Wow.
When you fly at night you are at the mercy of the instruments. A lot of people don't realize the difficulties of aerial navigation. You may know your area fairly well on the ground but go up about 1000 ft, fly ten miles out of town or outside visual distance of landmarks on the ground - and you can get lost in very short order.
This so-called Whitehawk helicopter will have an avionics suite as costly and complex as the aircraft itself. It will have stuff that us civvies know nothing about too. The pilots will literally have tens of thousands of hours experience with this bird and could almost literally fly it in their sleep. The pilots of the plane that collided with it will almost certainly be experienced as well. For them to be out of position? That is worrying. Ditto for the passenger craft. People are also not cognizant of how fast things can happen in the air either. Sure... you may see an aircraft on a collision course a mile away... but a jet moving at speed can eat that mile up in seconds. You are as likely to dodge into it as away from it when the pucker factor kicks in.
Apparently the whirlybird had its transponder off - the device that identifies the aircraft and allows air traffic controllers to see it on radar. This makes sense, I guess - you don't want bad guys to know where your VIPs are when they're in the air. I get it.
But... Jesus H Christ - at a busy airport? People don't realize how busy they actually are. I have heard the cops and Drug Enforcement guys complain that drug couriers can literally come into these big, sprawling airports, land, offload their cargo onto waiting trucks, and be back up and in the air in mere minutes. Then the plane literally gets lost in the crowd when they depart.
It's way too early to say anything but I am willing to bet that this is an endemic problem with procedure and not a conspiracy of some sort. Shit happens, sometimes, despite the best intents. They're being very tight lipped about who was on that bird. I heard on the net it had just departed from the CIA offices which only fuels the whispers and suspicions. Nobody trusts those guys and rightfully so.
But whadda I know?
UPDATE:
Again… all is preliminary…
"Apparently the whirlybird had its transponder off"
ReplyDeleteOdd that it was tracked only after leaving what would be the airspace directly over CIA headquarters near Langley
I am waiting to see if DEI is a factor.
ReplyDeleteI am not a Pilot, but a retired Yacht Captain. We never ran at night unless absolutely necessary. We always had AIS, Radar, VFH and FLIR at the very least and we STILL avoided it. Oh, and out cruise speeds were in the mid 30kt range.
ReplyDeleteAlmost certainly this an Air Traffic controller issue. By the way best info is the helo's transponder was on.
ReplyDeleteThis story bugs me. The media, right, left, and otherwise are being fed a line of crap already.
ReplyDeleteI have only a couple dozen hours of night flight in my pilots logbook. It is absolutely magical; the lights below you are a carpet of diamonds. But......As a small plane pilot, you are always cognizant of "where will I set this thing down if the engine goes tits up?" Your odds of a successful off airport landing at night are slim to none. After a safety seminar where the instructor said "If you don't have to fly at night, then don't!", I gave it up as not worth the risk.
You are right Glen, that it is too early to speculate, but a couple of relevant observations. That airspace (three miles from the White House) is some of the most rigidly controlled that there is. While ATC has been crippled in recent years with budget cuts and DEI infestations, I don't think ATC in this airspace was compromised here. If the Blackhawk reported "traffic in sight", but was mistaken as to WHICH traffic he saw, there it is.
I have watched Blackhawks land at night with no lights at all, and it is a spooky thing to see. But as an air ambulance pilot told me once (twenty years ago now) that his night vision helmet cost about $30,000, and made his view the same as daylight, that should not have been an issue, even on a "training flight".
The commercial jet was on short final, as low and slow as they get, and the pilots were watching both instruments and the approach lights of the runway. No way could they be looking for a nearly invisible helo as well.
Hilary Clinton didn't get a pardon, but after this maybe she doesn't need one. Who was on that whirly-bird?
ReplyDeleteI smell a rat. Black Hogs altitude trace looks odd.
ReplyDelete