Plane Crash In DC

It will come as news to Pete Buttigieg, that he's still the Secretary of Transportation
Blaming his predecessors and DEI was entirely predictable for Trump

Meanwhile Biden says

"Jill and I are praying for the families of the victims who tragically lost their lives in the plane and helicopter crash near DCA. We are immensely grateful to the brave first responders and emergency personnel on the scene."
 
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Andy_Ross said:
Here's Trump blaming DEI and the FAA actively recruiting people with severe intellectual disabilities and psychiatric problems for the crash.
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Predictable Trump tactic. The DC airspace is one of the most complicated in the world, and the Reagan Airport operates the nation's busiest runway. This is due to the way traffic patterns had to evolve from what was initially a tiny municipal airport serving small aircraft.

The FAA (including former Sec. Buttigieg) has been warning for years that increasing traffic at Reagan Airport carries a high risk for collision. Congress is the principal driver of increased traffic because it's the airport closest to government offices and they want all kinds of exceptions to safe practice in order to increase its capacity for the sake of convenience.

The problem is systemic, not administrative incompetence. In this case it is the responsibility of the military pilots to avoid collision. It is ATC's responsibility to advise departing helicopter flights regarding traffic in the area, but the military pilot's responsibility to avoid them. This is because the approach to runways at Reagan is very atypical and difficult to fly. The airliner pilot has limited visibility, limited maneuverability, and limited leeway to avoid other traffic.
 
Using this tragedy to make lame jokes and snotty political digs...I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Stay classy.
 
The helicopter pilot confirmed visual contact and was permitted to visual separation, few seconds before it happened. He said he will pass behind the plane. And then he didn't.
He must have seen another aircraft or misjudge the speed and distance terribly. It was training flight, so possibly student pilot with an instructor ?
Could be a case where the Swiss cheese stack is quite low. If you are permitted to do visual separation, and you fail to do it, nothing else has to go wrong.
It seems the helo did not have ADSB, so the plane pilot wouldn't see him on his screen, and automatic detection system wouldn't see him either. They seem to have been on different frequencies, the plane wouldn't hear the helo. And the plane was on final approach, and quite demanding one. It was not their job to look for helicopters or avoiding them anyway. They did nothing wrong.
The helo pilot might have do nothing wrong either .. except failing to pass behind.
There is of course the whole idea of having helicopter corridor right in front of a runway ..

Audio transcript and few more details:
 
I see Trampy, he of the dead squirrel hairpiece and the dog excrement spread masquerading as a tan, is blaming DEI for the incident. If he gets his wish and all diversity programmes in the US are cancelled, incidents like this are going to get more common, a hell of a lot more common, because all the competent people will be sacked and replaced with incompetent white men with political connections.
 
REPORTER: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, ok? And unfortunately a lot of people don't
 
Seems ultimate responsibility for the military, and by extension the proper operation of that military helicopter, lies with the commander in chief. Anybody recall who that is?
 
Matthew Best said:
This may be completely off-topic, but is Air Traffic Control something that would be well-suited to AI taking over?
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Depends what kind of AI we're talking about. I generally think of "AI" in three categories:

Pattern Recognizers
This where I think we are right now. And I don't think they're up to the task.

Expert Systems
These are systems that go beyond rote autocomplete algorithms. They're capable of emulating human cognition, including making educated guesses, acting on inferences from past experience, and making pseudo-moral or proto-moral judgements in the moment. The key thing is, this would be for a specific area of expertise, specific contexts. They would essentially be idiot savants. Train one on ATC work, and they might be as good or better than most human AT controllers. Give them human supervision, and constantly revise their thought processes and value judgements, and they could take over a lot of the more complex but important tasks of our modern civilization.

True AI
Unlike expert systems that are limited to a single area of expertise, True AI would be functionally a sentient creature, entitled to all the same rights as humans, and capable of the full range of cognitive feats generally available to humans. Including the feat of being able to reason abstractly about many different things in many different contexts. You'd interview them for jobs, and hire them the same as any human candidate.
 
It appears that at least 14 passengers on the plane were figure skaters and coaches who were returning from an event in Wichita.

US figure skaters on board plane that crashed into Potomac River

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. skating community was in mourning on Thursday after learning several skaters were on an American Airlines regional passenger plane that crashed near Reagan Washington National Airport.

The plane, with 64 passengers and crew, was en route on Wednesday to Washington from Wichita, Kansas, when it was involved in a mid-air collision with a U.S. Army helicopter.

The sport's national governing body said athletes, coaches and family members were returning from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, held this year in Kansas.

"We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts," it said in a statement.

The exact number of people on board who were involved in figure skating, or had a family member who was a skater, was uncertain, but media reports said there were at least 14 on the flight.
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Obama says

"Our hearts break for the families who lost loved ones in the tragic plane and helicopter crash at DCA. Michelle and I send our prayers and condolences to everyone who is mourning today, and we’re grateful to the first responders who are doing everything they can to help under extremely difficult circumstances."
 
Dr.Sid said:
The helicopter pilot confirmed visual contact and was permitted to visual separation, few seconds before it happened. He said he will pass behind the plane. And then he didn't.
He must have seen another aircraft or misjudge the speed and distance terribly.
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That's an astoundingly easy thing to do with aircraft at night.

Dr.Sid said:
There is of course the whole idea of having helicopter corridor right in front of a runway...
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This is the real problem. The helicopters in question are based on the other side of the approach from their ordinary operations area (i.e., metropolitan DC). We have a similar problem at my international airport: the Air Force operations areas are across the northern approaches from the base. However, in the Reagan Airport case the distances and altitudes required to deconflict the traffic are much, much smaller.

As usual, Blancolirio offers very good commentary from an expert point of view, and avoids unnecessary speculation. What he doesn't touch on (but probably will when he can) is the capacity creep that has plagued both the military and civilian traffic. This is an inherently gnarly traffic-control problem, and under pressure from government officials there has been a steady relaxation of ordinary capacity constraints. While we will almost certainly identify errors on the part of various humans involved, this accident could be considered inevitable.
 
So far Donald has blamed the crash on Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, Pete Buttigieg, the 2020 election, and diversity.

No facts presented and no condolences offered.
 
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