Spot on. I posted below on the other thread. To those of us that have done it, it's pretty clear how it could have happened. It's hard to explain how I felt when I first saw the video - like I had been there before. The bright lights, the halos, inside, outside, the chatter on the ICS and radio, trying to scan for traffic while maintaining exact lateral/vertical. Reading what you wrote, I instantly can tell you've been there as well. It's tragic and horrific. I was never assigned there and only flew in there a handful if times while at my regional, so had no knowledge this minimal separation was a thing. In hindsight it's amazing to me that there weren't better backstops to prevent something like this from happening.

--------Hindsight is 20/20, but the separation is mind boggling. The old 200' talking to, 300' phone number. But here we're comfortable with 100'-200' separating catastrophe... WTF. Anyone on here who's flown low level NVGs in high light/traffic areas can all probably relate to this incident - scanning for traffic, thinking you're looking at the traffic called not one of the numerous others in the vicinity, the visual illusions, through the NODs, under the NODs, inside, outside... I fart wrong , apply a little aft cycling and begin an unintentional climb...

To the lay person it's like WTF - how can anyone just fly right into a jet? (cue all the nut job conspiracies). To those that have done it, I think we see the fragility of what was going on in that airspace.------

 

This is one of the better observations. I strongly suspect one of the 'recommendations' from the NTSB will be exactly this. No circles to 33 if a helo is anywhere near the helo routes.

 

Have they released the names of all 3 helicopter pilots?

 

Yea you definitely speak my language. To the non helicopter guys, flying low level at night is very challenging. I read that this is a 1,500 hour crew, if this is true it's pretty junior. A one thousand hour instructor pilot is pretty green. So there is an annual proficiency flight going on, with a junior co-pilot, all of the challenges that night flying brings, with literally no room for error. I'm astonished it has taken this long for this to happen. In my opinion they were looking at the wrong aircraft, or they indeed did see the correct aircraft and then lost it in the lights. It's happened to me many many times, you see it then you don't. Awful.

 

I think you're right.

 

The family has requested that the DoD not release the name of third pilot yet.

But that's temporary, while the mil can sometimes redact parts or entire investigations of internal incidents that will 100% not apply with civil aircraft involvement, to say nothing of something this high profile.

It will all come out, in the meantime give the deceased crew professional courtesy.

 

As was mentioned in another thread, it doesn't seem to be SOP that the government witholds names for more than 24 hours after the family is notified. If that's true, why is it the case now? It's a legitimate question because the concealment seems odd.

 

The family doesn't normally request that (yes I've been at commands which had to deal with this).

Don't know why they did but I can sure speculate under the circumstances: Didn't want 20 media vans parked on their front yard after they lost their child?

DoD is under no obligation ever to publicly identify casualties, and there are a very few cases where they do not for operational reasons (this is not that). In this case it will all be disclosed and scrutinized soon enough. In the meantime we give the dead some professional deference. Even if elected officials get way out over their skis on that.

 

I'm sorry and Rickair can give me a warning, but...

Sonic you're way out over your skis here. I've been in a military accident, the 11 o'clock was "one dead, one survives accident". They contacted my parents, so Mom being they had my picture. No one thought to tell anybody else, so lots of scared phone calls at midnight.

There are DOD Instructions on how to notify next of kin, public release and family's right to withhold public release. We have a president making uninformed posts, media idiots posting nonsense, I wouldn't want my kid's names released.

EDIT, I posted then read Rickair's post.

 

Sounds reasonable. If blackhawks have the pm make atc radio calls, then we can assume she was pf? I know it will all come out, but that’s the first thing that came to mind and where all the heat will be placed.