Same. I won't call out in sight anymore (started before this accident). I don't get any benefit personally. Even on approach - if you can call the airport you can still get the visual based off that.

 

‘helo was flying at 350ish feet above the river… which would correlate to the visual path to 33. Real question is for some reason the helo climbed from 200’ a little under a mile prior to the collision.

 

This.

I haven't called "Traffic in sight" in 15 years. There's no upside. Let the controllers control.

 

I am putting myself in their shoes. I wonder if they were scanning really trying to acquire the aircraft and lost concentration on altitude. I was a hawk driver in a previous life and it takes just a smidge of back pressure on the cyclic to get a pretty good climb going. Further, maintaining 200 feet would require whoever is on the controls to be looking inside on the instrument panel quite a bit. Focusing outside for an extended amount of time would definitely cause the altitude to drift, and 100-200 feet is nothing.

You know, this has made me think at all of the times I made a mistake or got away with something while flying. Anyone who has flown for more than a day knows that all of us have had our share or screw ups, some small and some big. The more I look back the more I realize that at times it was dumb luck that kept me alive. So tragic for all involved.

 

This is why we are going to be replaced with robots.

If we can't OR WON'T keep visual separation, AI will.

 

This right here. 100%. I know we all want to give our inputs on what we think the crew on both aircraft were doing or what they saw, but the sad sobering reality is that this could have been ANYONE of us in that position that night. ANYONE of us. No matter how much experience we have. We have all had screw ups in an aircraft before. This accident highlights that at the end of the day, we are all human. Same goes for ATC.

I’ve had 3 near misses in GA before coming to the airlines, and while they all happened at non towered airports, it can happen at towered as well. And when I think back on it, it was really a matter of luck that we didn’t hit each other. We just got uncomfortably close.

Since I began my 121 career, flying in and out of DCA has definitely been an eye opener. I’ve seen some things that honestly makes me question whether that airport should even be open at all. Things that I probably wouldn’t even do in GA. I remember having this conversation with a captain about 2-3 months ago that I have this bad feeling that something may happen at DCA. I honestly think there’s just too much going on with a heavy mix of different aircraft types and civilian/military too in such a small block of airspace. Combine that with lowering weather and night conditions and the risk levels go up. Combine all of this with using RWY 15/33 and the risk goes up even more.

I’m surprised that that airport didn’t shut down after 9/11, but even more surprised they STILL utilize 15/33, and to a much lesser extent, runway 4. I can honestly see them decommissioning the other 2 runways for good because of this accident. I’d be surprised if they don’t.

There have been at least a couple of occasions where we were circling to 33 and ATC gave us traffic advisories and we just could not visually acquire said traffic. This was over I295 and before even beginning the turn to final at a much lower altitude. Trying to frantically search for traffic causes a major distraction in flying that circling maneuver. This was in daytime conditions. Can only imagine how much more challenging it would have been in the dark. Once you roll out of that turn and are lined up with the runway, all you’re focused on is the runway out in front of you. I couldn’t imagine trying to look for traffic out the right window at 300 feet agl in the dark.

I never flew in the military, but it’s been interesting listening to the experiences and perspectives of the military pilots on here, some of whom had flown those same routes. It seems the general consensus at this point from what we can tell is that the helo crew was apparently looking at the wrong traffic that ATC was pointing out. When we consider that possibility, I’ve been in that situation at least a few times in my career, mostly as a CFI, where I was looking at the wrong traffic but later verified with ATC if I was in fact looking at the right traffic. Maybe the helo crew and more specifically the PIC had flown that route hundreds of times and knew what to expect and thought he had the right a/c picked out, but this time he just apparently had the wrong traffic. It’s one of those things that JUST HAPPENS, and it could have been any of us in that position at the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

It looks to me that the Helicopter route in question was designed with the assumption that while being utilized, only runway 1/19 would be in use at DCA. I believe that a transition from 1 to 33 concurrent with a transiting helicopter should not ever have been offered.

 

Right after my first check ride, over 20 years ago, I was returning to my home airport, on long final, maybe number 4 or 5 for landing. Tower tells a twin on downwind to turn base and follow me (Cessna) and the guy, confirms traffic in sight and turns into me, trying to follow the plane I was following that was a low wing Piper unlike the Cessna he was told to look for. We came within feet of each other. My career almost ended about 20 minutes after I got my private certificate.

I absolutely never trust anyone has me in sight.

 

Agree. As innocent an accident as they come. No villain to hunt down. High wire act DCA even without special ops training/checking in progress. Transport hazards are pitiless.

 

This has been on my mind for the last couple days. It even kept me up a little bit on the first night.