The NTSB has released the Blackhawk helicopter's black box recordings from the tragic Washington, DC crash, revealing critical failures. The altimeter readings were significantly off, with the pilot and instructor misjudging their altitude. Air traffic control's urgent warnings went unheard due to a mic issue, leading to a catastrophic collision. The jet's pilots attempted to pull up too late, while the Blackhawk crew was unaware of the impending disaster. Experts suggest night vision goggles may have contributed to the confusion in the crowded airspace. This incident highlights multiple errors that led to the loss of 67 lives.
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@ProjectConstitu - Project Constitution
ļæ¼ BREAKING: The NTSB just dropped the Blackhawk helicopterās black box recordings from the deadly Washington, DC crash with a commercial jetāand itās a jaw-dropper. Hereās what it tells us:
ļæ¼ Altitude Chaos: The chopperās altimeter was offāway off. Pilot read 300 feet, instructor saw 400, but the real number? 278 feetāwell above the 200-foot ceiling. They were flying blind on bad data.
ļæ¼ Missed Calls: Air traffic control screamed āpass behind the jetāābut the pilots didnāt hear it. The mic was keyed at the worst moment, drowning out the warning. Seconds later? Boom.
ļæ¼ Last-Second Panic: The jetās pilots tried to pull upānose pitched up just before impact. Too late. The Blackhawk crew? No clue what hit them ātil it did.
ļæ¼ Night Vision Goggles: They were wearing them, but did they obscure the jetās lights? Experts say itās possible they locked onto the wrong target in DCās crowded skies.
This wasnāt just one mistakeāit was a cascade of failures. 67 lives gone. NTSB says a prelim reportās coming soon, but this black box is already screaming: something was seriously broken that night. Share thisāpeople need to know.
Check out @Brian.Murray on Youtube for more great insight like this.
Video Transcript AI Summary
The NTSB released the Blackhawk's flight recorder data, revealing that the crew likely used night vision goggles, which reduced their peripheral vision. There were altitude discrepancies noted between the pilot and instructor, but they were never discussed. The Blackhawk pilots also missed hearing "circling" in a transmission about the CRJ's location. Crucially, they cut off a transmission instructing them to "pass behind" the CRJ. The instructor stated that they had the traffic in sight and requested visual separation, relaying to the pilot that they should move left towards the river. At impact, the Blackhawk was level at 278 feet. The CRJ received a TCAS traffic warning, and the pilots made strong control inputs to avoid the collision. The NTSB will perform simulations to determine visibility.
Speaker 0: The NTSB has finally released the contents of the Blackhawk's flight recorders, and it paints a very interesting picture. Not to step on the lead, but the Blackhawk didn't hear all the tower's radio transmissions. First, the NTSB confirmed that this was a check ride. They were doing a combination of an annual and night vision goggle qualification flight. The NTSB believes that due to the nature of this flight, they were using night vision goggles.
If the pilots took the night vision goggles off, they're required to have a discussion amongst themselves that they're gonna go unaided. This discussion never happened on the cockpit voice recorder, leading the NTSB to believe that they had night vision goggles on during the accident. When wearing night vision goggles, a pilot's peripheral vision reduces from a 80 degrees down to 40. That makes it very difficult In this part of the flight, the helicopter is following Route 1 and Route 4 of the helicopter routes. The NTSB notes that while these are depicted on the charts, there's no defined boundaries.
However, pilots are expected to stay under the maximum height limits. At the location of the collision, the helicopter should have been at 200 feet or below. But as we'll see later, there may have been other factors at play. The first interesting anomaly that happened on the Blackhawk's Hawk Foot voice recorder happened at eight forty three and forty eight seconds. That's approximately four minutes before the crash.
The pilot flying said they were 300 feet, but their instructor said they were at 400. This could indicate that their altimeters were not set correctly or weren't synchronized between the left and right seat. Pilots primarily fly by using their barometric altitude. This works by measuring the air pressure around the aircraft to determine the plane's altitude. But in the real world, the barometric pressure can change, so pilots use an adjustment on their altimeter to correct for that.
But if the pilot and the instructor had adjusted their altimeters incorrectly, they might have believed that they were different altitudes than they were or might have had a different view between the left and the right seat. The NTSB noted that there was never a discussion of these altitude discrepancies. They also noted that they weren't releasing granular altitude data at this time as they found other discrepancies in the recordings. However, they did note that the Blackhawk's radio altimeter did provide an accurate source of data. Another thing the NTSB couldn't do was cross reference that data with GPS information as the GPS information was not recorded on the flight data recorder.
About two minutes later, the instructor noted that they were flying at about 300 feet. The pilot flying acknowledged saying they would descend down to 200. The next interesting fact that comes from the Blackhawk's cockpit voice recorder happens at 08:46 zero one or just under two minutes before the accident. At that moment, air traffic control calls out that the traffic is a CRJ circling to Runway 33. If our traffic is south of the world's greatest CRJ at 1,000 square feet from Runway 3.
But the Blackhawk cockpit voice recorder does not hear the term circling. That means that even though the Blackhawk knew there was a CRJ, they did not know its location. But the most damning evidence from the Blackhawk's cockpit voice recorder happened seven seconds before the accident at eight forty seven and forty two seconds. At that time, the air traffic controller called the Blackhawk asking them to pass behind the CRJ. But the Blackhawk pilots keyed their mic before the transmission was done, blanking out the portion that said pass behind.
Once again, they missed that crucial location information. Aircraft, including the CRJ and Blackhawk in this accident, use VHF transmissions to communicate between other aircraft and the ground. These radios use amplitude modulation. That's the same modulation used in AM radios in your car. This has the benefit of working over very long distances, but at the expense of clarity and readability.
This also has the downside that only one person can be transmitting on the same frequency at any given time. Modern digital radios like those found in many police forces offer a very similar range but with dramatically increased clarity. Many also allow multiple stations to be transmitting at the same time. But we don't use those in aviation for fear of breaking backwards compatibility. The instructor then replied to the air traffic control saying that the traffic was in sight and requested visual separation.
The aircraft's in sight, pressure's in sight. Separate. Off of the radio, the instructor relayed to the pilot flying that they believed ATC was asking them to move left towards the banks of the river. At the time of the accident, the Blackhawk's radio altimeter read 278 feet. However, as we noted earlier, this might not have been what the pilot saw on the altimeter in front of them.
At the impact, the Blackhawk was flying nearly completely level with only point five degrees nose up pitch and a left roll of 1.6 degrees. From the data recovered, the NTSB notes there was no electronic warnings in the Blackhawk of the CRJ that was approaching. They also noted that the Blackhawk was not transmitting ADSB information and they were investigating for the cause. But the story is a little bit different from the CRJ cockpit. At 08:47 forty, around twenty seconds before the accident, they did get a TCAS warning calling out traffic traffic.
This means that the CRJ was made aware of the traffic but wasn't given any traffic avoidance instructions because they were under 500 feet at the time. These traffic avoidance instructions are inhibited below a certain altitude to prevent the system from telling a plane to descend into the ground. Two seconds before the accident, the CRJ's radio altimeter reported that it was at 313 feet above ground. The CRJ was descending at 448 feet per minute or about seven and a half feet per second, but this does still leave about a 25 foot discrepancy between the two radio altimeters. Most terrifying in the CRJ data is that the pilots commanded strong control inputs indicating they saw the accident coming.
At the time of the accident, the CRJ was at a nine degree nose up attitude and rolled 11 degrees to the left. The elevator on the CRJ was almost at its maximum nose up position. The pilots did everything they could to avoid it. The NTSB noted that they're gonna be performing simulations like the ones I do on this channel to see what the Blackhawk pilots may or may not have seen. They did note that the Blackhawk was equipped with an ADS B transmitter, but they don't know if it was turned off or if it was otherwise broken.
They still have a lot of work to do, but this data sheds a lot of light on the accident.
