I should mention that in the recording you can only hear one side of the conversation, so I don’t know whether or not the helicopter said whether or not they had visual contact with the plane they collided with.
Either way it doesn’t seem to be the fault of ATC. Of course we’ll know more as additional information becomes available.
https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...
* At 5:41 - 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33.
* At 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial
* At 7:06 - tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation
* At 8:12 - tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight and tells him to pass behind the CRJ. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation.
* At 8:28 - crash occurs, exclamations, go arounds issued
That said, it's possible they mistook which aircraft to look for, but it's unlikely imho and we will likely never know for sure, as I would presume the pilots are deceased.
One has radars even on recreational boats. That was a military helicopter. At night. It would be hard to believe that it doesn't have nor radar nor IR cameras, and the plane would be lightened up like X-mas tree in both.
I have no extra information on this incident so this is only generic input.
~The flight track of the helicopter [2] starts at a property in McLean, VA (edited to remove likely inaccurate info)~
The chopper was based out of Fort Belvoir, and based on similar past flight tracks, looks like it probably took off from there too. CNN is reporting that there were 3 soldiers onboard, and no VIPs.
1: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_VH-60N_White_Hawk
2: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d&lat=38.952&lon=-...
that's almost certainly not where the flight started, due to intricacies of how this sort of flight tracking works.
if you look at [0] it has tracks of both flights. toggle the right-hand sidebar, if it's not open already, and you'll see a table containing both planes. the helicopter (PAT25) is yellow, the plane (JIA5342) is blue. the legend right below that explains the color-coding - the plane's data came from ADS-B, while the helicopter's data came from multilateration (MLAT).
MLAT [1, 2] works by having multiple ADS-B feeder stations cooperate in real-time and deduce an aircraft's position based on timestamps of when the signal is received. it allows tracking aircraft that only broadcast the more limited Mode S data, instead of the newer and more detailed ADS-B.
because it requires multiple cooperating receivers, the start of the track in suburban McLean does not mean it took off from there. it just means that was the point in its flight where it became visible to enough receivers that MLAT was able to pin down a position.
you can also see this difference just by looking at the tracks - the plane is broadcasting its own position continuously, so its track is nice and smooth. meanwhile the helicopter's flight looks "jagged" in a way that does not match what its actual flight path would have been. this is an artifact of the small errors introduced by MLAT.
0: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae313d,a97753
1: https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/
2: https://adsbx.discourse.group/t/multilateration-mlat-how-it-...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMX-1 They have some Ospreys and other things as well, but HMX-1 is the most famous and recognizable.
I don’t think thats strong evidence that it took off from the old Saudi Embassy - thats pretty far away even given your caveat about accuracy.
Edit: it looks to me like the black hawk was coming from somewhere else with its ADS-B turned off entirely, and then turned on ADS-B once it reached the potomac to approach DCA. The first two datapoints of that flight already show it going 110mph, which its unlikely to be able to accelerate to in just 0.2miles after take off.
Edit 2: The route also looks very similar to this flight from 11 days earlier (but reversed in direction): https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/PAT25 This shows the Blackhawk at 300 feet passing by DCA on what seems like a routine or training flight? I don't know how to look up historical flights to see if this is a commonly-flown route. On that flight, the Black Hawk flew past DCA at 300 feet of altitude, and the last FlightAware data for the American Eagle passenger flight showed 400 feet of altitude.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was...
It's about a mile upriver, near the Watergate.
There are a few locations in that area it could have been coming from. Anything else would have made no sense flying through the FRZ from/to Belvoir.
https://helicoptersofdc.com/helicopters/5-us-army-12th-aviat...
Although it's early on and these communications are often chaotic/inaccurate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-30/washingto... | https://archive.today/n1ark
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/plane-crash-dca-potomac-was... (CNN live updates)
https://old.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1idbkyd/crash_at_dc...
https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1idba8i/plane_cra...
https://x.com/aletweetsnews/status/1884789306645983319
https://archive.liveatc.net/kdca/KDCA1-Twr-Jan-30-2025-0130Z... | https://web.archive.org/web/20250130025411/https://archive.l... (event starts at 17:25)
~5:41 mark 5342 is given instructions for circling to 33. ~6:45 mark PAT-25 reports Memorial ~7:06 mark tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory about 5342 and PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation ~8:12 mark tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation. ~8:21 mark, crash occurs, exclamations, go arounds issued
Also, it appears that one of the aircraft was a military (not police) H-60 Blackhawk helicopter.
This past summer she did the four-week interactive online courses. Applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. After that she did the six-week courses in Oklahoma City. Again, applicants must pass this and may not re-enter the program if they do not. She passed. Only half her class of 20 passed. In the prior class, only 4 of 15 passed.
She declined the position when they could not offer a position within reasonable proximity of her family. She, too, may not re-enter the program. On top of all that, the program has strict age requirements because there's a mandatory retirement age (55, I believe).
There isn't a large pool of applicants and the percentage of successful ones is not high. Considering the amount of lives on the line, it's understandable the hiring criteria is strict. All told, it's not an easy position to fill and even explicit efforts to increase the number of applicants will take years. Just like many other skilled fields.
what's considered an appropriate degree for ATC?
Yikes, is that paid, or is the candidate supposed to do that on their own time?
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2025-0...
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CASMATEO/bulletins/...
"The FAA has awarded a new contract for air traffic services at SQL to Robinson Aviation (RVA). However, the contract does not include locality pay to account for the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, RVA’s employment offers to current SQL controllers were significantly lower than their current compensation under SERCO. Understandably, all current controllers have declined RVA’s offers."
"Given that the FAA is ultimately responsible for ensuring air traffic services at SQL, we requested temporary FAA staffing for the tower—a solution currently being implemented at Eagle Airport in Colorado during its transition from SERCO to RVA. However, the FAA informed us this morning that they will not provide temporary personnel for SQL"
> This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.
ATC surely falls under public safety. Additionally, the ATC issues stretch well back into the Biden term, and you can find plenty of articles discussing the controversy elsewhere.
> President Trump signed an executive order instituting the freeze on Monday shortly after his inauguration, but allowed for exceptions for positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety.
Important to read the details! There will be lots of misinformation as people invoke the minority of critical jobs as cover to defend the less critical ones.
Given the uptick in near miss incidents across the US the last few years, this is the kind of incident that should've been entirely avoidable through changes in policy from these past events but is also apparently the only kind that can spur along policy changes. I can see a world where the fault is on the VH-60, but absent more information, it would surprise me less to hear that it's the fault of the tower.
Knowing where AA5342 was in its approach, I see no possibility of the jet being at fault.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL5342
I'm drawing a lot of early conclusions but it's mostly because I'm just not surprised. Angry as someone who flies a bunch, but not surprised.
And which regulation was eliminated that caused this?
Summary: The helicopter might have been a little bit too high. The night vision goggles might have negatively affected the vision. The two aircraft were probably on different frequencies so didn’t hear each other. And the helicopter might have focused on the wrong plane to avoid because they didn’t see the right one thanks to the city skyline. It looks like the classic swiss cheese where multiple problems stacked up to cause the collision. See the video for details.
It will never be shut down because it's got all the exceptions so that Congresscritters don't have to be treated the same as us plebians.
DCA is open to the public.
It's all pretty much wild speculation with several potential causes already mentioned on this forum.
News important yes, every rando with a few shreds of factoids speculating, not so much.
Almost all the amateur theories in here, just by the variety, are going to be dead wrong.
When I clicked, I expected to find the comments interesting (since I worked in a small corner of flight safety), but, skimming through, I kept feeling aversion to threads.
Most modern news organizations aren't much better.
Texted my friends that fly that route regularly and most have texted back.
It can all be gone in an instant, tell those you love what they mean to you.
edit: everyone is accounted for
The secondary runway is set at a diagonal NW/SE. Planes flying an approach from the south follow the river at first, but then loop out over the eastern shore of the river to line up on that runway. To my eye the radar track of the downed flight follows this path. It’s possible since it was a small plane and only small planes can use the diagonal runway—it’s shorter.
I mention this because this track takes planes into airspace that is a) usually clear of commercial airplane traffic, and b) directly over military facilities like Naval Research Lab and Joint Base Bolling, which have significant military helicopter travel.
Basically, I wonder to what extent the helicopter pilot was surprised to find an airplane descending in that location.
[1] When flights are approaching from the north, the main runway requires a pretty sharp right turn seconds before touching down. Approaches to the diagonal runway from the north take planes almost directly over the Pentagon.
[0] Crash happens around 8:21 the chopper pilot is advised of and reports traffic in sight at around 7:06 and 8:12 https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...
My house in DC has calmed down some but we had a bunch of low flying fighters jets & helicopters for a bit. It's been wild having the house shaken at noon or 1:00 from pairs of fighter jets!
I've had an in-week around Tysons this week, and it's been wild seeing pair after pair after pair of helicopter flying east towards the city this week. I'm normally up there once or twice a week and usually there's nothing like this.
While both pilots in the crash did have over 1500 hours, the flight officer did not in fact hold an ATP. The rule also changed some of the ATP training requirements, and there were other regulation changes on duty cycles, etc.
It’s very possible we’ve had a run of good luck since 2009. It’s also possible some of the rule changes helped. I wouldn’t dismiss that possibility too quickly.
https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/notice/n_8900.225....
So sad that streak finally ended
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/us/politics/federal-worke...
My take is that the emperor has no clothes, and most people around him are simply too afraid to say anything. The rest have something to gain from his current anti-DEI fixation.
I fully expect Trump to blame every future scandal, accident, crisis, etc. on DEI.
Her personal instructor finally arriving ("Maggie it's john") and Maggie starting to normalize the situation/making professonal raido calls really show the power of humanity working through struggle.
Though it sounds like she successfully landed it without any injury.
Maybe the evtol technology will alleviate this dilemma
Yeah. First, we should fill the currently vacant US Secretary of Transportation role. Then we should fill the currently vacant FAA Administrator role. Then we should fill the FAA Deputy Administrator role [0]. Then we should fill the currently vacant DoT Inspector General role that Trump just opened up by illegally firing this watchdog without the required 30 days notice to Congress [1]. Then we can start investigating.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20250129122818/https://www.faa.g...
[1] https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2025/01/trump-fires-multip...
But imagine if the tables were turned politically. Fox News would be going off 24/7 about "DEI" or some such for weeks on end. That strategy seems to be successful, so I would expect the other side to start employing it more as well.
Having a bunch of harried, overworked people stressed about their jobs and the future certainly doesn't help anything, in any case.
I don't think POTUS was serious because he also claimed people shouldn't be hesitant to fly.
'He is later asked by a reporter if people should be hesitant to fly, and he says: "No, not at all."'
Likely more affected are learning about the aftermath via investigation, but I am not sure.
Edit: No wait, that article mentioned the disbanding of Aviation Security Advisory Committee a week ago.
We like to throw shade at Boeing, the FAA etc, but this is still an incredible accomplishment, especially given the explosive growth of traffic over those years. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were far fewer flights but multiple crashes every year was the norm.
Edit: To be clear, I'm referring to what you said, not to the current incident.
To be fair to them, the Boeing-related incidents could have well happened in the US and killed Americans too. And the FAA absolutely refused to do their job until their hand was forced by everyone else - they refused to ground the Maxes until all other major air authorities did. That's also why EASA is involved in the Max recertification, and the 777X certification. Nobody trusts the FAA anymore.
And the fact that the door blowout didn't damage any part of the plane is miraculous - if it had hit the vertical stabiliser, the plane would have been a total loss.
So you're giving credit where very little is due.
Not saying these are true - or false - just that the prevalent media coverage and social media commentary (including here on HN) has been touching on these points frequently. The 'good guys' at Boeing were pushed out or silenced, the 'sleazy guys' won and didn't care about the consequences as long as they got their payday
> first fatal crash of a US commercial airliner
> first fatal commercial airliner crash in the United States
Is it that the 2009 crash was a US-manufactured plane while the 2013 crash was not manufactured in the US but happened in the US?
The 2009 crash was a Canadian-manufactured, US-operated plane, located in the US.
The 2013 crash was a US-manufactured, Korean-operated plane, located in the US.
---
The operating county has far more ability to ensure pilot training, maintenance of aircraft, on-board safety procedures, etc.
E.g. the 2013 crash was due to mismanagement of altitude by the (non-US) crew, resulting in crashing short of the runway.
When a fishingboat gets rammed by an cruise ship it's not "cruise ship collides with fishingboat", its the reverse.
One is a big civilian aircraft thats being tracked and has no way of making sharp course adjustments the other is a 'VIP' with potentially ADS-B off.
Heads should fly at whatever military branch the hellicopter was operated at... but they wont.
Not sure how they or the Army transition the approach ends to the runways, but it’s really close.
This differs from some of the EU, where night VFR can have more stringent operating parameters than day-time VFR.
UHF feed with comms from the military helicopter: https://archives.broadcastify.com/44114/20250129/20250129200...
- 5:41 - AA5342 is given instructions for circling to 33
- 6:45 - PAT-25 reports Memorial
- 7:06 - Tower gives PAT-25 traffic advisory, PAT-25 reports traffic in sight and requests visual separation
- 8:08 - Tower asks PAT-25 if they have the CRJ in sight. PAT-25 again reports traffic in sight and again requests visual separation
- 8:23 - Crash occurs
(no height data, so I ignore the overlay comments on the first video)
sha3-256's 7c608babe5552ac436499978b1a458b3a74ddc7e1d7e5011c6573b724729149e 24a3e23aa97f348ebd8740af83b3b50ae7dd5cd5147e88636b564e93d99d9775
blancolirio: Potomac Mid Air Collision DCA 1/29/25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouDAnO8eMf8
archive of the radar replay: https://dpaste.com/3DUG9YWFB
sha3-256: 539b49e57443109cb0aea06209ce142d44a5ccbee16e42e0c71026742fc56703
You see the helo coming from the left on the screen while the airliner appears to be descending. The helo must have gotten in the way (as opposed to catching up from behind). The airliner's lights are unmistakable, so how did the helo pilot not notice them? The airliner's pilots might not have had a chance to notice the helo. Since the helo was crossing an active runway approach the fault has to be with them.
January 20: FAA director fired
January 21: Air Traffic Controller hiring freeze
January 22: Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded
January 28: Buyout/retirement demand sent to existing employees
FR24 shows helicopters from various agencies doing many laps around the site, presumably looking for survivors.
Sounds like maybe the ADSB was on in this case though.
That said, DC airspace is complicated as hell. You've got very heavily restricted airspace over the city immediately east. VIP natsec/military base facilities on the other side of the Potomac. There are major highways to the north, west, and south of all the approaches. The standard route and safety corridor is along the Potomac river, which is heavily trafficked at all altitudes, with commercial, law enforcement, military, and VIP transport. The CIA is 5 miles up the river and is hardly gonna thank you for dropping out of the sky with no notice. Not an easy place to fly.
[1] https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/663888-aa5342-d...
(CRJ pilot here)
Here on HN someone mentioned after a recent (last year) near miss that the US system was overloading the system and that some tragedy might be incoming. Maybe of the most insightful and heart breaking “competency crisis” related posts I’ve encountered.
This helicopter was often utilized for VIP transport.
In this particular case it appears that the "PAT" part is an acronym for Priority Air Travel. In other words, it was a VIP transport flight (there may not have been any VIPs actually on board at the time).
From the BBC. I swear to god they made 4chan president of America.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...
I'm still convinced that evidence of DEI is not evidence of its culpability. The real "affirmative action" is the coddling of white men from birth to job placement, while women and POC are deprived of equal opportunities.
These assessment discrepancies are negligible. DEI is a red herring.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/from-the-archives-h...
At the extreme, fighter pilots fly almost exclusively training flights because we're not actively waging war at the moment.
There are a few military bases in the area - Belvior (Army), Quantico (USMC), Andrews (USAF), Pentagon, and some smaller ones (some of which have helipads, but no helicopters on station). And lots of shuttling of DoD and other government VIPs from location to location across the DC metro area.
These helicopters are always going up and down the Potomac all the time.
Imagine if there was VIP onboard, especially if it was foreign VIP.
* https://newrepublic.com/post/190942/faa-no-leader-dc-plane-c...
"FAA Administrator Quit on Jan. 20 After Elon Musk Told Him to Resign":
* https://www.thedailybeast.com/faa-chief-michael-whitaker-qui...
"The FAA is facing a major crisis without a leader because Elon Musk pushed him out*
* https://www.theverge.com/news/603113/faa-chief-musk-dc-plane...
But of couse neither of those explanations are likely to hold water. The sad, mundane reality is these people probably lost their lives due to a miscommunication or misunderstanding between ATC and the helicopter pilots. And this political mudslinging will probably get in the way of us ever implementing process changes so it doesn't happen again.
Flights at the airport have been halted.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2025-0...
The problem I see is the controller asked the Helicopter if they had the CRJ in sight, but he never said WHERE HE WAS OR WHAT HE WAS DOING! The controller should have told the Helicopter that the CRJ was circling to RWY 33. The helicopter said he had him in sight, but he really had the Jet in sight that was landing on RWY 1.
Had the controller told him: Traffic ahead and to your left landing runway 33 is a CRJ report him in sight, then the helicopter crew would have LOOKED to their left and saw him. They unfortunately were looking straight ahead at a different plane.
The controller is going to take a major blame for this one unfortunately for not being more detailed. Those Helicopters literally fly directly in the path of those RWY 33 arrivals so as a controller you have to be EXACT!!!!
Another problem I see is the expectation bias. As controllers in that scenario, we want to hear the Helicopter say "traffic in sight and we will maintain Visual Separation. These Helicopter Pilots know we need to hear them say that (it's required), so they will say this just because even though they might not really have the aircraft in sight. They are just saying what we want to hear. If they don't, then we stop their forward progress or make them turn out. Comment from instagram
I think you're only listening to a selected part of the recording.
> Tower: "PAT25 traffic just south of (unclear) bridge is a CRJ at 1,200ft turning for Runway 33"
> PAT25: PAT25 has the Traffic in sight, request visual separation
> Tower: Visual separation approved.
Then a minute later he asks again if PAT25 has the CRJ in sight, which I think is what you're referring to.
"Training" here also doesn't imply some 21 year-old flight school student learning to fly. The aviators assigned to that unit are typically more senior people who've already done a tour or two with more conventional units.
I've lost count of how many times I've heard your sentiment already today, and I'm distraught by the general public's apparent lack of understanding about how things work.
Its crazy to have things colliding like this.
Also DCA is the most popular airport and congress would stage their own revolution if they had to go further.
but I have a feeling that will be the end of
DCA's usefull life as a major passenger airport.
I was with you until this last sentence. You think DCA will be spun down because an accident occurred there?
This seems wild - what am I missing here?