going ATC-zero on February 1st. The tower will be unstaffed.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CASMATEO/bulletins/...

"The FAA has awarded a new contract for air traffic services at SQL to Robinson Aviation (RVA). However, the contract does not include locality pay to account for the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, RVA’s employment offers to current SQL controllers were significantly lower than their current compensation under SERCO. Understandably, all current controllers have declined RVA’s offers."

"Given that the FAA is ultimately responsible for ensuring air traffic services at SQL, we requested temporary FAA staffing for the tower—a solution currently being implemented at Eagle Airport in Colorado during its transition from SERCO to RVA. However, the FAA informed us this morning that they will not provide temporary personnel for SQL"

I've been working towards my private pilot license at San Carlos and I don't know what's going to happen if they can't find someone to do this job. The airport can get very busy sometimes and it seems like it could be dangerous to have nobody working the tower.

I sympathize with the ATC workers though. It's ridiculous that they can't pay them a decent wage for the area, there's only two of them as far as I know.

In fairness to the current administration, while the hiring freeze may have impacted ATC hiring, that is not causal here. No one hired last week would have been running things today (if they were hit with the freeze).

Is there an actual reason why the control tower work can't be fully automated? For train control lights we almost don't rely on human operators anywhere.

Wow, a controller can be hired and on the job in less than a week?

To quote the order itself:

> This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.

ATC surely falls under public safety. Additionally, the ATC issues stretch well back into the Biden term, and you can find plenty of articles discussing the controversy elsewhere.

https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/01/broad-exemptions-t...

> President Trump signed an executive order instituting the freeze on Monday shortly after his inauguration, but allowed for exceptions for positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety.

Important to read the details! There will be lots of misinformation as people invoke the minority of critical jobs as cover to defend the less critical ones.

I believe this happened in DC SFRA, which is a 30-mile radius specially controlled airspace due to the level of traffic and national security interests.

And we also did make it basically impossible for ATC workers to strike, so its not like the ATC workers could have said "fix this shit so people don't die or we will strike" because they can't really and anyone who says it anyways alone is going to be given the boot and blacklisted from the job. Not to mention the amount of training and effort needed to become one in the first place with basically zero job security or recourse if you make the wrong person angry.

Not that being near DC affords me any kind of right to an opinion, but:

Given the uptick in near miss incidents across the US the last few years, this is the kind of incident that should've been entirely avoidable through changes in policy from these past events but is also apparently the only kind that can spur along policy changes. I can see a world where the fault is on the VH-60, but absent more information, it would surprise me less to hear that it's the fault of the tower.

Knowing where AA5342 was in its approach, I see no possibility of the jet being at fault.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL5342

I'm drawing a lot of early conclusions but it's mostly because I'm just not surprised. Angry as someone who flies a bunch, but not surprised.

Regulations are written in blood, which is why it's such a disservice to indiscriminately tear it all down. We will re-learn the same lessons and people will pay for those lessons with their lives.

Some regulations are written and blood but some regulations are written to cover someone's ass and the two should not be treated equally. We shouldn't give equal respect to the Federal Aviation Regulations and to OPM's Qualification Standards for Federal Jobs; doing so deligitamizes the importance of the former.

> Regulations are written in blood, which is why it's such a disservice to indiscriminately tear it all down. We will re-learn the same lessons and people will pay for those lessons with their lives.

And which regulation was eliminated that caused this?

I have a feeling from your comment that you know more about aviation than you are letting on, and the part about being in DC not giving you a right to an opinion seems pretty silly in that context.

blancolirio (active pilot who regularly makes videos about crahses with the aim of improving safety) just released a new video on this accident: https://youtu.be/_3gD_lnBNu0

Summary: The helicopter might have been a little bit too high. The night vision goggles might have negatively affected the vision. The two aircraft were probably on different frequencies so didn’t hear each other. And the helicopter might have focused on the wrong plane to avoid because they didn’t see the right one thanks to the city skyline. It looks like the classic swiss cheese where multiple problems stacked up to cause the collision. See the video for details.

Wouldn’t the aircraft see the helicopter?

Air traffic controllers are staffed at 65% across the US. Budget cuts and turnover are cited. Meanwhile the FAA is being rattled to its core by the Orange One.

This seems to be a resolved problem and one that we shouldn't have in this era. An unnecessary tragedy.

Reagan should have been shut down for commercial use many moons ago.

It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians.

>It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians.

DCA is open to the public.

Not disagreeing, but is there something particularly wrong with DCA?

I sometimes wonder about the value of these news stories on forums and social media.

It's all pretty much wild speculation with several potential causes already mentioned on this forum.

News important yes, every rando with a few shreds of factoids speculating, not so much.

Anything about civilian air safety is like catnip for nerds. It is the ultimate armchair nerd sport -- speculating about reasons for a civilian air crash. I guess this discussion will be more than 1,000 comments before its heat-death.

Here we get air traffic controller recordings, and people who are ammeter pilots. It is more informed speculation than my "normal" friends or co-workers.

I suspect moderately informed, but not completely informed, is the worst kind of speculation. It has a sense of authority and knowledge that is hard to pinpoint its accuracy.

Almost all the amateur theories in here, just by the variety, are going to be dead wrong.

It just sounds more informed. Just like all the "amateur" physicists who speculate on theoretical physics posts on HN.

I’ve been saying something similar to friends recently. We have access to a bit Too much news for our own good.

Here, I get ATC transcripts and learn about the helicopter flight paths. Traditional news describes an airliner with 60 people on board as a “small plane.”

In this case there is no or negative value. Wait for the facts, avoid the noise and wild speculation.

But my dopamine…

Well, last night when there were only 10 comments here, the essentials of what had happened were available from those comments. Meanwhile the mainstream news TV I was watching at the same time was presenting either zero information, or false information (e.g. that 4 survivors had been rescued).

Don't you know? If a person can program in Rust and Kotlin, that makes him an expert in every other field, too.

I've seen at least one "why don't you just <misunderstanding of how aviation works>" upthread already. Can't believe this flavor of tech hubris is running the country now. No wonder the goddamn planes are falling out of the sky...

Yes, tons of speculation, and very little clear basic facts.

When I clicked, I expected to find the comments interesting (since I worked in a small corner of flight safety), but, skimming through, I kept feeling aversion to threads.

Most modern news organizations aren't much better.

Let's go back to AI non-stop 24/7, hallucinations are saner.

I come to hn for the speculations.

Oh man. I’m in Wichita and am getting a bunch of texts.

Texted my friends that fly that route regularly and most have texted back.

It can all be gone in an instant, tell those you love what they mean to you.

edit: everyone is accounted for

> everyone is accounted for

Happy to hear that.

Thank you!

DCA has two runways. The longer runway is aligned with the river’s north/south direction at that point, so planes flying the approach to this runway from the south track along the western shore of the river, leaving the eastern shore clear for other aircraft like helicopters. The vast majority of flights on approach from the south [1] use this longer runway.

The secondary runway is set at a diagonal NW/SE. Planes flying an approach from the south follow the river at first, but then loop out over the eastern shore of the river to line up on that runway. To my eye the radar track of the downed flight follows this path. It’s possible since it was a small plane and only small planes can use the diagonal runway—it’s shorter.

I mention this because this track takes planes into airspace that is a) usually clear of commercial airplane traffic, and b) directly over military facilities like Naval Research Lab and Joint Base Bolling, which have significant military helicopter travel.

Basically, I wonder to what extent the helicopter pilot was surprised to find an airplane descending in that location.

[1] When flights are approaching from the north, the main runway requires a pretty sharp right turn seconds before touching down. Approaches to the diagonal runway from the north take planes almost directly over the Pentagon.

The press conference this morning mentioned that this was a new flight path. I wonder if the helicopter crew were not fully briefed on the new path, if that is the case.

I work at NRL, east of DCA and about 500 yards south of the crash. Can confirm that it is not unusual for flights to pass directly overhead of us, however I don’t understand the statement that this was a new flight path.

What it means is that the aircraft was on approach into runway 1 (ILS) and then on ATC instruction changed runway to 33 (no ILS). This required a "jog" in flight path -- a slight right turn followed by a left turn, to account for the different orientation between the runways. You can see the turns on the ADS data. Crash happened right at the end of the second turn.

It wasn't a surprise, the ATC recording is out there already [0], also while it's a less common approach path it's not exactly new or that unusual military traffic has to deal with the commercial traffic all the time in that area.

[0] Crash happens around 8:21 the chopper pilot is advised of and reports traffic in sight at around 7:06 and 8:12 https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...

In looking at the radar recording, the plane appears to be approaching from the south going north (very slightly east), than diverts northwest to land on the runway, as you describe.

Anecdotally, the amount of helicopter & air traffic going on around DC has been absurd this month.

My house in DC has calmed down some but we had a bunch of low flying fighters jets & helicopters for a bit. It's been wild having the house shaken at noon or 1:00 from pairs of fighter jets!

I've had an in-week around Tysons this week, and it's been wild seeing pair after pair after pair of helicopter flying east towards the city this week. I'm normally up there once or twice a week and usually there's nothing like this.

Agreed. Why so many heli's to McClean? Are they just too stingy to pay the I66 toll in the afternoon?

I work at a Navy installation on the Potomac just south of DCA. As of 10 am EST today there was a moderate police and rescue presence on the water. There is a significant amount of debris visible floating in the river, and the boats are fishing it out piece by piece. The only things in the air are a handful of helicopters, presumably related to the search operation.

This will be the worst disaster since Colgan in 2009 which is the crash that upped the hours requirement for ATP pilots from 250 to 1500 even though both pilots had over 1500 hours. I think this is going to be a very big deal and very quickly become a political football. Regardless, this is absolutely awful and extremely unfortunate.

This is an often repeated misconception. ATP always needed 1500 hours. What wasn’t required is for both pilots to have an ATP, just the captain - the flight officer only needed a commercial certificate. Airlines would hire with lower hours and train on the job.

While both pilots in the crash did have over 1500 hours, the flight officer did not in fact hold an ATP. The rule also changed some of the ATP training requirements, and there were other regulation changes on duty cycles, etc.

It’s very possible we’ve had a run of good luck since 2009. It’s also possible some of the rule changes helped. I wouldn’t dismiss that possibility too quickly.

https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/notice/n_8900.225....

Early indications are that the airliner and ATC were operating as planned, and the immediate cause of the crash was the military helicopter.

Damn. We’ve avoided a US airliner having a fatal crash since 2009.

It's a crazy accomplishment really, unimaginable how safe US commercial airplanes have been in the last two decades

So sad that streak finally ended

As someone working in aviation safety, this is heartbreaking and awful to watch. The efforts of CAST and ASIAS in reducing aviation safety accidents have been very successful, but of course we still have so much to do.

There have been incidents that were just saved by luck (eg losing door in flight). And Too many near misses.

And in such an avoidable way, too.

There was a fatality on a Southwest flight in 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380

> fatal crash

But yes, you're right to point that out.

Not a US airliner, but in the US: Asiana Airlines Flight 214

Although Air Canada Flight 759 was far too close for comfort and should be classified as a failure of the system, even if it did not result in an accident.

I'm sorry, doesn't matter who you support, but to blame DEI or former presidents for this is just shameful.

They found a new scapegoat. They blame public employees, they just advised all air traffic controllers to find a job in the private sector after this crash.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/us/politics/federal-worke...

And yet, completely unsurprising. I know there is no limit to how low this pathetic human being can go.

DEI is the new catch-all boogeyman.

My take is that the emperor has no clothes, and most people around him are simply too afraid to say anything. The rest have something to gain from his current anti-DEI fixation.

I fully expect Trump to blame every future scandal, accident, crisis, etc. on DEI.

The Trump killings have started

If anyone needs a palate cleanser after listening to a depressing ATC recording, I can recommend this heartwarming first time solo flying teenager dealing with her landing gear coming off after takeoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5q7Iv5wTM

The amount of times i've wtched this video needing an excuse to feel hype is greater than 10.

Her personal instructor finally arriving ("Maggie it's john") and Maggie starting to normalize the situation/making professonal raido calls really show the power of humanity working through struggle.

Gods, her "OK" at 30seconds is fucking heart wrenching.

The absolute terror she must have felt. All she could probably think of was that she was not going to survive that flight.

Though it sounds like she successfully landed it without any injury.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Probably the most wholesome, scary, heartening thing I've seen this year.

I’ve watched this countless times and I’ll watch it countless times more.

This was great, thanks!

We really can't have this type of accident, a midair collision happen anywhere in the United States, much less the nation's capital, especially considering the Washington area is some of the highest controlled airspace in the country. DCA has been a high-risk airport really since the jet-age, and I have a feeling this might be the end of it as a major passenger airport (at least for Part 121 operations). DOT/FAA are really going to need to step up after this and figure it out, for good. I hope there are survivors but it is really cold in that water right now, look up Air Florida flight 90 for a completely different accident, but in a similar time of the year.

Unfortunately it's not gonna happen. The traffic at DCA only keeps going up, and I've heard chatter that it's because a lot of congressman and senators prefer taking flights from DCA instead of driving to Dulles or BWI.

Cities should have convenient airports

Maybe the evtol technology will alleviate this dilemma

We’ve gone this long without an accident, what’s to say we’re not gonna learn the hard lesson from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again?

> DOT/FAA are really going to need to step up after this and figure it out, for good.

Yeah. First, we should fill the currently vacant US Secretary of Transportation role. Then we should fill the currently vacant FAA Administrator role. Then we should fill the FAA Deputy Administrator role [0]. Then we should fill the currently vacant DoT Inspector General role that Trump just opened up by illegally firing this watchdog without the required 30 days notice to Congress [1]. Then we can start investigating.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20250129122818/https://www.faa.g...

[1] https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2025/01/trump-fires-multip...

I wonder if this administration's firing of many FAA civil positions and the federal worker "buyouts" are responsible.

The intelligent response would be "probably not, but we'll see what the investigation says".

But imagine if the tables were turned politically. Fox News would be going off 24/7 about "DEI" or some such for weeks on end. That strategy seems to be successful, so I would expect the other side to start employing it more as well.

Having a bunch of harried, overworked people stressed about their jobs and the future certainly doesn't help anything, in any case.

Yea I had the same thought, its a ticky-tacky thing to say right now, but I wouldn't expect any more from the other side either.

RW media and the POTUS himself is making the dubious claim that DEI practices are responsible for low standards of hiring for air traffic controllers in the FAA during the Biden presidency.

I don't think POTUS was serious because he also claimed people shouldn't be hesitant to fly.

'He is later asked by a reporter if people should be hesitant to fly, and he says: "No, not at all."'

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy7kxx74yxlt

There is no Fox News equivalent for the left, though. In fact, most of the US media seems to be owned by or otherwise aligned with the right.

Just learned about it here: https://fallows.substack.com/p/it-had-been-16-years-since-a-...

Likely more affected are learning about the aftermath via investigation, but I am not sure.

Edit: No wait, that article mentioned the disbanding of Aviation Security Advisory Committee a week ago.

I'll bite. How are you thinking that might've contributed to the crash?

As long as it also affects the investigation to find out its all the same to a psychopath.

To put this in perspective, this is the first fatal crash of a US commercial airliner in 16 years (Colgan Air Flight 3407 on February 12, 2009) and the first fatal commercial airliner crash in the United States in 12 years (since Asiana Airlines Flight 214 on July 6, 2013).

We like to throw shade at Boeing, the FAA etc, but this is still an incredible accomplishment, especially given the explosive growth of traffic over those years. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were far fewer flights but multiple crashes every year was the norm.

There is simply no reason to use the statistical safety of air travel to excuse incidents. We can appreciate the incredible feats of engineering and logistics that make air travel so safe without letting the bar dip down or throwing up our hands and saying "well it can't be perfect, don't throw shade" when a specific organization has a specific incident.

Edit: To be clear, I'm referring to what you said, not to the current incident.

We can simultaneously acknowledge this amazing safety record and still want to fix issues that are found.

Well it is objectively true that it can't be perfect.

> We like to throw shade at Boeing, the FAA etc, but this is still an incredible accomplishment, especially given the explosive growth of traffic over those years

To be fair to them, the Boeing-related incidents could have well happened in the US and killed Americans too. And the FAA absolutely refused to do their job until their hand was forced by everyone else - they refused to ground the Maxes until all other major air authorities did. That's also why EASA is involved in the Max recertification, and the 777X certification. Nobody trusts the FAA anymore.

And the fact that the door blowout didn't damage any part of the plane is miraculous - if it had hit the vertical stabiliser, the plane would have been a total loss.

So you're giving credit where very little is due.

That was my thought exactly when I heard of this. I trust that like other major accidents, that we will learn from this and make the skies safer. Sixteen years without a major airline crash was an incredible accomplishment. It's a tragedy it couldn't have gone on longer.

I think Boeing specifically attracts criticism due to all the fatalities outside of the US in that time period.

And the perceived sentiment that those fatalities are directly linked to changes in the corporate culture that emphasized 'greed' and 'middle management power structures' over 'engineering focus'

Not saying these are true - or false - just that the prevalent media coverage and social media commentary (including here on HN) has been touching on these points frequently. The 'good guys' at Boeing were pushed out or silenced, the 'sleazy guys' won and didn't care about the consequences as long as they got their payday

Can you clarify the difference between these?

> first fatal crash of a US commercial airliner

> first fatal commercial airliner crash in the United States

Is it that the 2009 crash was a US-manufactured plane while the 2013 crash was not manufactured in the US but happened in the US?

Actually, the planes from both crashes were Bombardier, a Canadian company. The first one means operated by a US company and the second one refers to a crash in the US.

I believe the distinction the OP was making was foreign-owned/operated airline vs domestic. Makes a small difference, but not hufe, as all commericial pilots landing in the US must have an FAA ATP, and the same minimum flight hours as American pilots (though the quality of those hours and other training may vary).

Operated vs Located

The 2009 crash was a Canadian-manufactured, US-operated plane, located in the US.

The 2013 crash was a US-manufactured, Korean-operated plane, located in the US.

---

The operating county has far more ability to ensure pilot training, maintenance of aircraft, on-board safety procedures, etc.

E.g. the 2013 crash was due to mismanagement of altitude by the (non-US) crew, resulting in crashing short of the runway.

Why is this being framed as airliners fault to begin with.

When a fishingboat gets rammed by an cruise ship it's not "cruise ship collides with fishingboat", its the reverse.

One is a big civilian aircraft thats being tracked and has no way of making sharp course adjustments the other is a 'VIP' with potentially ADS-B off.

Heads should fly at whatever military branch the hellicopter was operated at... but they wont.

Although in terms of risk it is better framed as big ship vs big ship. Because if they touch they are both going down. And both will be constrained in how far they can realistically detect and avoid the other. That is a fact with flying visually and that is why you have instrument flight rules and atc based separation. I know nothing about this location but theoretically ATC could take active steps to avoid conflict. They could change the arrival sequence to allow crossings. Send the arrivals around if need be. The crossing could take place above the airfield or further away to provide more vertical separation. .

From what I've seen, military leaders can and do get fired and blamed for their unit failings, at least more frequently than equivalent corporate leaders do.

I believe the Marine aviation unit supporting the WH operates from the navy base east across from DCA. You can watch them training from the terminal.

Not sure how they or the Army transition the approach ends to the runways, but it’s really close.

Real talk, the helicopter was operating night VFR, right? How is this safe when the jet is moving extremely fast relative to the chopper and the only separation is a visual reference to some navigation lights?

Right or wrong, the US has fewer (but not quite zero) limits on night-time VFR.

This differs from some of the EU, where night VFR can have more stringent operating parameters than day-time VFR.

It’s not. That’s the simple answer. Accident waiting to happen.

Radar replay: https://x.com/avgeekjake/status/1884823071611363833

UHF feed with comms from the military helicopter: https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...

- 5:41 - AA5342 is given instructions for circling to 33

- 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial

- 7:06 - Tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory, PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation

- 8:08 - Tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation

- 8:23 - Crash occurs

more: https://dpaste.com/HDBW79JMX

(no height data, so I ignore the overlay comments on the first video)

sha3-256's 7c608babe5552ac436499978b1a458b3a74ddc7e1d7e5011c6573b724729149e 24a3e23aa97f348ebd8740af83b3b50ae7dd5cd5147e88636b564e93d99d9775

blancolirio: Potomac Mid Air Collision DCA 1/29/25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouDAnO8eMf8

aaand.. it's gone.

archive of the radar replay: https://dpaste.com/3DUG9YWFB

sha3-256: 539b49e57443109cb0aea06209ce142d44a5ccbee16e42e0c71026742fc56703

No, the Twitter/X post is gone but the archives.broadcastify.com link is still good.

The video makes it look like the helicopter crashed into the airplane, not the other way around.

How do you figure? The videos of the crash that I can find on X just show a small airline light suddenly turning into a low-res explosion. (Edit: ah. yes.)

https://x.com/aletweetsnews/status/1884789306645983319

You see the helo coming from the left on the screen while the airliner appears to be descending. The helo must have gotten in the way (as opposed to catching up from behind). The airliner's lights are unmistakable, so how did the helo pilot not notice them? The airliner's pilots might not have had a chance to notice the helo. Since the helo was crossing an active runway approach the fault has to be with them.

there's a dot moving from the left to right that intercepts the airline lights and explodes. I would presume that's the helicopter.

Its on final landing. The small light (helicopter) from the left intersects it.

For the record:

January 20: FAA director fired

January 21: Air Traffic Controller hiring freeze

January 22: Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded

January 28: Buyout/retirement demand sent to existing employees

A CRJ700 crashing into a Black Hawk sounds bad. :/

FR24 shows helicopters from various agencies doing many laps around the site, presumably looking for survivors.

https://i.imgur.com/SykzxUA.png

On the ATC radio archive you can hear the tower asking aircraft if they have lights, can the circle over the east side of the field to help locate survivors

Could be a relevant DEFCON talk: https://youtu.be/KYuBf2HpXJg?si=srOl5T6CY6Lg8HZQ

Sounds like maybe the ADSB was on in this case though.

Sad all round, and I hope that the NTSB, who are pretty good at getting to the bottom of things without getting into finger pointing, will do so.

That said, DC airspace is complicated as hell. You've got very heavily restricted airspace over the city immediately east. VIP natsec/military base facilities on the other side of the Potomac. There are major highways to the north, west, and south of all the approaches. The standard route and safety corridor is along the Potomac river, which is heavily trafficked at all altitudes, with commercial, law enforcement, military, and VIP transport. The CIA is 5 miles up the river and is hardly gonna thank you for dropping out of the sky with no notice. Not an easy place to fly.

PPRUNE has a long thread about the accident at [1]. Usual mixture of perspectives, mostly well informed I think.

[1] https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/663888-aa5342-d...

Are pilots landing at DCA conditioned to ignore TCAS warnings on approach? Would there have been one?

TCAS has a minimum altitude of 700ft AFAIK

It's 900ft AGL and below while descending

(CRJ pilot here)

A real tragedy.

Here on HN someone mentioned after a recent (last year) near miss that the US system was overloading the system and that some tragedy might be incoming. Maybe of the most insightful and heart breaking “competency crisis” related posts I’ve encountered.

It’s probably really early to ask, but in case anyone here is knowledgeable and has any idea: why didn’t TCAS help avoid the accident? Isn’t it designed for such situations where 2 aircrafts collide? Do military crafts not have it or something?

It’s likely both the helicopter and the jet received a TCAS warning. In dense airspaces, those alerts tend to trigger frequently, so there’s a strong chance they may have dismissed it. The CRJ crew might have been aware of the Blackhawk’s presence, but if the other crew had visual contact with the approaching traffic (the CRJ), they might not have felt the need to take further action.

TCAS RAs are inhibited at low altitude.

Too low, most likely.

as others have said, likely too low. tcas is pretty awesome (and yes, most military flights will use it), but it is (deliberately) muted/degraded at low altitudes (i think around 1500feet).

AV Herald has a great summary and discussion: https://avherald.com/h?article=52374362&opt=0

Does anyone have the flight path for the helicopter? (Tail number PAT25). FlightAware doesn't show it but it might have been tracked by open source ADS-B receivers.

This helicopter was often utilized for VIP transport.

PAT25 would be a temporary military flight call sign, not a tail number. US military aircraft don't have FAA "N" registration numbers like civilian aircraft do. Military aircraft do have official numbers but those aren't used for ATC or radio communications.

In this particular case it appears that the "PAT" part is an acronym for Priority Air Travel. In other words, it was a VIP transport flight (there may not have been any VIPs actually on board at the time).

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d

Note: This is MLAT, not ADSB-Out data.

https://skybrary.aero/articles/multilateration

"Trump blames diversity rules under his predecessors, saying he believes people were hired for air traffic control roles who were not qualified - but offers no evidence for this"

From the BBC. I swear to god they made 4chan president of America.

There is some evidence for this, unfortunately

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

Thank you for this.

I'm still convinced that evidence of DEI is not evidence of its culpability. The real "affirmative action" is the coddling of white men from birth to job placement, while women and POC are deprived of equal opportunities.

These assessment discrepancies are negligible. DEI is a red herring.

"Commercial jet collides with helicopter during landing", while not the article title, would be far more accurate.

Gruesome, in a crash like this, if there were any survivors from the impact, the water would likely have finished them off.

If they can get out, they have a chance. There was a crash on the Potomac in January 1982 and there were several survivors. The video of the rescue is pretty crazy.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/from-the-archives-h...

There was a truck that crashed on bridge right next to lincoln memorial and then veered off roadway into bridge, and both were deceased. Its very cold in DC right now and an airplane crashing is much more catastrophic.

Why is a Blackhawk helicopter Performing a “training flight” at night very close to DCA?

I'm pretty sure "training flight" in this context simply means they weren't actively carrying passengers. And it's not indicative of a junior or unqualified pilot (doesn't rule it out, just can't infer much from the phrase in this context).

At the extreme, fighter pilots fly almost exclusively training flights because we're not actively waging war at the moment.

There are a few military bases in the area - Belvior (Army), Quantico (USMC), Andrews (USAF), Pentagon, and some smaller ones (some of which have helipads, but no helicopters on station). And lots of shuttling of DoD and other government VIPs from location to location across the DC metro area.

Yes, the public needs to understand this. That unit's [1] task is to provide transportation to senior government officials and security forces around the capital, including to and from that airport. If they didn't train to operate there, then their first time doing so would be with someone like the Secretary of Defense onboard or during some other mission that's critical to national security.

And the aviators assigned to that unit are typically more senior people who've already done a tour or two with more conventional units. Source: I'm a career Army officer and former Black Hawk pilot.

[1] https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/TAAB/

Because DCA is right beside a couple of military bases, the headquarters of the US military, and the political capital of the US.

These helicopters are always going up and down the Potomac all the time.

Presumably because they might have to fly a regular flight at night very close to DCA?

Imagine if there was VIP onboard, especially if it was foreign VIP.

"FAA Got Rid of Its Leader Before D.C. Plane Crash—Thanks to Elon Musk":

* https://newrepublic.com/post/190942/faa-no-leader-dc-plane-c...

"FAA Administrator Quit on Jan. 20 After Elon Musk Told Him to Resign":

* https://www.thedailybeast.com/faa-chief-michael-whitaker-qui...

"The FAA is facing a major crisis without a leader because Elon Musk pushed him out*

* https://www.theverge.com/news/603113/faa-chief-musk-dc-plane...

If we see more accidents a year from now, you have a point. The most you can really blame on leadership changes right now is stress from worrying about your next paycheck. Even then, this looks like a military pilot screwed up doing a routine training exercise.

Probably, but that pilot was it seems operating within a very risky environment (being able to see and avoid a plane in the dark in a place with many such planes and other lighted objects) that with hindsight should not have existed. I'd certainly never have flown on a plane into DCA if I had known that military helicopters were routinely buzzing around in the same airspace with no technological deconfliction aids.

It's important to consider what the administration was focused on during a life-or-death crisis.

Gotta find a way to blame every tragedy on the politicians we don't like, huh? Trump is out there blaming Biden's administration for hiring bad ATC under the banner of DEI. Meanwhile, his detractors blame him and Musk for letting go of some FAA administrator.

But of couse neither of those explanations are likely to hold water. The sad, mundane reality is these people probably lost their lives due to a miscommunication or misunderstanding between ATC and the helicopter pilots. And this political mudslinging will probably get in the way of us ever implementing process changes so it doesn't happen again.

No, the political mudslinging is not yet at the level where it will interfere with the methodological investigation of the circumstances, and making and implementing recommendations so that it does not happen again.

The political mudslinging will distract the general population from that process, but that's all right - they weren't involved in it anyway.

> Trump is out there blaming Biden's administration for hiring bad ATC under the banner of DEI.

The policies were in place since 2013, and somehow were not a problem during Trump's first term (2016-2020).

> Meanwhile, his detractors blame him and Musk for letting go of some FAA administrator.

The FAA administrator in question was around for about a year, and had a term until 2028, so there's no need to push him out now.

And the crash is not the fault of Biden or Trump, but there is unnecessary chaos because of Trump et al.

Maybe not related at all, but I can't help but wonder if this is affected by the funding turmoil. Would a less distracted ATC controller prevent this?

No.

A passenger jet originating from Kansas collided with a Blackhawk helicopter midair near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday night.

Flights at the airport have been halted.

appears to have collided with a helicopter

Another horrible cost of militarism.

The real question, I feel, is whether the current U.S. government as it exists in 2025 is still capable of continuing to improve things, and whether it's still putting all the lessons of the past into practice - or whether we were just coasting on a combination of luck and the vestigial safety left to us by the diligence of the past.

Considering that the head of the FAA and TSA were forced to resign, and a hiring freeze on air traffic controllers is suddenly in effect, I don't think the current government wants to improve flight safety.

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2025-0...

> Considering that the head of the FAA and TSA were forced to resign

For context, the heads of the FAA and TSA are supposed to serve 5-year terms. The FAA Admin (Michael Whitaker) who was forced out started serving in Oct 2023. The TSA Admin (David Pekoske) was first appointed in 2017, and then nominated for another 5-year term in 2022.

As far as I'm aware, this is the first time those positions have ever been told to resign by a new administration.

Reagan fired the ATCs when they tried to assert their rights - can't be good if they think they may be the next in line for DOGEing.

Honestly I'm expecting an executive order banning left wings at this rate.

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nothing new there

The current administration wants to burn it all down and doesn’t carry any reverence or appreciation for past accomplishments or prior work.

I was a controller at DCA for 8 years and this is a normal operation with Helicopters using the Helicopter routes.

The problem I see is the controller asked the Helicopter if they had the CRJ in sight, but he never said WHERE HE WAS OR WHAT HE WAS DOING! The controller should have told the Helicopter that the CRJ was circling to RWY 33. The helicopter said he had him in sight, but he really had the Jet in sight that was landing on RWY 1.

Had the controller told him: Traffic ahead and to your left landing runway 33 is a CRJ report him in sight, then the helicopter crew would have LOOKED to their left and saw him. They unfortunately were looking straight ahead at a different plane.

The controller is going to take a major blame for this one unfortunately for not being more detailed. Those Helicopters literally fly directly in the path of those RWY 33 arrivals so as a controller you have to be EXACT!!!!

Another problem I see is the expectation bias. As controllers in that scenario, we want to hear the Helicopter say "traffic in sight and we will maintain Visual Separation. These Helicopter Pilots know we need to hear them say that (it's required), so they will say this just because even though they might not really have the aircraft in sight. They are just saying what we want to hear. If they don't, then we stop their forward progress or make them turn out. Comment from instagram

If you're quoting someone else, please say so at the top of the comment instead leading with "I was a controller" and burying the attribution at the end of a paragraph.

> The problem I see is the controller asked the Helicopter if they had the CRJ in sight, but he never said WHERE HE WAS OR WHAT HE WAS DOING! The controller should have told the Helicopter that the CRJ was circling to RWY 33. The helicopter said he had him in sight, but he really had the Jet in sight that was landing on RWY 1.

I think you're only listening to a selected part of the recording.

> Tower: "PAT25 traffic just south of (unclear) bridge is a CRJ at 1,200ft turning for Runway 33"

> PAT25: PAT25 has the Traffic in sight, request visual separation

> Tower: Visual separation approved.

Then a minute later he asks again if PAT25 has the CRJ in sight, which I think is what you're referring to.

Yes, exactly. You can hear it in this transcribed video, around 1:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiOybe-NJHk

The controller will not take blame. It is a blameless culture where mistakes are expected and analyzed and learned from.

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Agree with this

Maybe the military shouldn’t fly training flights there. Just an idea.

It's a bad idea. That unit's [1] task is to provide transportation to senior government officials and security forces around the capital, including to and from that airport. If they didn't train to operate there, then their first time doing so would be with someone like the Secretary of Defense onboard or during some other mission that's critical to national security.

"Training" here also doesn't imply some 21 year-old flight school student learning to fly. The aviators assigned to that unit are typically more senior people who've already done a tour or two with more conventional units.

I've lost count of how many times I've heard your sentiment already today, and I'm distraught by the general public's apparent lack of understanding about how things work.

[1] https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/TAAB/

I am appalled with your opinion.

If the system can’t be safely designed with a safe margin of error then it is too dangerous.

There are alternative ways and locations to train.

If there’s a nat sec issue have the planes hold.

Whose idea was it to gut aviation safety?

The Boeing-ification of the federal government, in which everything is stripped down to below what is actually required to be safe, is in full effect.

I know that everyone crosses all altitudes during landing. But why don't ATC / FAA stratify aircraft type and use by altitude. Like all commercial traffic is put in even thousands altitudes. And the Military / EMS gets the odd thousands.

Its crazy to have things colliding like this.

Route 4 (the helicopter route along the river) has a maximum altitude of 200 feet for helicopter. From the crash it seemed like the helicopter pilot wasn't strictly following the ceiling.

Everything eventually needs to land, so when you’re talking about an area around an airport, at low altitudes, that’s going to be a difficult thing to do. If you mix in helicopter traffic that needs to run at lower altitudes anyway, that is also near an airport, it becomes a much more difficult scenario to control.

Helicopter flies at 200ft. Planes landing have to traverse through 200ft. Therefore vertical separation impossible.

This heli route is just crazy.

You'd think they would've figured this out by now. Hacker News to the rescue!

In any event, unless the weather was IMC, where neither aircraft can see because of weather/cloud, which I'm deducing is not the case if they were allowed to maintain visual separation, the ultimate responsibility for maintaining separation is with the pilot(s) .. But as I posted, we should not have this happen anywhere in the United States in 2025 & much less the nation's capital. Hopefully DOT and FAA get to work, but I have a feeling that will be the end of DCA's usefull life as a major passenger airport.

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> everyone is expecting to be fired regardless of their experience and skill.

How do you know this?

[flagged]

> The reformed federal workforce will be built around four pillars:

[…]

> 4. Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

[…]

> Upon review of the below deferred resignation letter, if you wish to resign: 1) Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your .gov or .mil account will not be accepted. 2) Type the word “Resign” into the body of this reply email. Hit “Send”.

* https://www.opm.gov/fork

I didn’t know. this line is really upsetting people tonight.

Weather was fine tonight.

Also DCA is the most popular airport and congress would stage their own revolution if they had to go further.

I definitely think it’ll stay open for charter flights (part 135)

Yeah, it's at least partially Congress's fault DCA is as busy as it is. Every few years, they push to allow more flights, and longer flights, into the airport, because they all want to convenience.

Which is silly, it's not like IAD is all that far away. It's a straight shot down the Access Road to 66 and then into the city. Of course, with the RTO mandate, the portion from 66 inward is going to get busy again, but hey, Congress wanted that too, so reap what they sow, I suppose.

    but I have a feeling that will be the end of 
    DCA's usefull life as a major passenger airport.

Wait, what?

I was with you until this last sentence. You think DCA will be spun down because an accident occurred there?

This seems wild - what am I missing here?

I only have a passing interest in this, but DCA's approach is tricky, the airspace is complex and restricted, and then you mix in military pilots doing VIP helicopter training runs across the approach. The procedures make it safe-ish, but it's riskier than other major airports.

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