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

Female Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Washington DC aircrash tragedy named

 

What most of us have suspected!
NTSB has confirmed that the Black Hawk was too high.
NTSB confirms Black Hawk helicopter was flying 100 feet over altitude limit

 

And out of route.

 

I don't know if they were looking at their rad alt or bar alt (AGL or MSL) but either way there's no good reason for being 100 feet off, especially in such a tightly controlled area.

 

And with an Instructor pilot in the other seat

 

Having an IP in the seat is further mind boggling. I didn't get to fly up there but I imagine it should be like going to the ship at night, where you would be hawking your altitude pretty closely the whole time.

 

I spoke with my son-in-law yesterday about this altitude problem. To be clear he is not a pilot, he is an infantry Officer. He told me a single digit off on an altimeter setting can cause the pilots to be 100' off. Most likely they were all using night vision equipment and the lights had them blinded. There is a lot of conspiracy chatter all over the internet, but based on the TCAS forced go-around a night or two before this happened I am starting to believe this is a tragic accident caused by horrible planning and maybe even some arrogance in the US Army.

The controller in the tower was talking to the chopper on a UHF frequency and the commercial traffic on a VHF frequency. He could hear both and speak to both, but the commercial plane could not communicate with the chopper and vice versa.

Had the tower been manned properly the military controller might have caught to altitude of the chopper and corrected them. In the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" Clint Eastwood used two words together to describe the alert in the movie. I think those words are fitting here as well. The Army has got to stop flying under the approach lanes of these busy airports.

 

And the worst part about this accident is that there’s the possibility that the Army,being an agency in the service of the government,might declare immunity for the whole thing.

 

I was asked more about this statement, and to be honest I did not explain it well. In the USA a pilot generally is given an altimeter setting through different means. I am not going to get into deep detail, but in the below photo of an altimeter you will see a window on the right side with a pointer that is pointing to 29.9. This is a barometric pressure like 29.92. The pilot turns this dial. At the same time the 100' dial moves. That dial setting being off by just that last number can cause the aircraft to be 100' too high or too low.

 

Here's the thing though, it's really unlikely they're flying using the altimeter in that environment when they have a heads up display. And I would imagine the heads up display pulls the altimeter signal from GPS, not the altimeter.

Also, and especially because they had just left their home field, they would have immediately noticed a 100' discrepancy in altitude when setting the altimeter. There is always the possibility it was never set, that would be obvious going back thru ATC data.