From "Congress Approved More Flights at Reagan Despite Warnings of Danger/Lawmakers repeatedly added flights despite fears of delays and accidents" (NYT)(Congress has repeatedly voted to increase the number of daily flights at Reagan National Airport, adding departures that made life more convenient for lawmakers...).
February 1, 2025
"'I was so distraught when I heard this news last night,' said Senator Tim Kaine... who for years has opposed adding flights at Reagan..."
"... and warned of the dangers posed by overcrowding the D.C. airspace. 'I will not be able to rewatch the speech I gave on the Senate floor about it because it would make me too upset,' he added. Last year, as the Senate debated the latest round of additional flights, Mr. Kaine said he feared the prospect of people sticking a microphone in lawmakers’ faces after a tragedy and saying 'you were warned and you voted for it anyway.'"
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18 comments:
Too bad he wasn't on it.
So it’s also safe to assume that President Biden (on the recommendation of his handlers) signed off on this?
DCA was closed for three weeks after 9-11. There was real debate about reopening it. In the end, convenience for the "elites" won. IIRC, private aircraft were all banned, and had to relocate.
Oh, and, for once, the junior senator from my state has something intelligent to say.
Maybe it's too many helicopters instead of too many planes. Improve safety by eliminating the air taxi service for self important elites. WTF are they doing flying choppers in approach zones anyway?
Smarmy Tim Kaine, but this time he might even be right. Last night the talking heads on TV were rattling on about how Runway 33* is the busiest runway in the entire US, and — if true — then why was one controller in charge of that runway, Runway 1, and directing helo traffic on a training jaunt down the Potomac River besides?
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* Runways have two names according to their compass heading. Runway 1 is roughly 10 degrees to the right of due north, which means you are approaching from the south or taking off to the north. And if you approach it from the other side it is 10 degrees plus 180 degrees = 190 degrees = Runway 19. Runway 33 is roughly on a compass heading of 330 degrees, i.e., 30 degrees to the left of due north. Yes, the two runways cross each other, making coordinating landings and takeoffs all the harder.
trumps airplane crashes are starting to add up already Good thing he did all the EO's On flight travel.
So it turns out the crash was caused by overcrowding the D.C. airspace and not by DEI or anything else. Good to know.
I've read that the helo was more than 150 feet above its lane height. Instruments would tell you that so the problem wasn't that the pilot was confused by all the lights and reflections. That's pilot error. And the control tower should have told the helo it was too high. That's the control tower's error. The military has to practice flying in DC conditions so I can't see stopping all helo flights. I can see banning helo taxis but I also know from my previous life when I drove in DC that the traffic is unbearable. Banning helo taxis would just make driving worse. Get to the root of the problem which is the growth of the Federal government and its cloud of lobbyists: Abolish the Depts. of Transportation, Energy and Education or move them to Baltimore which needs taxable entities and workers; Allow high-performing workers to work from home; Require lobbyists to pay a congestion tax which could go into an anti-corruption task force.
That Army aviation unit is tasked with ferrying VIPs (Cabinet, Senators, and Congress members), including evacuations from DC for continuity of government functions in case of national emergency. You have to practice in that airspace to be able to fill this role, and that means even at night or bad weather. It would make more sense to reduce commercial traffic at DCA, and make congress critters fly out of Dulles (and pay the obscene tolls and parking fees).
Or do some of your training during low volume periods if they must be done at night. If you are practicing for continuity of government functions, those happen at 2AM so practice then.
Why should Congress have any say in deciding how many flights are allowed at a given airport. They delegate away all meaningful decisions to "the experts" except this one where they have no damn business interfering.
There are stochastic and gross anomalies. This event, on the evidence, seems to be the latter.
On the 2Way (my new favorite political chat show) they explained what a massive time saver having a flight to your "home" airport from that particular DC airport is for electeds. Plus they stated that if Congress runs late they can actually call the DC airport and have flights held. While these perks may have not been at play in this particular disaster they definitely have to contribute to the overall chaos at this airport.
Aircraft altimeters can give erroneous readings when near the ground, due to temperature or barometric changes, interference from buildings or rough terrain [radar altimeters], so that's a topic requiring investigation. Others have pointed out that a helo dips its nose when climbing, which might explain why the pilot didn't see the plane above/behind him.
Estupido! In other words, to alter a familiar phrase, "When a sparrow falls, it's Trump's fault."
SNORT
This crash appears to have been enabled by domino-effect of many failures in established protocols and procedures, gee, like the Butler PA rally.
Army's refusal to identify helicopter pilot, while identifying the two male officers without delay, is strange; names of deceased military are normally released for public information unless a classified mission. Three officers on helicopter, all licensed pilots, yet videos suggest helicopter intentionally crashed into jet plane.
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