Thursday, January 30, 2025

what's strange about the video of the helicopter and plane crashing

 As someone who learned to fly small planes and who soloed in I believe around 1989 in California in a Cessna 152 it seemed like the helicopter ran into either the back end or the side of the American Airlines jet. I'm not sure how this could have happened if the pilot of the helicopter was actually watching ahead of him. However, What could have happened is that because the plane was descending and the helicopter looked to be flying level it is possible that the helicopter couldn't see the plane until it descended basically right upon the helicopter. However, that's not what it looks like in the video which is taken from a distance.

However, the pilot of the American Airlines jet wouldn't have seen the helicopter at all. This is one of the problems of two flying vehicles with one cruising at an altitude and the other descending to land in the same airspace. 

For example, I know of a crash in 1942 I believe when a relative of my Dad's was flying his something like a piper cub with 2 seats one in front and one in back with a control stick rather than a wheel at both seats. The other plane came up under him and this sheared of both their wings and their fuselage went straight to the ground without any wings. However it only took off one wing of my father's relative and he spun down like a pinwheel with one wing and landed on power lines and bounced off the power lines before he hit the ground. So, no one in either plane survived this midair crash.

Having flown as a pilot there are two areas that are a problem regarding visibility. One is underneath the plane if a plane is gaining altitude and you are maintaining an  altitude and the other is if someone doesn't see you and descends on top of you from behind so neither of you can see the other.

To add to this problem if you have a low speed high wing plane like a Cessna 152 or 172 you have less visibility above you if any plane is right above you because you cannot see through the wings. However, I found this nice when I was landing because I could always see when my wheels touched the ground which I found reassuring always.

However, if you are flying a low wing plane you have more visibility above you but you cannot see the runway much as you land because you have lower wings that prevent you from seeing the runway below you. So, I always felt safer taking off and landing with a high wing plane than a low wing plane simply because most of the time the most dangerous thing you do in a plane is taking off and landing. Taking off and landing is where most planes crash either from water in the fuel lines (condensation) or from carrying too much weight taking off and being an inexperienced pilot.

So, for most people who fly only on weekends crashing on takeoff or landing is the most common way people go down.

Another problem is people who are used to taking off and landing at sea level and then try to land at 5000 feet or higher and they crash because they don't know how to fly in air that thin yet so that landing would often be fatal especially if they are overloaded weight wise. So, the extra weight on takeoff at sea level would be safe often until they tried to land with that much extra weight and then they might crash on landing.

The next day after doing more research into the crash:

After looking a map of the Flight paths of both aircraft what You see in the video looks different than what was actually happening in real life for some reason. I would have said from the videos that the helicopter hit the plane from the back but looking at the flight path it is more likely that they hit a glancing blow in a somewhat head on collision and because the Army Helicopter personnel were wearing night vision Goggles they couldn't properly see the aircraft OR the aircraft landing lights were not pointed directly at the Helicopter either or all of the above.

Also, just logically the helicopter is flying at a much slower rate than a small passenger jet even in the landing pattern so because of the slower airspeed this is a factor too in all of this. So, it is likely that neither pilot saw the other one until they had crashed and it was too late. In fact, it's likely that neither pilot knew what hit them. They were just all gone suddenly and then both crashed into the water. 

It is also likely that their combined speed at the time of collision was around 300 to 500 miles per hour which is almost impossible to avoid and to be quick enough in circumstances like this to make any changes when traveling at this high a combined opposite direction speed.

It's a lot like two cars coming towards each other at 70 mph each. Their collision is actually 140 mph and no one usually survives something like this ever because the collision speed is just too high.

Also, the paths of the two planes intersected dangerously close to each other and I think both the Army and the Airport need to rethink what it is they are doing there if you analyze the flight paths of both planes.

You have a prescribed army route that they use all the time intersecting too closely with a landing pattern for Runway 33 at Reagan international Airport which is an alternate Runway for smaller passenger jets. These two flight paths are just too close and about 67 people just died because of poor planning around Runway 33 intersecting too closely with an established Army helicopter flight path. Also, one investigator was saying that it is also likely that the helicopter couldn't actually see the plane until it was too late to maneuver away. It is also very likely that the plane obviously couldn't see the helicopter either. However, with the rules of the road in the sky being what they are the helicopter as the slower flying vehicle is supposed to give way to the larger plane in a landing pattern. But, if you cannot see the plane landing on top of you you cannot stop the crash either. So, it looks like this was an accident just waiting to happen for a variety of reasons.

Another potential problem could be the air wash of the passenger jet if the helicopter was in it could make it impossible to maneuver a helicopter out of the way of the crash too depending upon the angle that they collided. So, this could be another factor which caused the crash in addition to the night vision goggles and all the other factors.

Yes because the helicopter was at a lower altitude I believe the pilot of the helicopter couldn't see the plane and the pilot of the plane couldn't see the helicopter either because it was below their field of vision. So, once again this was an accident waiting to happen because neither pilot likely saw the other in time to avoid the collision and suddenly they were all gone hitting at a 300 to 500 mph airspeed combined somewhat head on.

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