The NTSB has formally recommended that ADS-B In be required in all aircraft wherever ADS-B Out is now mandated as part of the final report on the collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a CRJ700 in Washington, D.C. The final report was issued on Tuesday and the board had plenty to say about the tragedy. The report on the accident, which killed 67 people on Jan. 29, 2025, runs 378 pages and fleshes out the many press statements, congressional testimony, and board meetings that have resulted from the crash. The board held a daylong public meeting late last month to publicly announce the findings and recommendations. In its final form it contains 33 recommendations to the FAA, eight to the Army, and a total of eight to various other agencies. The recommendations result from eight main safety issues uncovered in the lengthy investigation. The detailed examination of the findings of the investigation is both alarming and sobering.
Essentially, it paints a picture of a dangerous environment overseen by exhausted and overwhelmed controllers dealing with aircraft that are not equipped with the latest anti-collision technology. The findings take up five pages of single-spaced type, roughly the same amount of space needed for the extensive and detailed recommendations. Among the findings was that a more advanced form of TCAS known as ACAS Xr would have given the regional crew about eight seconds to react to the impending collision. As it was on the night of the crash, the RJ didn’t have ADS-B In and the ADS-B Out on the helicopter wasn’t working. The final report says the regional crew had about one second to react before the main rotor chopped the end off the left wing. The FAA has pledged to take the recommendations to heart. It has already implemented airspace changes at DCA, including the permanent closure of the helicopter corridor the Black Hawk was using the night of the crash. The full report is below.
Well … hopefully any change to FAR mandated equipment will allow portable “in” equipment. If they mandate TSO’ed stuff for GA, the community will never put up with that, en masse. So they’ll essentially be ‘stealing’ Class C and B airspace for airliners and high end airplanes. I could live with COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) specs that might ID specific portable equipment that has proven itself as long as portable is in the ‘definition.’ E.G., a GDL 50 and a suitable display.
Beyond that, I foresee a time when the FAA will claim that maintaining the ADS-B ground stations is costing too much and determine that satellite-based ADS-B become the ‘new’ standard. At that point, dual diversity ‘out’ boxes will become necessary which means more new equipment. It took years for aircraft owners to finally put in ADS-B — and many have still not done it — so dual diversity switchover will see a like resistance … IF it happens.
Also, with drones now proliferating, I think it’s time to allow electronic conspicuity (EC) boxes for low end airplanes and drones. What can it hurt. Would they rather have a non-electrical Cub run into something or be able to ID itself? While I’m at it, I think drones need to have ADS-B out, as well. Mark my words … collisions between “real” airplanes and drones are coming as those things proliferate.
Lastly, I made a recommendation to the Army that they equip their helicopters with a portable ‘in’ box setup for the crew chief to monitor. Imagine if PAT25 had an Aera 760 display hard mounted and dedicated to the ‘in’ function for the third crewman to keep track of. He’d have seen the airliner coming from their left when the flight crew was obviously looking right toward traffic near the airport. Looks like the NTSB feels that being able to see traffic is an important function; I have such a setup in my airplane.
On target, Larry. 👍
There are way too many aircraft flying way too close together these days, with way too few controllers, way too short on training and experience, way too presumptuous about safety issues, way too fatigued to fly. And while I agree that drones will be involved as the cause of many more future accidents, ADSB can’t fix response times when aircraft are flying this close together.
This mishap is about known inadequate procedures (conflicting helo and approaches, aggravated by multiple runway ops), proven as such by multiple reported previous near misses. Normalization of deviance…aka “we’ve always done it that way”, the most dangerous phrase in aviation short of “hold my beer/watch this”.
The potential ADS-B mandate is the “do something” typical feel good action of a bureaucracy to levy a requirement on an uninvolved population. ADS-B was not spec’d to resolve in close conflicts and will create more distraction in these scenarios.
Tech is NOT the answer to addressing inadequate and frankly stupid procedures. The real answer is to listen to the participants to resolve underlying issues before the next NTSB investigation is required
Agreed. The corridor is now closed, and it should be. But that does not erase the core failure. Humans designed Route 4 as if it was an engineered separation concept, yet it was never engineered with real margins. S E P A R A T E !