Midair Collision DCA

KP-ATC said:
If you don't understand sarcasm, you must not actually be a controller.
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I see a lot of stupid shit. Your original comment read rather ignorant, to the point other people also corrected you. Next you're gonna tell me I failed the MMPI. 😆 ...my payband speaks for itself.
 
Crap. I just realized that lot of managers and HQ staff are going to have to stay at the office late this afternoon AND work over the weekend. We are sooo screwed. All annual canceled for the rest of year and don't even f*cking ask to go on a chow run.
 
+TSRA said:
My question(s): Does an Army helo pilot even know what a "circle" means? Where was the CRJ circling from (you & I know but did the PAT pilot)? Did the PAT pilot know that the CRJ is free to maneuver as necessary to keep the RWY in sight while continue its descent to land?
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These particular Helo pilots fly these routes around Reagan all the time. He certainly should know where 33 is and not lose SA to the point he is right in the final whens hes accepted visual on an aircraft he told was landing 33. It's a busy environment and there will be plenty of blame passed around but if the controller is found to be the main contributor I will lose all faith in the NTSB. There's been enough issues at DCA that there was enough knowledge to know the operation is inherently unstable. When you have to have an RJ circle to another runway so that a departure can get off 1 and the aircraft behind can land just after the RJ's rollout on 33, that is not the margin of safety an airports acceptance rate should be based on. End of story
 
cmac said:
These particular Helo pilots fly these routes around Reagan all the time. He certainly should know where 33 is and not lose SA to the point he is right in the final whens hes accepted visual on an aircraft he told was landing 33. It's a busy environment and there will be plenty of blame passed around but if the controller is found to be the main contributor I will lose all faith in the NTSB. There's been enough issues at DCA that there was enough knowledge to know the operation is inherently unstable. When you have to have an RJ circle to another runway so that a departure can get off 1 and the aircraft behind can land just after the RJ's rollout on 33, that is not the margin of safety an airports acceptance rate should be based on. End of story
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DCA should be closed.

The fact that for the visual approaches you have to load a charted visual in a flight computer so you don't bust the SFRA is ridiculous. The only reason that airport is around is because Congress is too lazy to fly out of BWI or IAD. They lobbied to have I think an extra 10 slots at DCA on the reauth bill, so now the controllers are pretty much forced into convincing pilots to switch to 33 (a 5200' RWY) so they can depart 1 with absolutely minimum separation.
 
Can't wait for the union to only latch onto the DEI perspective of this and not try turn the conversation into... yes it's a stressful job and you want the best candidates, so why would you try to cut benefits from them and not have pay keep up with inflation? Common sense says that wouldn't attract the best and brightest.
 
+TSRA said:
Crap. I just realized that lot of managers and HQ staff are going to have to stay at the office late this afternoon AND work over the weekend. We are sooo screwed. All annual canceled for the rest of year and don't even f*cking ask to go on a chow run.
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You mean management has to actually work and not scam admin leave in order to produce a solution and not a bandaid (which they probably will)?
 
+TSRA said:
Well instead of feeling guilty, what if you continued the conversation while watching your traffic to ensure it passes behind? That way if, that doesn't happen you can use your best judgment to provide additional control instructions to separate.
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To be clear, I'm not suggesting derelection of scan, but my scan would be more casual when I have a pilot with specific instructions they've agreed to follow. And in a busy session, scanning out to that situation becomes a much lower priority to me once I have pilot confirmation.

In general- and I can't be certain yet that I'd say in this specific case (assuming I turned to converse, the caca would have me turning my head back)- the visual sep is enough for me.

I think some controllers are too quick to want to blame their colleagues no matter what the scenario, as though the pilots have no responsibilities - I.E 'Just because the pilot said they would do something, doesn't mean you're allowed to do anything but watch that one specific plane to make sure they do it- unless some other incident happens because you were only watching that one specific plane- in that case you were supposed to be watching the other specific plane'.
 
cmac said:
These particular Helo pilots fly these routes around Reagan all the time. He certainly should know where 33 is and not lose SA to the point he is right in the final whens hes accepted visual on an aircraft he told was landing 33. It's a busy environment and there will be plenty of blame passed around but if the controller is found to be the main contributor I will lose all faith in the NTSB. There's been enough issues at DCA that there was enough knowledge to know the operation is inherently unstable. When you have to have an RJ circle to another runway so that a departure can get off 1 and the aircraft behind can land just after the RJ's rollout on 33, that is not the margin of safety an airports acceptance rate should be based on. End of story
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End of Story. The controllers should have never been put in this situation. The pilots should have never been put in this situation. And it's definitely not the only airport with situations that should not be happening.
 
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