DC Plane Crash

[teeceetx]

My initial impression is that ATC did not do their job properly.

There seems to have been little to no EARLY communication with the chopper. Furthermore, the chopper pilots would have known they are operating in the flight path of airplanes on final approach, which begs the question why were they directly in the planes flight path?!

 

[Proud Prepper]

The plane looked to be targeted by the helicopter.

Who was on the plane?

 

[Sourdough]

The plane looked to be targeted by the helicopter.

Who was on the plane?

While that is not likely, I confess that was my very first thought.

 

[Snowman]

An update at 2:30 am by The Washington Post said NO SURVIVORS! Several members of the US figure skating team were on board!

 

[Jen]

Well, it's finally over.
So much talking, and no information.
How many people on each aircraft, and they collided... all stuff that has been scrolling on the screen for the last 2 hours.
That's all.
...I need a beer.

With the information I have gathered this morning, this is what I think happened:

While it looked like the helicopter was zeroing in on the plane, in reality, they were coming toward each other.

The plane got the okay to land, it made a left turn to line up with the landing strip. That left turn made it cross the path of the helicopter. The helicopter may have been above the 200 foot limit for helicopters in that area, or it may have been within the 200 foot limit - we will find that out later. For some reason the helicopter pilot didn't see the plane. The tower asked if he had eyes on the plane and he said "yes", but that may have been referring to the other plane that had just taken off parallel to the plane he hit.

It looks to me like it was an error falling mostly on the helicopter pilot who just didn't see the plane he hit, and/or the traffic controller in the tower who accepted what the helicopter pilot said, and on a lesser level, the pilot of the plane who got the okay to land and was focused on landing.

Just error. Nothing nefarious. My humble opinion at the moment.
Having a beer didn't come to mind last night for some reason.

 

[Jen]

While that is not likely, I confess that was my very first thought.

That was my first thought also.
Though.........my son lives in Wichita and sometimes travels to the East Coast on business.

 

[Jen]

Being someone who hasn't really traveled much, it was a learning experience for me. I had a colleague who had a family gathering in the area. They were not too aware of the challenges, but they had family members land at BWI, Dulles and National. There was lots of car time for them, gathering up all of the people.

I only flew in and out of Dulles once. I traveled with a classmate that time. When we were getting ready to get back out to Dulles from our hotel within blocks of the White House, we had to figure out how to get out there. I spent 20 minutes on the phone, pushing this for this option, and that for that option in order to figure out how to get to the airport.

I flew in and out of Dulles after my baby son died in 1980 (at Yale, New Haven, CT). We flew with his body back to Texas for the funeral and burial.

Last May when we went to Baltimore, I made sure we flew into Baltimore and not one of the DC airports, not that I was afraid, but just wanted to avoid getting out of DC by Uber once we landed.

 

[Amish Heart]

Sis in Florida was flipping out a bit, she flies out of here from Wichita (our airport) and into the DC one then on to Florida.