Washington, DC: Commercial Jet Collides With Blackhawk Helicopter Near Reagan Airport

Typically, a pilot has to log X number of hours at night hours. Just because there was an instructor pilot on the aircraft, really doesn't mean much. All it means is that they were probably doing a night check ride. He'd just sign off and away they'd both go.
NVG'S? Hated them. My best guess is that since they were flying to an airport they were flying nighthawk. NVG'S Would shut down with that much light.
Still, it's a wonder how 2 pilots could miss a fairly good sized jet.
I read somewhere else that they were on the wrong radio frequency. Which is weird as well because to get clearance to take off, they'd have to be on Regan National tower.

A whole lot of this stuff don't make sense.

 

If you look at the video.. the Blackhawk may have been looking at the plane departing going to their right NOT the plane approaching from the left..

This is 100% human fault... 30/70
30% the Blackhawk for not seeing the jet to the left with it's landing light's on.

70% atc for not telling the Blackhawk when asked if they saw the jet they shoukd have added "at your 9 o'clock" that woukd have told them to look LEFT. Should have told the jet "you have traffic at you 3 o'clock 1 mile at 400ft. This would have had them look right..

 

This guy has probably the best info on plane crashes. Sounds like the Blackhawk did not see the plane or thought it another plane was the American plane

 

The crazy part is that the Bombardier CRJ is equipped with TCAS. I wonder if the system picked up the helicopter before the collision.

 

it turns off at 1,000 ft because of interference with ground buildings

 

Another update

 

You and @Opus , being pilots, have a good take on this. The majority of the others are just running their mouths about something they have little or no practical knowledge of.
Out of respect for the air crews and the passengers, let's not rush to judgement.

 

I grew up in the DC area, in fact I was working delivering auto parts and drove across the 14th Street bridge about 20 minutes before the Air Florida crash in 1982.

The FAA tried to get that airport closed for years for safety reasons (short runways designed for 1940s propeller planes, congested airspace, tight travel pathways up and down the Potomac River due to noise issues, security concerns due to its proximity to the White House and the Capitol), but Senators and Congressmen didn’t want to give up the convenience of a close in airport (it’s roughly 30 miles to Washington Dulles International Airport from the Capitol, and the same to Baltimore Washington International Airport).

 

The CRJ-700 has an excellent safety record.
This was the first fatal accident involving the type. The aircraft involved was previously in an incident in 2017 when it struck a deer while taking off from Charlotte Douglas International Airport enroute to Gulfport,Mississippi.

 

Try telling that to our current president who is spewing BS rhetoric and blaming DEI!
Our nation’s air traffic control system has had a shortage going back to the 80s, when Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers. When I was living in Chicagoland we almost had a nightmare scenario (Tenerife)when one of United’s 737s almost collided with a 747 freighter!
2006 O'Hare International Airport runway incursion - Wikipedia
After that and a few other incidents the majority of the runways at O’Hare were reconfigured in the OMP(O’Hare Modernization Plan).