US Airliner collides with Military Helicopter in Washington

[Brother D]

Juan's done a good analysis this afternoon

[drdel]

Apparently the Tower's staffing levels were below the set required.

[MarkwG]

Simpo Two said:

havoc said:

MarkwG said:

Trumps poison about DEI is wholly inappropriate, he may well have placed a target on the ATCOs back. I hope the FAA have a plan to protect him.

Trump appears to be trying to foment civil war on his own. Or at least fk the US socially back to the dark ages. His pronouncements seem more and more childish and fked up with each passing day.

As for the FAA...in the new climate I suspect they'll be too busy trying to cover their own arses, and won't care if the ATCO or the Blackhawk PIC gets the blame as long as it's not them.

Well, if the ATCO was employed because he was black/brown/yellow/gay/lesbian/BLTQA+ rather than because they were actually the best applicant, Trump's right. We don't know that specifically but overall it's a daft way to hire crucial people. It's not the employee's fault, it's the person/system who hired them because they were hired for the wrong reasons.

That's irrelevant. ATC is very highly regulated, both medically & educationally. Race, gender, ethnicity & colour have nothing to do with it. If you don't pass & maintain the medical, or you don't pass & maintain competency, you don't get to do it. Trump & his minions know the FAA have been under staffed & under funded since the Reagan years, so he's getting the first shot in.

[Dbag101]

I see the ‘experts’ have already jumped on in, all over the place ( social media etc etc etc) and ( despite the NTSB specifically stating they aren’t going to ) are speculating wildly about all sorts. I’ll just wait for the actual experts to do their investigation properly I think.

[Eric Mc]

Dbag101 said:

I see the ‘experts’ have already jumped on in, all over the place ( social media etc etc etc) and ( despite the NTSB specifically stating they aren’t going to ) are speculating wildly about all sorts. I’ll just wait for the actual experts to do their investigation properly I think.

What, you don't think people should discuss this incident - or any other aircraft accident for that matter?

The full NTSB report will not emerge for probably two years - which is the normal length of time for an NTSB report.

By your argument, we might as well close the discussion now.

[havoc]

drdel said:

Apparently the Tower's staffing levels were below the set required.

That might be to do with a bad timing combination of summary contract/contractor changes for provision of ATC staff across some of the country leading to reduced staffing while a contract dispute is resolved, compounded by inaction at the top thanks to Trump intereference in government staffing (hiring freeze for the vast majority of public sector departments, inc. FAA) and Trump/Musk going for the FAA/TSA leadership (Musk vs head of the FAA*, Trump firing the head of TSA, and Trump gutting the ASAC as apparently they're not necessary).

Anecdotally (from a few sources) there are a significant bunch of airfields around which are now without sufficient ATC staffing.

https://time.com/7211690/washington-dc-plane-crash...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/dc...

https://www.realvail.com/eagle-county-regional-air...

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/bay-area-airpo...

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-faa-timeline...

All of this IS circumstantial, but if that airport was running on 1 ATC not the 2 required then that could well be a contributing factor.



* FAA head has both sanctioned and fined SpaceX, so of course Untersturmfuhrer Musk hates him.

[-Cappo-]

drdel said:

Apparently the Tower's staffing levels were below the set required.

Below optimum, not below required, was what I read. Big difference.

[biggles330d]

-Cappo- said:

drdel said:

Apparently the Tower's staffing levels were below the set required.

Below optimum, not below required, was what I read. Big difference.

Either / or, blanket issuing virtual P45's to all Federal employees to shrink it all back further seems particularly ill advised now. A bit of me hopes a lot of them walk en-mass and US airspace quickly grinds to a halt as it can't function. Only one person to blame at that point.

[-Cappo-]

biggles330d said:

-Cappo- said:

drdel said:

Apparently the Tower's staffing levels were below the set required.

Below optimum, not below required, was what I read. Big difference.

Either / or, blanket issuing virtual P45's to all Federal employees to shrink it all back further seems particularly ill advised now. A bit of me hopes a lot of them walk en-mass and US airspace quickly grinds to a halt as it can't function. Only one person to blame at that point.

As a general point, the particular idiocy in that approach is that the people who will take the 8 months and go will largely be the clever/competent ones who can find another role. That leaves tier 2 capabilities to pick up the slack, and you only need to be marginally more intelligent than Trump to see where that ends up.

[havoc]

-Cappo- said:

As a general point, the particular idiocy in that approach is that the people who will take the 8 months and go will largely be the clever/competent ones who can find another role. That leaves tier 2 capabilities to pick up the slack, and you only need to be marginally more intelligent than Trump to see where that ends up.

Trouble is, that sort of thing will in most areas (not ATC though) lead to a gradual erosion in capability as st builds up and knowledge disappears...his last year or so will be a car crash, and his successor will find themselves running a sinking ship with no easy way of fixing it. Esssentially a substantially worse version of what we're dealing with here in the UK post-Truss.

[zorba_the_greek]

Brother D said:

Juan's done a good analysis this afternoon

Extremely good analysis.

[MarkwG]

havoc said:

-Cappo- said:

As a general point, the particular idiocy in that approach is that the people who will take the 8 months and go will largely be the clever/competent ones who can find another role. That leaves tier 2 capabilities to pick up the slack, and you only need to be marginally more intelligent than Trump to see where that ends up.

Trouble is, that sort of thing will in most areas (not ATC though) lead to a gradual erosion in capability as st builds up and knowledge disappears...his last year or so will be a car crash, and his successor will find themselves running a sinking ship with no easy way of fixing it. Esssentially a substantially worse version of what we're dealing with here in the UK post-Truss.

What tends to happen in ATC is experience moves, or retires, & that creates its own issues. I've been both sides of that cycle: it's at its worst when the traffic is on an upward trend, but the knowledge base is moving down.

[Dbag101]

Eric Mc said:

What, you don't think people should discuss this incident - or any other aircraft accident for that matter?

The full NTSB report will not emerge for probably two years - which is the normal length of time for an NTSB report.

By your argument, we might as well close the discussion now.

I’ve no problem with people discussing it, it’s the folk who are posting “IN DEPTH DEFINITELY TRUE, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT GUV’NOR, FOR SURE, DON’T FORGET TO LIKE AND FOLLOW BY THE WAY” drivel all over the place, that makes me cringe. If they were who they seem to think they were, they’d be working for the NTSB, and actually gathering some facts, before hawking for ‘likes and follows’ on the socials.

[Eric Mc]

Dbag101 said:

I’ve no problem with people discussing it, it’s the folk who are posting “IN DEPTH DEFINITELY TRUE, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT GUV’NOR, FOR SURE, DON’T FORGET TO LIKE AND FOLLOW BY THE WAY” drivel all over the place, that makes me cringe. If they were who they seem to think they were, they’d be working for the NTSB, and actually gathering some facts, before hawking for ‘likes and follows’ on the socials.

Apart from one D Trump, I've not heard anyone behaving like that - and certainly not here on PH.

[LotusOmega375D]

Said D Trump saying now that the Black Hawk was “flying too high, by a lot”. Is that something the woke ATC would determine or the military helicopter pilot?

[48k]

Different angle video here. It shows the collision so don't watch if you don't want to see the moment of impact and the aftermarth.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFfXrPDoKPC/

[Siko]

Tragic accident. I wonder what TCAS indications the CRJ got (if any)….i don’t know if the UH60 has TCAS or not but their Mode C or ADS-B should have alerted the CRJ at least that they were descending towards a target.

[Joe M]

Trump now saying the helicopter was too high.

[tr7v8]

Listening to the ATC recording earlier, several times the Heli said he had visuals on the landing jet. It appears that the aircraft he had visuals on was the one behind the CJR. The Heli verbally took responsibility for what he was doing, not once but several times.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

I'm sure diversity and immigrants are to blame somehow