The Associated Press is reporting the U.S. government says it played a role in the midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a regional jet that killed 67 people last January in Washington, D.C., but denied its employees were negligent and said others also played a role. “The United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident,” government lawyers said in a filing in response to a lawsuit launched by families of the victims. However, the government said both American Airlines and its regional carrier PSA Airlines also played roles. The airlines disagree and have both asked the court to dismiss the proceedings against them. They say it was all the government’s fault.
For its part the government says the Army crew failed “to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” and the controller didn’t follow visual separation procedures. The two aircraft came together over the Potomac while the jet, a CRJ 700 on a flight from Wichita, was on final approach and the Black Hawk was on a training flight using one of several low-level helicopter corridors that crossed active areas of the airport. Those corridors were established to allow the Army to shuttle personnel, including senior government and military officials, from the airport to the nearby Pentagon. Because of the accident, rules and procedures for the helicopters, including mandatory use of ADS-B Out, have been changed. Some of those amendments are in question because of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow senior military leaders to override them.
Could a savvy lawyer construct culpability from admitting “a role”? Several truckloads of money would be a good start. All else is political dumbassery and useless.
I disagree in two areas. One, the AAL pilots were not at fault at all. At that point in their circling approach they were deep into last minute items to land in less than a minute. No way were they expecting to have to miss a helicopter at that point. Two, the controller was trying to approve a procedure, visual separation, a procedure that sucked. Copter pilots said they saw the traffic and would provide visual. It was looking bad and the controller verified again the copter folks knew what they were doing. Controller can not like what he is seeing, but he can’t fly the machine for them.
Which brings us to the overall procedure. It was based on the copter being just 200′ over the river and right next to the far shore line. And that was supposed to provide enough initial separation until visual was applied accepted. The circling aircraft had no requirements to maintain any type of prescribed altitude to stay above 200, although it was assumed no one would be that low out therre. Other than VASIs I assume, no glide slope was available.
And now back to what happened. The helicopter was to far into the middle of the river and maybe a hundred feet or so high. But in separation between aircraft, what the hell is one hundred feet or even two or three hundred feet going to establish. That amount of altitude can sooo easily be compromised. That procedure establishes nothing except wishful thinking.
And now I hate to place any blame on the tower, but when they combined positions between local controller and the helo controller, they paid their money and took their chances. Had the positions been separated still, I imagine the controller for the copter would have been much more pro active. Not faulting him only because he was busy, and he thought visual separation had been applied and accepted, except he really wasn’t certain it was working. He will always regret he didn’t act on his doubt. This is very similar of the PSA B727 and the C172 midair in SAN in ’78. The controller had applied visual, PSA accepted. Still started to look bad, and the controller reaffirmed that PSA had the traffic. Pilot said yes. Jump seat rider, another PSA pilot said, “I certainly hope so”. And of course even with the doubt in the cockpit, they ran together moments later.
Bottom line, DCA procedure sucked but apparent luck was making it work. AAL pilot not at fault in any way. Controller not at fault technically. Visual applied and accepted. Tower sup unfortunately at fault by being a good guy and letting the positions combine so another troop could go home. Short staffing always at fault. And Army technically at fault for being so far out of the prescribed flight path. But again, if that distance compromised the procedure, then the procedure sucked anyhow. And pressure from the Army through the FAA higher ups I’m sure forced the tower management to say yes to the procedure’s request. And that’s I’m sure while all the controllers were saying , “are you crazy?? that doesn’t work except luck with visual!”
And that’s an opinion from a pilot since ’59 and a controller for 38 years. Which means I’m still just full of it frequently.
Completely agree. Any explanation that starts with “we’ve always done it that way” works right up until it doesn’t…given recent releases and publicized “lessons learned” (which aren’t the right ones) we aren’t closer to “fixing the stupid” that was the root cause…bad routes, bad SOPs and inadequate deconfliction assumptions…note that tech is NOT listed in there as part of the root cause.
I don’t know that there is anywhere else in our nation’s airspace where a separation of a couple of hundred feet is considered acceptable. It shouldn’t be in Washington DC either.