Thought I would jump on here and discuss some things in the wake of this tragedy. For reference, I’ve been flying Blackhawks for over 20 years and have logged about 1000 flight hours flying through the National Capitol Region. I’ve flown that route myself many many times.
1. We don’t have any type of air to air radar onboard. The accident aircraft was likely the older UH60L model. It’s all analog gauges in the cockpit. No autopilot. The newer UH60M model has a 4 axis fully coupled autopilot.
2. The capitol region, like most big cities, have special helo route charts for navigation. The routing and altitudes are very specific. That portion of the route is 200 feet and below for helos. Looks like the helo might have been operating above that altitude.
3. In my experience, the helo routes are well designed. It’s congested and busy, but it all works if everyone does what they are supposed to do. I never had any close calls while I flew there. Haven’t heard of any either.
4. The UH60 does have a black box. Some media outlets stated that we don’t. It orange and it’s in the tailboom. It does have a flight voice recorder and it captures all of the flight data.
5. Blackhawks do not have ADSB-In, only ADSB-Out. Would ADSB-in have made a difference…it’s debatable.
6. TCAS. The UH60 does not have TCAS. I don’t think that would have helped though. I remember hearing airline pilots making radio calls there with their TCAS going off in the background as they passed over my aircraft. It was normal. The route structure would have it going off every time. I feel like it would just get tuned out. But again, the routes work if everyone does what they are supposed to.
Lastly, this was a tragedy. I’m still not sure I’ve fully processed that one of our helicopters collided with a passenger jet. Fortunately, I did not know the crew members personally, but I’ve seen this too many times. I’m posting this to hopefully help some on this board process all this (Maybe help myself process it a little bit as well). Prayers for ALL of the families impacted. And thank God the debris field ended up in the river and not over a populated portion of the city.
1. We don’t have any type of air to air radar onboard. The accident aircraft was likely the older UH60L model. It’s all analog gauges in the cockpit. No autopilot. The newer UH60M model has a 4 axis fully coupled autopilot.
2. The capitol region, like most big cities, have special helo route charts for navigation. The routing and altitudes are very specific. That portion of the route is 200 feet and below for helos. Looks like the helo might have been operating above that altitude.
3. In my experience, the helo routes are well designed. It’s congested and busy, but it all works if everyone does what they are supposed to do. I never had any close calls while I flew there. Haven’t heard of any either.
4. The UH60 does have a black box. Some media outlets stated that we don’t. It orange and it’s in the tailboom. It does have a flight voice recorder and it captures all of the flight data.
5. Blackhawks do not have ADSB-In, only ADSB-Out. Would ADSB-in have made a difference…it’s debatable.
6. TCAS. The UH60 does not have TCAS. I don’t think that would have helped though. I remember hearing airline pilots making radio calls there with their TCAS going off in the background as they passed over my aircraft. It was normal. The route structure would have it going off every time. I feel like it would just get tuned out. But again, the routes work if everyone does what they are supposed to.
Lastly, this was a tragedy. I’m still not sure I’ve fully processed that one of our helicopters collided with a passenger jet. Fortunately, I did not know the crew members personally, but I’ve seen this too many times. I’m posting this to hopefully help some on this board process all this (Maybe help myself process it a little bit as well). Prayers for ALL of the families impacted. And thank God the debris field ended up in the river and not over a populated portion of the city.
