Plane crashes into another plane near Reagan International

[skyking]

I've flown into the DC area twice in our own airplane. My protip:
Book your flights into IAD. That crazy shit been going on at DCA since forever. It was bound to happen.

 

[pmv]

Having watched so many Youtube videos on the topic of aviation disasters, my first thought was "why didn't TCAS help?" followed by "ah, I bet military helicopters - maybe helicopters in general - aren't equipped with that - maybe they need to do something to address that issue?".

[edit] ah, it also doesn't operate at low altitudes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/30/tcas-system-air-collision-dc-plane-helicopter-crash/

 

[pmv]

My next thought was "why are military helicopters buzzing around right next to a massively-busy commercial airport?"

Seems others already asked the same question

Washington DC plane crash: ‘black box’ data recorder recovered from Black Hawk helicopter – as it happened

Officials say over 100 family members of victims are in the Washington area for briefings and that every air traffic controller involved is under intense scrutiny

www.theguardian.com

Last year, Bill Johnson, a commercially certified pilot and a retired US army explosives expert, saw more than 20 UH-60 army helicopters fly over his house in one hour as he was working outside in his vegetable garden in Annandale, a residential community in Virginia’s Washington DC suburbs.

At first Johnson was bothered by the noise. But, as he kept noticing the thrum of military training flights overhead, he began to fear that the increasing congestion in the skies could result in disaster.

Johnson sent letters to military leaders at nearby Fort Belvoir, where the Black Hawk Sikorsky involved in Wednesday’s collision was based and flew from that night, and the Department of Defence. He sent a complaint to his congressperson and even to the Federal Aviation Administration warning them about the dangers of too many low-altitude army training helicopters soaring through the area.

“On 3/29/2024 at 1503 hours I observed two US army UH-60s nearly collide over 1-495 near Annandale,” he wrote in one complaint to the FAA from last March, noting they passed each other above the highway only “about 50-100 meters apart”.

That April, Johnson forwarded another complaint to the US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, raising similar concerns.

“Given that these are everyday training flights over known congested areas,” he said, referring to a nearby antenna, how precisely “does the military guarantee the safety of persons and property on the ground?”

No one answered his question, he told the Guardian on Thursday.

“We lost more than 60 people, and two aircraft, and we shut down a major airport, and it was completely avoidable,” he said.

“There’s so many places they could have been doing training. Why did they have to do it at the end of the runways of DCA?” Johnson continued, referring to the airport code of Reagan National airport.

Incidentally, not only was Trump engaging in his usual thinly-vieled racism (and misogyny), but who asked him such a dumb question in the first place? What kind of racist ideologue pretending to be a journalist "asked him if the crash was caused by diversity hiring"? Why not ask "was the crash caused by capitalism?" or "was the crash caused by the partriarchy?" if you are into ridiculous leading questions?

Washington DC plane crash: ‘black box’ data recorder recovered from Black Hawk helicopter – as it happened

Officials say over 100 family members of victims are in the Washington area for briefings and that every air traffic controller involved is under intense scrutiny

www.theguardian.com

 

[darkswordsman17]

A coworker put on Fox News (I genuinely don't know how people can watch that shit, thankfully I have noise cancelling headphones), but the little bit I gleaned while I was making my food, they were trying to blame it on Biden and Obama, and DEI.

My next thought was "why are military helicopters buzzing around right next to a massively-busy commercial airport?"

Seems others already asked the same question

Washington DC plane crash: ‘black box’ data recorder recovered from Black Hawk helicopter – as it happened

Officials say over 100 family members of victims are in the Washington area for briefings and that every air traffic controller involved is under intense scrutiny

www.theguardian.com

Incidentally, not only was Trump engaging in his usual thinly-vieled racism (and misogyny), but who asked him such a dumb question in the first place? What kind of racist ideologue pretending to be a journalist "asked him if the crash was caused by diversity hiring"? Why not ask "was the crash caused by capitalism?" or "was the crash caused by the partriarchy?" if you are into ridiculous leading questions?

Washington DC plane crash: ‘black box’ data recorder recovered from Black Hawk helicopter – as it happened

Officials say over 100 family members of victims are in the Washington area for briefings and that every air traffic controller involved is under intense scrutiny

www.theguardian.com

I'm guessing they were fed that question ahead of time as this administration is trying to start their Nazi arguments (aka, why we need their Final Solution, cause DEI and the like is poisoning the perfect Aryan American blood). They're trying to blame all issues on DEI and basically anything that doesn't just say that straight white people are the only acceptable Americans in any position of power.

 

[Pens1566]

I've flown into the DC area twice in our own airplane. My protip:
Book your flights into IAD. That crazy shit been going on at DCA since forever. It was bound to happen.

DCA has probably the worst airspace restrictions in the world. You can't simultaneously limit the flight path options AND drastically increase the traffic (like congress critters requested) and expect nothing to happen.

 

[KMFJD]

The most compassionate president ever! What more can be said, so presidential!

 

[Pens1566]

The most compassionate president ever! What more can be said, so presidential!

View attachment 115995

The answer to his "you want me to go swimming?" is an immediate, screaming "YES". Please do. On camera. I'd love to see you try to exert yourself at the level necessary to keep your mass of blubber afloat.

 

[allisolm]

Thank goodness closeness only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades but still too close for comfort. Got a message from my son last night that he flew into Reagan yesterday from the midwest and passed right over the wreckage.

 

[VRAMdemon]

The answer to his "you want me to go swimming?" is an immediate, screaming "YES". Please do. On camera. I'd love to see you try to exert yourself at the level necessary to keep your mass of blubber afloat.

"Do you have any idea how wet from the standpoint of water that river is"?

Yes, right in the frigid Potomac. I’d buy popcorn to see that “big tough guy” babble through one of his idiot stream of consciousness word salads while treading water in a 35 degree river.

 

[Brainonska511]

The answer to his "you want me to go swimming?" is an immediate, screaming "YES". Please do. On camera. I'd love to see you try to exert yourself at the level necessary to keep your mass of blubber afloat.

If he wasn't the president, it might have actually been a funny line.

 

[VRAMdemon]

The administrator of the FAA, Michael Whitaker, resigned from his position on January 20 after repeated demands from Elon Musk that he quit because Musk didn't like his fining SpaceX in civil penalties for failing to follow license requirements during two launches in 2023.

FAA Leader Quit Before D.C. Plane Crash—Thanks to Elon Musk

The world’s richest man apparently thought it was a good idea to bully the Federal Aviation Administration chief out of his job.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Brainonska511]

The administrator of the FAA, Michael Whitaker, resigned from his position on January 20 after repeated demands from Elon Musk that he quit because Musk didn't like his fining SpaceX in civil penalties for failing to follow license requirements during two launches in 2023.

FAA Leader Quit Before D.C. Plane Crash—Thanks to Elon Musk

The world’s richest man apparently thought it was a good idea to bully the Federal Aviation Administration chief out of his job.

www.yahoo.com

There was also no acting FAA head until AFTER the crash.

Elon busy ripping the copper wire from the walls of the government, and Republicans in Congress just sitting there with their thumbs up their asses.

 

[VRAMdemon]

They probably voted for him and if they could, would do it again. So I doubt they are bothered much.

Says the Maga apologist

Another Maga apologist billionaire Bill Ackman says they were terrorists, who knew? The families probably loved that one!

 

[VRAMdemon]

Trump has issued an executive order declaring that the crash is Bidens, women, people of color and Obama’s fault.

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)

Here's Trump's order pinning blame for the DCA crash on Obama, Biden, women, and people of color

bsky.app

I had to go to whitehouse.gov to make sure this was not parody. It isn’t

He didn't blame the helicopter? It was black!

I may have to stick with Amtrak for the next 4 years.

 

[FelixDeCat]

We need diversity in aircraft with equity in pilot training including air traffic controllers who are not doing two jobs at the same time! 🙄

Who thought that was a good idea?

 

[Brainonska511]

We need diversity in aircraft with equity in pilot training including air traffic controllers who are not doing two jobs at the same time! 🙄

Who thought that was a good idea?

If you want ATC to not do the work of 2 people per 1 employee, then get on the phone with your Republican buddies you've blindly supported for years, who have been choking Federal agencies' funding for years, and who are now blindly ignoring the illegal impoundment.

 

[hal2kilo]

So I agree with this EXCEPT they can must one sentence right before this.

"Trump trying to blame a plane crash on women and minorities by blaming DEI is just more racist nonsense (or say bullshit if you have balls) from a guy who can't stop lying. It's absolutely disgusting. What happened is....

View attachment 115977

When are people going to learn there will be no surprises with Trump.. He's only motivated by how things affect him. This schtick is not new with him.

How Trump makes tragedies worse, a history

The president blaming DEI for a deadly plane crash is not the first time he's peddled conspiracy theories as the nation reels from a crisis.

www.motherjones.com

 

[Muse]

So I agree with this EXCEPT they can must one sentence right before this.

"Trump trying to blame a plane crash on women and minorities by blaming DEI is just more racist nonsense (or say bullshit if you have balls) from a guy who can't stop lying. It's absolutely disgusting. What happened is....

View attachment 115977

Trump also eliminated Obama's pandemic response apparatus before Covid-19 hit. Then a million+ Americans died from the virus, which Trump poo-pooed as no worse than the flu and would go away in the spring. What horrors do the next 4 years hold?

 

[hal2kilo]

No shit, current press conference they are doubling down on the DEI shit. The Pentagon and the DIA have "paused" their Martin Luther King day recognition. When are they just going to show up in their KKK outfits.

 

[Pens1566]

No shit, current press conference they are doubling down on the DEI shit. The Pentagon and the DIA have "paused" their Martin Luther King day recognition. When are they just going to show up in their KKK outfits.

They're doing a great job of telling everyone they're bigots without actually telling everyone they're bigots.

 

[allisolm]

Funny how, along with blaming previous president's DEI hiring policies as stated on the FAA website, they ALL fail to mention that the same FAA policies about diversity were up on the FAA site during Trump's term and certainly nobody (Trump included) thought they needed changing then. I can only assume that those policies were being followed then.

"The FAA actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.

The FAA meets the goals of the PWD Program through a variety of practices:

Targeted DisabilitiesTargeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism."

Diversity and Inclusion

web.archive.org

 

[Brainonska511]

Funny how, along with blaming previous president's DEI hiring policies as stated on the FAA website, they ALL fail to mention that the same FAA policies about diversity were up on the FAA site during Trump's term and certainly nobody (Trump included) thought they needed changing then. I can only assume that those policies were being followed then.

"The FAA actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.

The FAA meets the goals of the PWD Program through a variety of practices:

Targeted DisabilitiesTargeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism."

Diversity and Inclusion

web.archive.org

They've all become spiteful little man children who just loathe their fellow human beings. And instead of getting therapy, they're latching their death cult onto the rest of us.

 

[hal2kilo]

Watching footage of them disassembling the black boxes (searches for old corporate L3 logo) yep there's the old L3 ball. You will see them on the x-ray scanners at the airports also since L3 bought that division of Pitney Bowes. L3 got bought out by Collins and it's now LHX. Retired before they really started screwing with benefits.

 

[itsmydamnation]

This seems a pretty good analysis.

He doesn't want to say it but looking like 100% Blackhawks fault with to much reliance on VFR at night.

ATC did their Job , approach to runway 01 had congestion, 5342 didn't do anything wrong on approach.

 

[Lanyap]

We need diversity in aircraft with equity in pilot training including air traffic controllers who are not doing two jobs at the same time! 🙄

Who thought that was a good idea?

The last I heard on this issue is that up until 9:30pm 1 ATC handles plane traffic and 1 handles helicopter traffic. At 9:30pm the two responsibilities are combined into 1 ATC due to the volume of air traffic subsiding. In this particular incident the supervisor allowed 1 of the ATCs to leave early so the combining was done early. A question would be why was 1 ATC allowed to leave early and had air traffic subsided enough to allow this to happen.

I also read that the helicopter crew was performing annual special training for emergency evacuation of key government people in case of a disaster and that they would normally fly this route along the Potomac (but not that high.) They have a special name for the training but I can't remember it at the moment.

EDIT: Black Hawk in DC plane crash was practicing top-secret ‘continuity of government mission’ in case of attack on US.