Helicopter in DC Airport Collision Had Faulty Altimeter | Drudge Retort

Advertisement

Friday, August 01, 2025

Helicopter in DC Airport Collision Had Faulty Altimeter

Investigators have found the Army helicopter involved in a deadly mid-air collision over Washington DC was receiving faulty altitude data, causing it to fly higher than intended.

Posted by REDIAL at 02:31 PM | 7 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

More

Alternate links: Google News | Twitter

The January midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which killed 67 people, is the topic of a three-day investigative hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board.

[image or embed]
-- NPR (@npr.org) Jul 30, 2025 at 8:43 AM

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

I would expect an aircraft operator would be able to tell their altitude from their eyeballs, not relying on instruments.

#1 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-07-31 11:53 AM | Reply

I would expect an aircraft operator would be able to tell their altitude from their eyeballs, not relying on instruments.
#1 | POSTED BY SNOOFY

Depends upon the altitude and the tolerance you want. I can tell ~1000ft +-50ft. Using outside plane references and their distance from the aircraft.

BUT ...

As the passenger jet approached the airport, inside the helicopter the instructor was asking the pilot to descend.

"You're at three hundred feet, come down for me," the transcript from the cockpit voice recorder, also known as a black box, says.
"Alright kinda come left for me ma'am, I think that's why he's asking ... We're kinda ... out towards the middle."
www.cnn.com

Too high, too far right (middle of river).

Don't blame the altimeter.

#2 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-07-31 12:24 PM | Reply

I can tell ~1000ft +-50ft.

At night, over water, wearing night vision gear?

#3 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-07-31 12:59 PM | Reply

Yeah, I agree that's part of what went wrong here. All wired in to all those electronic systems has the effect of putting the pilot into a Plato's Cave.

Trusting failed instruments is a fairly common "pilot error" scenario.

#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-07-31 01:04 PM | Reply

5 new details from hearing on DC crash that killed 67
thehill.com

... New details are emerging about the deadly collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter in January near Reagan Washington National Airport, which killed 67 people.

Three days of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearings, along with thousands of pages of documents, suggest that the Black Hawk helicopter may have been relying on misleading instrument readings when it was operating too high over the Potomac River in the lead-up to the midair collision.

The crash, alongside nonfatal but significant disruptions at other U.S. airports, brought national attention to longstanding strains on the air traffic control workforce.

On the second day of hearings, investigators probed a sentiment they had heard repeatedly from air traffic controllers about managing National Airport's complicated airspace with short staffing: "We just make it work."

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials defended the controllers as "public servants" but also acknowledged the challenges faced by the airport and air safety regulators.

"We're pushing the line," admitted Clark Allen, the operations manager at National Airport at the time of the crash.

Here are five takeaways from the first two days of hearings. ...

#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-07-31 08:54 PM | Reply

@#5

This one stood out for me ...

From the article in #5 ...

...Traffic controller says he was overwhelmed' in lead-up to crash

A single air traffic controller was handling both planes and helicopters at the time of the collision, unusual under normal conditions, and interview transcripts released by the NTSB paint a picture of a busy night.

"He was giving clearances and there were a couple of times, and you can listen to it yourself, where he changed his mind, to do one thing, but then no, do this kind of thing," one pilot in the vicinity of the airport told investigators. "They're not instilling a lot of confidence in you because he's seeming like he's overworked, got too much going on at the moment." ...

#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-07-31 08:57 PM | Reply

Traffic controller says he was overwhelmed' in lead-up to crash

That's where this will eventually end up. There is/was way too much traffic at that airport.

#7 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-07-31 09:02 PM | Reply

Comments are closed for this entry.

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy