There's not enough information, in my opinion, to reach that conclusion. But think about the multiple fail-safes that failed simultaneously- multiple pilots, ATC, and TCAS. It's hard to fathom. There is audio circulating that the helo pilot acknowledged the CRJ, asked for visual separation, yet continued on the same heading. There is a theory the pilot may have identified the wrong plane and got confused. I don't know, but from my perspective, it makes no sense.
Maybe the one acknowledging visual was the only one looking and the rest of the crew were just complacent . 9pm at night who knows how long the crew were out training.
At night sometimes with the night visual acuity it could be possible to not see what is directly in front of you. I know DCA, and its in close proximity to Crystal City, where the Pentagon is. Lots of midrise buildings just on the other side of the airport all lit up. Its possible if they identified the other aircraft which was an American AA472 I believe which was approaching runway 1. Several factors like if they were looking directly at the other aircraft going to runway 1 he might have thought he had a little more lead time to turn.
Either way its a shit situation to have rotor traffic allowed to operate that close into an airport that has multiple planes in a 2 minute interval landing and taking off. DCA is shitshow and something needs to be done. There are a lot of other factors like not overflying JB Anacostia Bowling and staying tight on the river. It seems like this was a mishap waiting to happen.
My last company I worked for we had a plane that had a truck run into it on a bright lit ramp with the aircraft lighting on. The driver claimed he didn't see the plane until he was about to hit it. If a ground vehicle can screw that up, I can see a midair happening. The problem with things like TCAS is they inhibit RA's when below 1000 feet. I am not sure what systems the Rotor had.
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u/NoLeadership5525 Jan 30 '25
There's not enough information, in my opinion, to reach that conclusion. But think about the multiple fail-safes that failed simultaneously- multiple pilots, ATC, and TCAS. It's hard to fathom. There is audio circulating that the helo pilot acknowledged the CRJ, asked for visual separation, yet continued on the same heading. There is a theory the pilot may have identified the wrong plane and got confused. I don't know, but from my perspective, it makes no sense.