I’m confused because Snopes is saying they’re now saying staffing was in control? Wondering who got pressured to change their report.
Dude, quit reading Snopes for fact-based information, it was recently sold and the people who originally owned it are gone. Iirc it was bought by a media corporation that has bias.
The data shows the helicopter well above the maximum altitude - 350 feet instead of 200. I don’t think the staffing was the problem.
I heard on Democracy Now that communications done to helicopters and communications to planes are typically done by separate individuals. The communicating to both aircrafts involved in the collision was one person.
In light of the information you’ve provided I think it should be said, staffing wasn’t the only problem.
So often tragedies happen for multiple small reasons that each alone would not cause an accident.
Another pair of eyes might have caught it and called out “hey fuckass, this helo is getting too close, go around”. One person managing too much means they miss things.
Someone did tell the Blackhawk to pass behind the plane prior to the collision. The helo pilots probably thought they were talking about another plane in the airspace, which is always very crowded.
Yeah, and the other pair of eyes might have noticed them not doing that.
That may well be one thing that’s wrong, but I’m going to guess that normally, one still wouldn’t have a regional jet flying directly over a helicopter with just 150 feet of vertical separation.
EDIT: I was waiting to see if VASAviation – a YouTube channel that puts up ATC radio recordings – would put up logs for this one. Looks like they have; three separate videos.
Site seems to be down or getting the thing of death. Does someone have a mirror?
Trump will use this event to claim a new need for privatizing ATC.
or calling them dei hires or saying they came from foreign mental institutions
He already did that.
He did worse than that. He blamed disabled people. Including people with dwafism. Apparently being very short means you can’t do your job at the FAA.
And I guarantee if you asked him, he’d say some stupid shit like, “they can’t reach the console!” Without even thinking about the fact that people with dwarfism are able to sit in chairs. He probably also thinks it’s an intellectual disability to be short, which is why he wears lifts in his shoes.
“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation. “Even the crew chief in the back has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure.”
They’re saying that to imply that therefor they’re not at fault, but if anything routine makes you more likely to make mistakes. I’m sure the staffing problems didn’t help either. I guess we’ll see when the report comes out, if the black boxes survived.
Maybe they are at fault, but I would say firing a bunch of people at the FAA was a more likely reason.
There are conflicting reports about whether or not the staffing was normal when it happened, but it wouldn’t shock me at all if staffing was an issue just because it’s been an ongoing issue in the US in general for years. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened after Trump was inaugurated and not before, but given DC airspace it’s possible this was a bomb waiting to go off anyway.
Right after mollusk forced out the FAA chief too 🧐
Not only that, Delta Air spent $3.8 million to lobby for more slots. United, Alaska, and American Airlines objected because experts have been arguing for years that Reagan is dangerously overcrowded and had been experiencing near-misses.
Anyway, Delta got what they wanted and just last month the airport started allowing more flights.
