American Airlines CRJ700 collides with UH-60 Black Hawk and crashes into the Potomac River

Around 8:47 p.m., air traffic control asked the helicopter crew members if they had the jet in sight and told the helicopter to pass behind it. The two aircraft were a little more than a mile apart at this point.

The helicopter crew member responded two seconds later, "The aircraft is in sight."

At 8:48 p.m., the two aircraft collided and crashed into the Potomac River.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the helicopter was conducting "a required annual night evaluation" flight and was being flown by "a fairly experienced crew" operating with night-vision goggles.

Given that the Australian Defense force have had multiple incidents where what crew using night vision goggle saw and what was really out there it is possible, but not definite, that was a factor in this accident.

Real shame to hear and be interesting to see the causes but does look like the helicopter is too blame from what's come out so far.

Condolences to those who lost their lives.

A terrible tragedy. It emphasises the importance of visual separation in crowded airspace.

MiTasol said:

View attachment 816318
Around 8:47 p.m., air traffic control asked the helicopter crew members if they had the jet in sight and told the helicopter to pass behind it. The two aircraft were a little more than a mile apart at this point.

The helicopter crew member responded two seconds later, "The aircraft is in sight."

At 8:48 p.m., the two aircraft collided and crashed into the Potomac River.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the helicopter was conducting "a required annual night evaluation" flight and was being flown by "a fairly experienced crew" operating with night-vision goggles.

Given that the Australian Defense force have had multiple incidents where what crew using night vision goggle saw and what was really out there it is possible, but not definite, that was a factor in this accident.

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MiTasol said:

View attachment 816318
Around 8:47 p.m., air traffic control asked the helicopter crew members if they had the jet in sight and told the helicopter to pass behind it. The two aircraft were a little more than a mile apart at this point.

The helicopter crew member responded two seconds later, "The aircraft is in sight."

At 8:48 p.m., the two aircraft collided and crashed into the Potomac River.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the helicopter was conducting "a required annual night evaluation" flight and was being flown by "a fairly experienced crew" operating with night-vision goggles.

Given that the Australian Defense force have had multiple incidents where what crew using night vision goggle saw and what was really out there it is possible, but not definite, that was a factor in this accident.

Click to expand...

According to the news, I have no ideal where they got their figures, one pilot had 500 hrs, the other had 1000 hrs.
When I was in Army Aviation in the 70s, a Army helicopter pilot had about 250-300 hours when he graduated flight school, all of the instructors I flew with were fresh back from a Vietnam tour. Most come back with about 1200-1500 hrs and started instructing. And most were flying about 6 hrs a day instructing.
If Defense Secretary Hegseth called them a " fairly experienced crew", IMO that's a little bit of a stretch.
I've used the first generation night vision, and it was pretty impressive at the time, but the tunnel vision and depth perception was a problem. I've no experience with any current night vision goggles

tyrodtom said:

According to the news, I have no ideal where they got their figures, one pilot had 500 hrs, the other had 1000 hrs.
When I was in Army Aviation in the 70s, a Army helicopter pilot had about 250-300 hours when he graduated flight school, all of the instructors I flew with were fresh back from a Vietnam tour. Most come back with about 1200-1500 hrs and started instructing. And most were flying about 6 hrs a day instructing.
If Defense Secretary Hegseth called them a " fairly experienced crew", IMO that's a little bit of a stretch.
I've used the first generation night vision, and it was pretty impressive at the time, but the tunnel vision and depth perception was a problem. I've no experience with any current night vision goggles

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I guess I shouldn't be quoting from the news this early on, because I really would like to know where they got those pilot flight hours from, such even numbers seem suspicious, 500 and 1000.

The rest is just from my own personal experience 50 years ago.

I'm not buying those numbers either, especially since one of them was a CW4. No way they had only a 1000 hours…

MiTasol said:

View attachment 816318
Around 8:47 p.m., air traffic control asked the helicopter crew members if they had the jet in sight and told the helicopter to pass behind it. The two aircraft were a little more than a mile apart at this point.

The helicopter crew member responded two seconds later, "The aircraft is in sight."

At 8:48 p.m., the two aircraft collided and crashed into the Potomac River.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the helicopter was conducting "a required annual night evaluation" flight and was being flown by "a fairly experienced crew" operating with night-vision goggles.

Given that the Australian Defense force have had multiple incidents where what crew using night vision goggle saw and what was really out there it is possible, but not definite, that was a factor in this accident.

Click to expand...

NVG was in my own opinion a probable factor in this. The Army chopper was doing a training check-flight IAW their mission of extracting US gov't personnel for continuity ops. I think perhaps the better course would have been to stage the Army training flight later and thereby perhaps deconflicting from traffic by flying at 2 or 3 AM when fewer planes are in the pattern.

If ATC informed them of nearby traffic, it may be possible they mistook another aircraft for the intended aircraft, since night vision can have a "tunnel vision" effect.
Going by memory, flights are spaced about 1.4 miles apart at high traffic airports.

Thumpalumpacus said:

NVG was in my own opinion a probable factor in this. The Army chopper was doing a training check-flight IAW their mission of extracting US gov't personnel for continuity ops. I think perhaps the better course would have been to stage the Army training flight later and thereby perhaps deconflicting from traffic by flying at 2 or 3 AM when fewer planes are in the pattern.

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I am not aware of any in that area, but where I was at we had strict local laws regarding noise abatement and we could not fly past midnight.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the air traffic control staffing was "not normal" during the Wednesday night plane collision between an American Airlines passenger plane and an Army Black Hawk training flight in a Thursday report.

"The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic," the FAA wrote in their report, according to the Associated Press.

The agency noted one air traffic controller was working in two different positions at the time of the crash, handling local and helicopter traffic.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

PSA - American Airlines CRJ700 collides with UH-60 Black Hawk and crashes into the Potomac River

No word of survivors, but does not look good.

Reagan National Airport crash: Military Black Hawk helicopter collides midair with American Airlines jet

An Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair with an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, at Reagan National Airport on Wednesday.

www.foxnews.com

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my first thought was why is the military flying local training flights in such a dense airspace. Why is this allowed. It doesn't make since having training/checks ride where crews can be distracted. I flew regular locals out of McGuire which is a bit a ways from Washington and NY and air traffic was relatively light. I would always be nervous if I was flying local in LA or Washington DC area.

davparlr said:

my first thought was why is the military flying local training flights in such a dense airspace. Why is this allowed. It doesn't make since having training/checks ride where crews can be distracted. I flew regular locals out of McGuire which is a bit a ways from Washington and NY and air traffic was relatively light. I would always be nervous if I was flying local in LA or Washington DC area.

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The unit was tasked with VIP transport and government evacuation. Being familiar with such complex airspace has to be in their training syllabus.

davparlr said:

my first thought was why is the military flying local training flights in such a dense airspace. Why is this allowed. It doesn't make since having training/checks ride where crews can be distracted. I flew regular locals out of McGuire which is a bit a ways from Washington and NY and air traffic was relatively light. I would always be nervous if I was flying local in LA or Washington DC area.

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Because that is where this unit operates. The 12th Avn flies the politicians and high ranking pentagon personal. You train where you operate.

An interesting video statement from an ex Black Hawk pilot on three "errors" made in the Black Hawks operation that night and one by ATC.

And another that raises some questions.

his provides a very useful, BS free, potential explanation:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdOU2BGHwHo


Not saying it is correct - that's for the formal investigation - but it does give a very convincing scenario.

An excellent summary and probably close to the truth given that the Black Hawk would likely have climbed to provide separation for the aircraft taking off, As he repeats several times it is based on what is known at this time and that we MUST wait for the NTSB report to learn the probable cause.

I will comment on one assumption I believe to be seriously misleading tho. Most airlines operate with the pilots "swapping" duties for each leg because that is the only way for the pilot in the right seat to get the experience they need before they move to the left seat. Both retain their normal seat but one is classified as the PF (Pilot Flying) and the other PNF (p NOT f). The only exception to this is when the pilot on the right has recently transitioned to the aircraft type being flown and needs to build up their experience on the type before taking on greater duties.

IF the pilot in the right seat was the PNF then yes it was his responsibility to be looking for other traffic tho with the last minute runway change and the flight being visual for the last minute or so they were more likely calling the numbers for the PF who would be visually re-aligning the aircraft for runway 33.

If however, and there is a close to 50/50 chance this was the case, the right seat pilot was PF then it was the left seats pilot who was supposed to be looking for other traffic and with the Black Hawk to the right his chances of seeing it are considerably reduced, especially because the aircraft would be banking during the direction changes and again given they are probably calling the numbers for the PF which is more important in many aircraft..

One item that clashes with the earlier report from the Black Hawk pilot who has flown that route many times is that she believes, from her experience, that the CRJ was at the Black Hawks 5 o'clock position (thereby meaning the CRJ rammed the H-60 not the other way around as most believe). From watching the videos I would suspect that the CRJ was more likely on the 7 oclock position but visuals from a distance are often very wrong

This does not fundamentally change the GTX video scenario but does explain why the H-60 was high. Yes the helo should have been visible to the CRJ right seat pilot but was he the PF or PNF and how much time did he have for looking when he was also calling numbers to the PF? And I don't know about you but I always had a small lag when changing focus from the panel to the distance and vice versa.