American Airlines crash at Reagan international 29 Jan 2025
- Thread starter dapaterson
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Listening to the ATC recordings (VHF-only, as far as I can find) it’s likely PAT25 was on UHF. You can hear DCA ATC give PAT25 direction to operate clear visually….there’s a pause (likely OAT25’s acknowledgement on UHF)…then ATC clears 5342 to land…
Agreed. It is a zoo. P-56A (White House to Capitol restricted airspace) is a chunk that takes maneuverability flex to work around and channels much around it, to come down Rte 1 either E or W of downtown DC, and transition to Rte 4 for about a 100m before Rte 6 cuts across E-W just below 4 and 1’s intersection. I’ve flown it and BOLLING and HANS POINT in particular are crazy places, especially at night. PAT25 was trucking southbound along 1(West) heading to 4 to carry on home south to Fort Belvoir’s Davidson Army Airfield (KDAA) which they’ve probably done a forget able number of times, but folks can see where 5342’s swing East off the on-course to RWY 01 to instead visually land on RWY33 has me working to understand why that was preferable. No matter, ATC stated the restriction to PAT25 which I’m assuming they did on UHF, and should have adjusted their speed and routing if there was some flex given to them by ATC, to cross behind 5342.
For folks to track Baz’s comment about the Helo Rtes 1, 4, 6 congruence…this is it in red. Green is PAT25’s path coming down and blue is AA5342’s route aligning initially with rwy01, the. Swinging east for a westerly swing to land rwy33. They collided just after PAT25 cross over Rte 6.
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If you look at the VASA video, right before impact, PAT25 was facing down the river, directly towards the accident RJ. They were nearly co-altitude. But, there was a second RJ directly behind the the first one. I wonder if PAT25 visually identified the second one and assumed they had the traffic, not seeing the stationary (from their point of view) but rapidly growing larger RJ right in front of them…VG, yes, done DCA as a pax many times (not quite as many as you) and also flying. The light pollution in the DC area is horrendous. Having flown there (DC and Fort Belvoir area) I’d actually prefer to fly down the Hudson or East Rivers in NYC, over DC.
See and avoid is a responsibility to all aircrew, however, ATC gave DIRECTION (in KDCA’s positive control zone) to PAT25 to proceed Southbound BEHIND AA5342, which was cleared to land on visual final approach to RWY33. The AA5342 crew were on very short final, within 10-15 seconds of touchdown, so without doubt the captain and first officer would have been focusing on the runway environment to land, and not off to their 2o’clock masked by the U.S. Capitol and FBI HQ, etc. For PAT25’s part, at that altitude on short final, AA5342 would have been backlit by a long wall of hotels and building in Crystal City, making visual identification difficult. Further compounding this is that aircraft on a collision course with each other do not visually move relatively in each other’s windscreen, they only get larger. The human eye is fairly decent at detecting relative motion, but incipient ‘static’ (relatively) growth of an apparently non-moving object is much harder to detect.
The NTSB investigation will analyze cause factors as to why, but factually it is clear the PAT25 did not proceed behind AA5342 as directed. No doubt there may be more regulations/procedures regarding flight ops in the DC area to come out of this, with an aim to avoid accidents like this in the future.
An absolute tragedy to be sure!
Edit to add: Will leave this here, but same link as Baz provided.
Not sure if the link will work, but an interesting view of the final secondary radar of DCA and associated ATC and pilot comms, showing the paths of AA4532 and PAT25.
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The ATIS showed some fairly strong gustly winds right down the pipe for RWY 32. Maybe they were setting up for a runway change?
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I think I read that the CRJ had just had its runway changed.
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That was AA3130, an American A319, coming in behind 5342 for RWY01, so the angles are a bit off, but yes, I can see that PAT25 could have thought 3130 was what ATC was referring to, especially since 3130 was on an IF approach I believe so tracking a glideslope down, therefore above the horizon by a bit and standing out from any cultural lighting closer to PAT25’s visible horizon. Unless someone is some kind of landing light configuration guru, I don’t think it would be apparent from the lights what was a CRJ700 and what wasn’t.
Some reports out now that the air traffic control may have been understaffed.
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I can't understand why people wouldn't want a career where the President might fire everyone.
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Which could be factually accurate, but listening to the tapes, the tower controller sounded like he had a good grip on the arrivals and departures.
To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer DCA will remain in operation. There have been numerous rounds of ‘foreseen closure’ over the years, but Dulles and Baltimore are far enough away (inconveniently) that there is a strong lobby to keep DCA open.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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I do see it closing to commercial/civilian traffic. It is a safety and security nightmare on multiple fronts. When the POL tanks are 150m away from the Fire Fighting Training area, one needs to wonder if it's just a bad movie script right...
If it had more standoff (and I would assume most would like a tad more runway for safety) it would be a nice one to use for AF1, as it's an easier jaunt than Andrews. If DCA did close to the public - then you could expand the Pentagon footprint -- bring in a lot of Annex's from around the area in.
The NCR Airspace is run out of Dulles - so nothing critical would be lost from the closure of DCA...
Edit: My heart goes out to those who lost family and friends in last nights tragedy. My comments above are simply looking at the benefits of closing DCA so issues like this don't occur again.
- Reaction score
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Yup, convenience for some vs the risk management. The Northerly approach down to RWY15 is nuts to fly (several key alt/speed/hdg transitions for fixed-wing, helo more just twisty)…but great to be a pax on the left side of the aircraft…pretty great views of the Kennedy Centre, Lincoln Memorial, GW Monument, etc. Right side just gets the Pentagon on short final.
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I question the convenience honestly.
From Dulles down the greenway you're in DC in 20min-30min (unless it’s morning Rush Hour - and then you should have flown in the night before.
From BWI it’s pretty much 30-40min.
I won’t use rush hour timings as frankly it’s taken me 45min to get from DCA to an office building in Alexandria that is less than 5km away.
From Dulles down the greenway you're in DC in 20min-30min (unless it’s morning Rush Hour - and then you should have flown in the night before.
From BWI it’s pretty much 30-40min.
I won’t use rush hour timings as frankly it’s taken me 45min to get from DCA to an office building in Alexandria that is less than 5km away.
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