• New here? Register here now for access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Plus, stay connected and follow BP on Instagram @buckeyeplanet and Facebook.

A plane crash

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
DaiMonMoore

DaiMonMoore

Heisman
Horrible news tonight with an American Airlines regional jet colliding with a helicopter just before landing. The jet lands in the river and likely many fatalities. I don't know how to fly but I've always been curious about airplanes and the reasons they crash. I've watched about every video on YouTube from Flight Channel detailing every crash. I remember in the 1980s there would be 4-5 crashes per year in the USA alone. Since 9/11, there have only been 3 major airline crashes until tonight.

A month after 9/11, a large airliner from NYC heading to the Caribbean crashed, raising fears of a terrorist attack. Nope, the co-pilot was poorly trained and made aggressive maneuvers to get out of wake turbulence, causing the rudder to snap off.

Then in Lexington KY, the crew took off from the wrong runway which was much shorter. It wasn't even lit causing the pilot to comment seconds before his death, "This is weird with no lights." He didn't abort, and every passenger died.

Then the final crash until tonight, in Buffalo NY, a poorly trained pilot and tired co-pilot crashed a Comair jet short of the runway when they were not watching the speed and it stalled and went out of control.

And now tonight. For the last few years, the FAA has mentioned near misses due to airport congestion and I always thought it was alarmist. But I guess I was wrong. This crash is the result of a collision between an airliner and a military helicopter close to a major airport. Who will be to blame?
 
Upvote 0
knuckifyoubuck said:


Take it with a grain of salt but interesting stuff hitting web all over
Click to expand...

ok, I will preface that I have no insight into anything, and only an interest in aviation stuff, no real training/knowledge.

Obviously we won't know anything until after all the investigation stuff is complete, possibly years from now, but from the conference earlier, it sounds like the planes and helicopters were on "normal flight patterns" which is routine stuff for that area, with both the airport and base sharing that space. Watching that flight path video, those first "near misses" were planes in a takeoff pattern going North/Northwest out of the airport, up and over the river and out of the city, while the chopper was flying south/southeast down the river, probably thousands of feet below. Once the chopper gets closer to the airport, where the planes are lower, it moved further east toward the city, and away from the airport. Once it got to the southside of the airport, it starts making it's way toward the other middle of the river again, getting away from JB Boling-Anacostia, where there may have been other aircraft getting ready to come and go, no idea.

This is where my speculation comes in. I'm guessing there was confusion as to the runway being used (either by the chopper or aircraft). It appears the plane was lining up for runway 33, which runs SE to NW, and is the furthest east runway on that side. Runway 1 is the more S-N running runway, and may have been the expected runway from the chopper's point of view (and you can see another plane that appears to be lining up for that one in the final frame of the above video). So perhaps the chopper assumes the airspace to runway 33 was clear, and it wasn't. Even if there was some free airspace north and south, the winds were said to be bad, and maybe there was a wind sheer that moved one vehicle up or down into the other, but there still should have been enough separation both vertically and horizontally to avoid this tragedy. So I'm thinking there was some ATC miscommunication somewhere, and there was no time to recover.

Side note, I just flew into and out of there a few times in my life, most recently while on business last month, and it's a tight space between the two cities, landing basically on the river. Much like coming into an airport in the mountain valley, there's not much maneuver space in the low fly zone. Sad tragedy.
 
Upvote 0
Thump said:
Captain Sully said Reagan was built in the 30's, has short runways and outdated technology.
Click to expand...

Gizmo said:
can't vouch for the technology, but it is an old and small airport in a bad spot, as far as being surrounded by city.
Click to expand...
They were saying last night that there are regular conversations about shutting it down and relocating it somewhere else with more space, but Congress always votes it down because they like the convenience of being able to fly in and out so close (approx. 10 min) to the Capitol. Wonder if this will change anyone's minds about that.
 
Upvote 0
Bucklion said:
They were saying last night that there are regular conversations about shutting it down and relocating it somewhere else with more space, but Congress always votes it down because they like the convenience of being able to fly in and out so close (approx. 10 min) to the Capitol. Wonder if this will change anyone's minds about that.
Click to expand...
Turn it into an executive airport. Small/private jets in and out. Move all other flights to Dulles and/or BWI. Congress, etc. can use it for their own personal stuff, and the regular folks don't have to fly into that area.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top