366 Midair Collision at Reagan National - Tragedy Over the Potomac
Aviation News Talk podcast
Glass Cockpit Publishing
4.8 • 730 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Max discusses the tragic midair collision at Reagan National Airport between a PSA Airlines CRJ700 regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The midair crash over the Potomac River was captured by a Kennedy Center webcam.
ATC instructed the Army helicopter to follow the airliner to Runway 33, but it did not comply. The helicopter was not transmitting ADS-B Out, though its position was tracked using Mode S transponders. TCAS alerts are disabled below 400 feet, meaning the pilots had no automated warning. Nighttime perception challenges likely contributed to the crew’s failure to see and avoid each other.
Trescott reviews ATC audio and past midair collisions, emphasizing the Swiss Cheese Model of accident causation—multiple failures aligned to cause the crash. A reported FAA radar screen showed collision alerts 30 seconds prior, but no action was taken. He urges pilots to use traffic displays with relative vectors for better situational awareness, particularly at night.
The episode ends with a call to fly defensively and use all available tools to prevent midair collisions.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is not the episode I had planned to bring you this week, because, sadly, as I was watching |
| 0:06.6 | the news last night, reports started coming in shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern of an accident at the |
| 0:11.7 | Ronald Reagan-Washington National Airport. The first report I recall hearing was that a regional jet |
| 0:17.0 | had gone off the runway into the water. That seemed plausible as a high percentage of |
| 0:21.5 | business jet accidents involve aircraft that land long and fast and go off the end of the runway. |
| 0:26.7 | Later, it was confirmed that there was a tragic mid-air collision between a regional jet |
| 0:30.5 | and a U.S. Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, I'm Max Ruscott. |
| 0:39.3 | Footage from a live webcam operated by the Kennedy Center appears to show the collision over the Potomac River. |
| 0:44.3 | When landing lights from the two aircraft merge, there's a large explosion and both aircraft drop into the river. |
| 0:50.3 | When I saw the video, I commented that it was unlikely that there were any survivors. |
| 0:55.0 | As of this morning, there are still no reports of any survivors. |
| 0:58.4 | I've pulled the ATC audio, courtesy of liveATC.net, and I'll play that for you. |
| 1:04.0 | And I've reviewed the flight tracks for the two aircraft that were posted on Twitter by |
| 1:07.7 | ADSB Exchange, and we'll talk about that as well. |
| 1:11.1 | While we don't know all of the factors involved in the accident, and probably will be many, |
| 1:16.1 | we do know that the Army helicopter was instructed to pass behind the regional jet |
| 1:20.3 | and follow it to land on runway 3-3. |
| 1:23.6 | The helicopter clearly did not follow those instructions, and that failure to do so will most |
| 1:28.1 | likely be included in the NTSB's probable cause, though there are sure to cite many other |
| 1:33.5 | factors as well. |
| 1:34.9 | This accident is a watershed event. |
... |
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