Originally Posted by Adlerdriver

The bottom line is that this integration of a visual helo route and inbound traffic to DCA was an absolute abortion. It should have never been set up as it was. That lays at the feet of any agency involved in the creation and maintenance of this procedure over the years. But there is certainly a measure of responsibility on the actual operators and controllers who had intimate knowledge of this as well. My guess is that most airline pilots had no clue that acceptance of a circle to 33 MIGHT put them passing 75' over the top of a helo at the correct max altitude on the visual route if the timing was right. If they were aware of that possibility, I doubt any of them would have accepted the clearance. Could they have found that out? Sure, if they knew to look for the information in the first place. Most probably had no clue that there even was a visual helo route passing under the final for 33 unless it was spelled out in their company provided charts. My Jepps don't have many details on the helo routes even now after this tragedy has occurred. The helo pilots using the visual route likely had much more SA on how it integrated with the DCA approaches and if any group of pilots had enough pieces of the puzzle to start waving the BS flag, it was them.