• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The key question: what was an Army helicopter doing flying across the glide path of incoming aircraft at Reagan National? (1 Viewer)

Hopefully, we will be allowed to have the answers to this. It was a horrible and unnecessary loss of life. Everything must be done to prevent this from happening in the future. This tragedy should not be covered over for reasons of "national security."
Neither must "national security" be dismissed out of hand because there are some abuses of it. National Security is a real matter and it is of vital importance to social stability and the continuity of the government in Washington in an emergency.

The armed forces in Washington DC and its metro area are called the Joint Task Force - National Capital Region. While a number of its force are ceremonial, these ceremonial troops also have their regular military function, training and deployment readiness. The JTF-NCR is commanded by an Army MajGen and includes all forces of all services in the Command's Area of Responsibility, which is the National Capital Region.

There are countless helicopters in the JTF-NCR whose mission in an emergency is to transport the government to the nuclear proof Mountain in nearby Maryland. This mission is called the Continuity of Government. The mission of the JTF is to defend the United States Government starting with the President/Commander in Chief and his principal staff, members of the cabinet and principal staff -- and all the Senators and House members and their principal staff to include members of the Supreme Court and federal judiciary in the NCR.

There very well could have been one or more of the helicopter crews of the JTF doing a training mission for its own highly confidential mission to defend the federal government principals in an emergency to include top secret evacuation capacity, capability, procedures and strength in transporting the government principals to the Mountain for the continuity of government in an emergency. This mission, its personnel, its training and practices override all other concerns at all times. Absolutely.
 
Last edited:
This mission, its personnel, its training and practices override all other concerns at all times. Absolutely.
Not one single American civilian's life, let alone an entire plane load, is worth sacrifing for anything you just mentioned. Never in my 20 years in the US Army, and years serving our nation in other areas, was I ever led to believe what you just said. We were there to save American lives, even if it meant sacrificing our own.
 
Not one single American civilian's life, let alone an entire plane load, is worth sacrifing for anything you just mentioned. Never in my 20 years in the US Army, and years serving our nation in other areas, was I ever led to believe what you just said. We were there to save American lives, even if it meant sacrificing our own.
I note there is no known existing conflict or dispute between the airline-Army helo crash investigators and USA national security missions, priorities, policies, equipment or interests to include personnel.

My point is that there are different US military forces in different places in different times and different circumstances and of different strength that have different missions and that have different classifications and procedures. The US military's respect of civilian life and property is a high but not absolute priority as it has demonstrated with a dutiful consistency and respect.

The MOS mission of the Joint Task Force - National Capital Region in which all the armed forces are represented is the defense of the principals of the United States Government. This mission is the Continuity of Government in a serious or grave national emergency. This includes the possibility the principals of the United States Government would need to be evacuated to dispersed nuclear proof bunkers nearby in Virginia; at the Pennsylvania state line; and in W VA.

While the Potus/C'nC has a bunker deep under the WH built while Truman was Potus, his evacuation fortification is the Mt. Weather facility in the Blue Ridge mountains of Va. Trump has a bunker under Maralago originally built by the owner during the Truman presidency and upgraded for Trump -- just as Pres. Kennedy had a bunker at Peanut Island near the Kennedy Palm Beach residence, built by Navy Seabees.

Speaking of peanuts Jimmy Carter didn't want anything in Plains, nosiree, not Jimmy. The military officer O-4 with the nuclear "football" had to stay in Americus 10 miles away. Potus Carter on down time in Plains didn't want to see hide nor hair of anybody from Washington. By the time of the helo lift from Americus, well, oops. Actually and by the calculations of the military Carter would then have 5 minutes to decide or so it is said. I swear Jimmy Carter as president RIP could **** up a wet dream.
 
Speaking of peanuts Jimmy Carter didn't want anything in Plains, nosiree, not Jimmy. The military officer O-4 with the nuclear "football" had to stay in Americus 10 miles away. Potus Carter on down time in Plains didn't want to see hide nor hair of anybody from Washington. By the time of the helo lift from Americus, well, oops. Actually and by the calculations of the military Carter would then have 5 minutes to decide or so it is said.

Speaking of Jimmy Carter, even after having been a crewmember in a new-klee-er sub, he still mispronounced the word as “new-cue-ler”. So did Junior Bush.
 
And you think that post makes you less tedoius?

I'd say you just substantiated my claim.

Ad hom attack

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers." - quote attributed to Socrates


And you just lost the debate, and he was talking about people like you
HAND.
 
Speaking of Jimmy Carter, even after having been a crewmember in a new-klee-er sub, he still mispronounced the word as “new-cue-ler”. So did Junior Bush.
Yeah and I liked how Carter said Iran as I ran.

Eye ran.

I recall when Carter vetoed a veterans enactment by the Congress and the veterans groups in Washington started reaching for their machine guns to go lay siege. We told 'em to hold off ha while Congress overrode the veto as surely as the sun rises in the East. It was like 435-0 to override in the House and like 99-1 in the Senate. Something like that, meaning Congress blew up Carter in the override. Nuked him. No one in Washington could remember a president and c'n'c vetoing a veterans bill. Talk about living dangerously.

The WaPo editorial board member who had veterans as one of his areas, Colman McCarthy, wrote that Congress "poked a stick in Carter's eye" on the veto and its override. We luved it.

Carter's pathetic "Malaise" speech to the nation on tv said fighting (his induced) "malaise" was the moral equivalent of war. A librul Democrat House staffer friend who himself was totally fed up with Carter noted to us that the acronym was MEOW.

Jimmy Carter RIP.
 
Ad hom attack

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers." - quote attributed to Socrates


And you just lost the debate, and he was talking about people like you
HAND.

Wisdom you should no doubt heed.
 
I was thinking about the “blame” heaped on the helicopter pilots. But for the sake of argument let’s pretend the helicopter was 125 feet lower. The helicopter would still crash.

The helicopter would have been directly below the Jet flying with full flaps and a lot of power. It actually burns more fuel to fly slower. The wings are generating a lot of turbulence and that roiled air would have hit the Helicopter and almost certainly caused it to fall in response. At no more than 200 feet the Helicopter would probably not have time to recover. Especially if the pilots were flying with NVG’s. It’s slower to get information like the artificial horizon and attitude indicators.

My point is that the practice was inherently unsafe, even if followed to the letter. It probably seemed safe enough while working out the details as a Standard Operating Procedure. But it was never a safe practice.

I believe one of the things we need to do is examine many of the assumptions we have used for flights in the DC area.

Take a look at this recreation using a Digital Flight Simulator.



They realistically couldn’t see a damned thing until the last couple seconds.

Now would it have been better if as I describe it only the Helicopter had crashed? Yes. Obviously. But that would not make it good. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
 
I was thinking about the “blame” heaped on the helicopter pilots. But for the sake of argument let’s pretend the helicopter was 125 feet lower. The helicopter would still crash.

The helicopter would have been directly below the Jet flying with full flaps and a lot of power. It actually burns more fuel to fly slower. The wings are generating a lot of turbulence and that roiled air would have hit the Helicopter and almost certainly caused it to fall in response. At no more than 200 feet the Helicopter would probably not have time to recover. Especially if the pilots were flying with NVG’s. It’s slower to get information like the artificial horizon and attitude indicators.

My point is that the practice was inherently unsafe, even if followed to the letter. It probably seemed safe enough while working out the details as a Standard Operating Procedure. But it was never a safe practice.

I believe one of the things we need to do is examine many of the assumptions we have used for flights in the DC area.

Take a look at this recreation using a Digital Flight Simulator.



They realistically couldn’t see a damned thing until the last couple seconds.

Now would it have been better if as I describe it only the Helicopter had crashed? Yes. Obviously. But that would not make it good. Not by any stretch of the imagination.


I don't think you can draw conclusions just yet, just many possible scenarios
We need to await the inquiry.
 
I don't think you can draw conclusions just yet, just many possible scenarios
We need to await the inquiry.

I agree. There are a lot of things to learn and confirm.

However my post was intended to look at it as if the Helicopter was at 200’. A Jet passing 125 feet overhead at more than 150 MPH would create a lot of turbulence. The Helicopter would be tossed around badly. Better than even odds that it would crash in such a situation.

If you’ve watched any of the accident investigation shows, then you know that a lot of the time we learn the hard way that what seemed a good idea really wasn’t.

Heck that particular lesson isn’t limited to airplanes either.

The advantage of a NTSB investigation is that they will look at everything to find anything that could be improved even if it was irrelevant to the crash.
 
I agree. There are a lot of things to learn and confirm.

However my post was intended to look at it as if the Helicopter was at 200’. A Jet passing 125 feet overhead at more than 150 MPH would create a lot of turbulence. The Helicopter would be tossed around badly. Better than even odds that it would crash in such a situation.

If you’ve watched any of the accident investigation shows, then you know that a lot of the time we learn the hard way that what seemed a good idea really wasn’t.

Heck that particular lesson isn’t limited to airplanes either.

The advantage of a NTSB investigation is that they will look at everything to find anything that could be improved even if it was irrelevant to the crash.

You might be right
But I'm not sure how helpful it is to speculate on the reasons for the crash

Unfortunately, plenty of people will probably have made their minds up already.
 
You might be right
But I'm not sure how helpful it is to speculate on the reasons for the crash

Unfortunately, plenty of people will probably have made their minds up already.

I watched a couple videos from Pilots who talked about the path the Helicopter took as a normal route. The caveat was the altitude of no more than 200 feet.

Looking at the point of collision and the reported altitude of 325 feet, approximately, and you start talking about serious wake turbulence.

Now I don’t know a hell of a lot. There are probably ten thousand questions yet to be answered. I’m thinking that the routing was never a safe option. Thinking. I wonder how many close calls happened before the collision?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom