Quote:
Originally Posted by mtdjed
How could it not happen? Air Controller overload, Interlapping military and commercial flights at nearby airports, military night training flights in overloaded commercial airport landing paths. Government, congressional, executive desire for easy transport from midtown DC. Time for some intelligent decisions. Eliminate overlapping flightpath air facilities. It will not get better unless a major shift is made. Don't allow congress or executive civilians to influence decisions for convenience
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There is no "overlapping flight paths" or "interlapping flights". What's an "executive civilian" ?
The airspace in that area is well known and specific. This crash will mostly likely end up being attributed to simple human error. Based on the current information, the Blackhawk was in the wrong place and erroneously informed ATC that they had the CRJ in view.
That BH was manned by 3 professionals, at least 2 of which were qualified pilots. To mis-identify a commercial aircraft under those circumstances, is inexcusable. ATC and both aircraft should have received a CA warning (Collision Avoidance) and both ATC & the BH should have taken immediate action. It appears the CRJ was exactly where it was supposed to be and not in a position to take evasive action. Also, with a Separation Error of that magnitude, there was likely a audible warning in the tower (at least that's how it used to work.)
In my opinion, all this noise about the "system", is simply that ... noise. The system usually works perfectly fine, it's the people who fail. ATC for assuming the BH pilots actually had the CRJ in view (even though he had a CA warning) and the BH pilots for not being vigilant.