DCA Almost Final

My apologies for not writing more (and sooner) but I will just say (again?) that the theology course I’m taking is like drinking out of a fire hose. While it will be a few weeks yet before the final report is out on the DCA crash, the items that are going into the report are now released.

I’m going to start with the Safety Data report, which frankly is damning to the FAA and now-former tower management. Short version is that DCA has had problems for years, including the perception that reporting issues would lead to retaliation. There are multiple recommendations in the report for the FAA, and a few for the Army, as leadership at both agencies (and the DoT) was abysmal.

The human performance report is a good overview of the human operations and interactions with onboard technology that is supposed to help prevent collisions. If you want to understand what was happening in each place, the information available, factors that limited the use of technology and prevented adequate warnings, and more, this is it.

The report notes early something I had “seen” early on: the call-out of the CRJ operated by PSA (Piedmont) for American Airlines lacked critical information. There were several planes in the area called out by the controller, and there was no way for the helicopter crew to know which one was being pointed out. There is evidence that they mistook another aircraft for the one they were supposed to be watching. I may not have many hours as a pilot, but every time I had other traffic called out it always specific, as in “you have X aircraft at your Y o’clock high/low/same (altitude). SOP was to locate, then call back and read-back “I have X aircraft in sight at Y o’clock high/low/same” to verify the information.

As a side note, so long as the object was moving relative to you, life was good. It was when things were a dot that you needed to act as the lack of movement meant it was coming straight at you. Therefore you dove or climbed and/or changed course as well. Doesn’t matter if it was a bird (birds can take out a plane and/or pilot) or a plane — by the time it starts to get visually larger it usually is too late to avoid.