First it was the crash in DC with the CRJ and VH-60 with 67 souls lost
And last night, an Angels flight Lear 55 apparently with 6 on board crashed in north Philadelphia.
As a retired Naval Flight Officer, my heart goes out to those families who’ve lost loved ones, and I pray for those and the officials conducting the recovery in DC, and the firefighters, medics, and others in Philly. I’ve been through the pain of loss of friends in military crashes, and accident investigation boards, and it is NOT fun.
It is too early to know the details of either incident, contrary to what the MSM and ‘experts’ are spouting. EVERYTHING is conjecture right now, other than the facts that we can see. And frankly, I’m tired of the ‘internet experts’…
The NTSB has a ‘Go Team’ on site in DC, and I’m sure there will be another in Philly sometime this morning, if they aren’t already there.
They will be examining everything pertaining to both instances, and I have to say I was impressed by investigator’s DC interview yesterday. He absolutely shut off speculation, and pointedly told reporters that he would NOT answer their ‘hypotheticals’, nor release any information about the controller or any other people they were interviewing.
The NTSB takes however much time it takes to do their investigation and put their reports together, normally about a year. So, we’re not going to know the outcome in the next week…
And the politicians (ALL of them), need to shut up and let the NTSB do their job(s) to find out what happened. Inserting themselves into the process isn’t helping anyone, and their 15 seconds of ‘fame’ may come back to bite them.
What? You expect Trump to shut up? He has an irrepressible drive to have control and comment on EVERYTHING. I’ve voted for him each time, first time holding my nose. Afterward, with hope in hand, held only one nostril and voted again. I was wrong to expect any real change in personality; it’s in his DNA.
Just wait for the truth to come out….like TWA 800, JFK Jr, 9/11, London, Madrid, etc…Top Men are on the job.
OldNFO , I agree on your advise to let the investigators do a thorough investigations and hold back on speculative suppositions. But news reporters and others would rather be “first” than “right” .
Surely was a tragedy , the videos make me squint and shiver, collision , fireball, then a plunge into icy cold water , damn .
Terrible , …Prayers for the souls and families .
My immediate thought when I heard this was to recall Ian Flemming’s rule of thumb from WWII.
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times or more is enemy action.
I’m waiting to see what happens next.
I had flashbacks to the helo dunker back in the day, but from the video I don’t think they were alive to suffer through that. Terrible loss.
Question for you….we know the evaluator pilot’s identification and the crew chief, but not the pilot who was getting the check ride (other than she was as woman). Isn’t it strange in the audio that the male voice was calling out the visual on the airliner? Wouldn’t the pilot flying the aircraft have to do that? Since the woman was getting the check ride she would be flying, and from my experience should be calling the visuals, but I’m not from that community. All I heard was guy voices on the radio. A small point, but important. We had a pair of A-3’s flying together and the NFO did a lead change with the pilot of the other aircraft without his pilot knowing, and it resulted in a midair and 2 deaths, loss of one aircraft and destruction of the other. What would the protocols be here? Would the pilot flying be doing the talking?
Lori- Normally the copilot is on the radios.
Thanks. My husband and I were both F/A-18, and that seemed unthinkable to us from our background, but that clears it up. It seems like it would be confusing, but I guess not if you are used to it.
If you want decent information, go look at either Juan Browne (blancolorio) or Ward Carrol on YouTube. And forget the rest of the idiots.
One geographic change – that was Northeast Philadelphia, near a major intersection maybe 4-5 miles from the airport. Roosevelt Mall for a long time was the auxiliary shopping center for a big chunk of the city. The only helpful note is that the rowhouses were brick over block construction from the 50s and 60s, and pretty solid. Reduced chances of a firestorm establishing. Not wanting to reach back and see if old classmates or their parents were affected.
Definitely a “wait and collect data” time. First impression is that something happened just after takeoff and in climb-out, with a crash into mostly empty parking lots I hope.
One source I do trust is Juan Browne. He is a former air force pilot currently flying for the airlines. He has a you tube channel and does frequent posts on aviation topics. No tin foil hat conspiracies, just looking at the facts as currently known. he is also one of the few that will do a follow up report in a year or so when the NTSB finally releases their report.
Off topic rant removed.
Because the two prominent words in the Democrat vocabulary are “lie” and “violence.” There is a tremendous pile of evidence to the fact.
Given how busy DC is and the military, law enforcement, and first responder traffic there, it doesn’t make sense to me to have commercial flights as well…
I’ve heard the only they still do is because Congressmen don’t want to do the drive to Dulles. Do you know if this is accurate?
I’ve driven to the museum on the other side of the field at Dulles several times over the past few years and it was horrible every time.
BTW, check this out: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d,a97753&lat=38.841&lon=-77.038&zoom=14.3&showTrace=2025-01-30&trackLabels
Very simple question, very complex answer: “Can Dulles absorb all the flights that are currently going into Reagan?”
The fact that you never hear people who say “Oh, it’s still open because They don’t want the drive” never follow up with “Dulles has enough ground and arrival/departure capacity to easily shift everything over” is what we call A Clue.
Here I both agree and disagree with you. Yes, to NTSB’s investigation. No,to ignoring things that can be fixed right now, such as staffing questions and training protocols.
Was not fun at work this week, having to explain to too many people raised on internet attention spans “Here’s the timeline for finding things out”, and “Here’s the facts we know now. They are not enough to come up with conclusions yet. They’re starting points.” and “A great many things had to go wrong for the final mistake to happen. Here are some of them. The NTSB is not necessarily looking to blame a pilot, but to see how widespread the system failures are, so we can fix anything that will prevent the next crash.”
and finally “The best thing you can do right now is STAY AT YOUR ASSIGNED ALTITUDE, WATCH FOR TRAFFIC, and pray for the souls on board and the safety of the SAR team.”
I have uncharitable thoughts to the way so many of the youngest generation have been raised on movie tropes instead of reality, and as such expected that somehow there must be at least a small crew of valiant survivors. I felt like I was kicking puppies when student pilots and coworkers came to me in shocked protest at the no survivors news… and I had to explain that a low-altitude midair over 40 degree water meant at least the souls on board didn’t suffer long.
*sinal salute* The kids always think they’re immortal, invincible, and infertile. I can’t even throw stones, because I too once thought the same thing before life beat it out of me. G-d have mercy on my old instructors…
I stayed with answering “Why do helicopters fly there” and “How can you miss a lit-up airliner?” Well, because that’s a designated low-level route for military helicopters because they need to move around DC, and how “well lit” it is depends on where you are. (Having misplaced an airliner well below me [1000′] as it went over city lights …)
I’m old enough to remember Air Florida and the Potomac. And the start of stricter deicing protocols.
“Isn’t it irresponsible to have them so close to each other?”
“No. This is why there is NO fudge factor on your hard ceilings and hard floors in corridors and approach/departure routes. I’ve flown similar many times. It’s only irresponsible if *you choose* to be irresponsible and put lives at risk.”
…Apparently this conversation was “stern” and “displayed my hard-ass side.” Well, better they get it from me than at 400AGL.
I have yet to see a successful appeal to the ground’s supervisor or manager. Just sayin’.
All- Thanks for the comments, and yes Juan Browne (blancolorio) is decent, but often with a quick turnaround, so may be missing details. Yes, Dulles could handle the traffic, but lawmakers don’t want to ‘waste’ time going out there.
Dot/TXRed- Right on all counts.
Sometime the truth doesn’t come out…perhaps because it’s not available. The crash footage from Philly suggests a mechanical issue, loss of control. Sadly it does happen, and pilot error is always a possibility.
In DC a video, much closer and clearer shows level controlled flight of the Blackhawk directly into the jet. Reports are the pilot was a “transgender” who had recently been on a podcast railing against Trump for his recent directives regarding transgenders in the military and government. This makes the possibility that the pilot deliberately flew the helicopter I to the jet a very real possibility. Transgenderism IS a form of mental illness and could be a factor. One that can never be proven or disproven as the pilot is dead and his mentality impossible to know. We may never know with certainty what happened or why. There simply isn’t always a clear answer to some questions.
Dan- The transgender was NOT the pilot. Once again a false report getting ‘credibility’…sigh
The Philadelphia plane appeared to be on fire as it dove at a fairly steep angle before impact in the videos I have seen. Seemed to be at a high rate of speed also.
The DC crash looken d like the helo pilot didn’t see the jet. I didn’t understand that until I saw an overhead map of the flights. The airliner would have been coming from the helos’ 8 oclock position, behind and left. With the limited field of view through NVGs, the pilot would have to actually look back to see the approaching plane.
That said, Area Ocho has some good info on the pilot, and lays out that she had barely enough hours to maintain certification in type. I didn’t think that 500 hours qualified as “highly experienced”.
John in Indy
Mea Culpa. Thanks, James Cook. I checked the Juan Browne site, and he identified what I thought was fire as landing lights in mist, and confirmed the planes’ very high speed in the dive to impact.
John- It wasn’t on fire. That was the landing lights.