Just seen the AA jet on film smash into a black hawk helicopter in the US. Another terrible tragedy.
Yes very tragic - at least 19 people killed apparently.
What that military helicopter was doing wandering around the approaches to Reagan Airport seems to be the key question.
All commercial aircraft and most military ones are supposed to have collision warning systems that should avert this kind of tragedy.
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Apparently night flying learner pilots. Their officer in charge will be for the high jump. I worry about my daughter and her husband every time they fly which is every couple of months either for going to head office, clients or for leisure as the skies are so congested these days when you look on flight radar and wonder how they miss each other, only takes a lapse of concentration either by ATC or the pilots.
There are unlikely to be survivors, given the extremely cold temperature. Tragic.
That the aircraft managed to crash into the Potomac and avoid landing on populated areas may indicate the pilots maintained some control until hard landing. In time the black boxes will provide explanation.
Blackhawk?
Pilot error or tail rotor gearbox failure after chip alarm warnings being ignored/muted.
Fasten your seatbelts 
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is in charge of US aviation safety, was in effect fired by Elon Musk. Although Musk is in charge of DOGE, a new body formed by President Donald Trump to reduce staffing in US federal agencies, he also had a personal beef with the FAA leader, who had placed restrictions on rocket launches by Musk’s company, SpaceX, following a series of hazardous mid-air explosions at Musk’s Texan spaceport."
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Although true I don’t think this will have had a bearing on the mechanics of this crash.
Bu Trump should STFU on this one - blaming DEI and now is as good as blaming the (female) pilot. I can’t help wondering if he is angling for a reason to ban women from the military here.
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No, but at a time of tragedy for all families involved Trump politicises it. He really is a total shit.
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If only - he gives total shits a bad name.
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What actually happened was that someone with ‘severe intellectual or psychiatric disabilities’ got elected President.
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With all these outrageous attention grabbing announcements we end up talking about them, rather than what he’s actually doing. In his first term blatant lies served the same purpose.
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Dead cats.
Free publicity to be seen to be doing something about who to blame etc.
I see another plane has crashed albeit much smaller - air ambulance but still tragic.
I am afraid Shiba it is much more evil and machiavellian than that.
Yes I think it is but never quite sure and with that creature *usk lurking in the background too.
This is well worth a watch.
Looks like a combination of the incoming passenger aircraft being switched late to the other runway and the helicopter being at least 100ft above the max alt for their route caused the collision. The jet crew couldn’t see the helicopter and the helicopter crew lost situational awareness.
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Yes, a good synopsis from a professional, highlighting factors that culminated in a ‘perfect storm’.
One glaring question is why the helicopter was above its permissible height on that route. I cannot believe that the military pilots, all very experienced, would intentionally fly higher than they should and I just wonder if Washington airport was using a QFE different to the QNH that the helicopter might have been using over Virginia and did not correctly adjust their altimeters thus putting them 100ft higher than they believe themselves to be, causing them to mistakenly have visual of the wrong commercial aircraft. I am maybe wildly wrong, but I cannot see any other explanation.
Edit - I should explain that QNH and QFE are two different settings for aircraft altimeters to allow for variances in air pressure. Which one is used is dictated by a control room or regulation.
Good video. Allowing helicopters to mix with fixed wing with only 100 feet separation and at night sounds nuts, no matter how skilled the pilots are. I’m surprised this sort of accident hasn’t happened before. It’s like dogems.
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One company I did purchasing systems for needed helicopter services in a particularly sensitive part of the world and only helicopters could do the job. Getting fixed wing aircraft and services would have been easy but with all their global reach they simply couldn’t find suppliers to bid for the contract.
It stressed the guy in Purchasing out so much as these were welfare-essential services for staff and contractors with unacceptable risk to them if not procured, that he needed time off work for basically a nervous breakdown.
Mixing fixed wing and helicopter traffic with only 100 feet vertical clearance does sound like madness though.
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