What went wrong in DC’s crowded skies

The January 29 cold evening mid-air collision between a US army Black Hawk UH-60 chopper and an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet outside of Reagan National Airport, Washington DC, which killed all aboard both the flying machines, has brought the question of flight safety back on the public platform.

While no conclusion can be arrived at before the completion and revelation of the accident inquiry report, it, nevertheless, is plausible to build a scenario to understand the nuances of flight safety, which is of universal applicability and relevance.

First, aviation is an inherently unforgiving world wherein only the champion lives to fly another day and the runner-up has no place whatsoever. Hence, even the slightest of an error by man or the tiniest of machine malfunction could be fatal. This makes an accident either avoidable or unavoidable. However, no mid-air collision normally can be termed unavoidable because, prima facie, it's got to be avoidable unless proved otherwise.

Thus, the provisional verdict of the January 29 air accident over the Potomac river of Washington DC is that it was avoidable. How? Visualise the descent of the Bombardier passenger aircraft. Gliding down to the 5,204-foot runway 15/33 at the approach speed of 140 km per hour under air traffic controller (ATC) guidance, the passenger craft was allegedly rammed into by an army helicopter at an altitude which is much above and beyond its designated and prescribed altitude. Consequently, both the vertical and horizontal separation of the two flying machines turned into a common fireball.

Indisputably, therefore, whereas the passenger aircraft was following the descent procedure through the ATC, the army craft had gone astray. What failed? Man or machine? Understandably, the US aviation, along with other non-American operators, is in a tizzy, owing to it being the US capital city airport, in the vicinity of the dwellings of rulers of the superpower.

Hereinafter, we need not go further into the realm of speculation but await the accident inquiry findings on the "what, how, why" and other nitty-gritties of circumstances and factors leading to the mishap and future remedial actions. The moot point, nevertheless, is the ambience of flight operations in and around Washington DC Reagan National Airport, which handles more than 800 flights per day, making it one of the busiest and most crowded US airfields.

One can argue that since the DC airport has three runways to handle the traffic what could be the problem? Precisely! Those three runways are the problem because none of them runs parallel to each other. All three intersect each other. It is like the Mumbai airport’s 11,447-foot main runway 27-09 being cut through the middle by a shorter 9,810-foot 14-32 runway. Fortunately, the shorter Mumbai runway isn't yet as busy as the DC one owing to difficult flight manoeuvre from either side, for both take-off and touchdown for bigger and heavier aircraft. Else, life could be a nightmare for both air traffic control and operating flying crew in Mumbai. Hence, the Mumbai 27-09 (East-West axis) Thane Creek-to-Arabian Sea runway remains the mainstay of the metropolis airport.

Coming back to the DC Reagan airport, the mid-air collision has opened a Pandora's box as volcanic eruptions from various quarters have made things acutely embarrassing for the US government, led by an irrepressible and mercurial new President of the US (POTUS), Donald Trump.

True to his style, the POTUS has been disdainful towards the mishap. Taking a political potshot, he has blamed the "diversity, equity, inclusion" policy of his predecessor. He has, thereby, given cover to technical failure even before deciphering the causes and consequences of man-machine-weather factors leading to the air disaster in the periphery of the airport.

Understandably, Captain Cheasley Sullenberger — considered a national hero of the January 15, 2009 Airbus flight ditching at the Hudson river following a twin-engine failure after take-off from New York's La Guardia runway (wherein all of the 155 aboard survived) — hit back at the POTUS with three words: "Not surprised, disgusted."

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, too, called the POTUS remark "despicable."

Indeed, top VVIPs need to remember that even the most seasoned US pilots shuddered to state that "everything, unfortunately, lined up for this accident to happen" owing to the fact that Washington DC area alone has more than 80 airports and helipads within 30 miles of Reagan National Airport, including six military ones. Plus, more than 100 choppers routinely fly at low altitude near the airport along a river corridor which cuts through "in and out" passenger planes' scheduled take-off and touch-down funnel/corridor.

Choppers are strictly to be below 200 feet and, yet, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators determined on February 2 itself that the passenger plane was at 325 feet at the time of the impact, thereby flying well over its restricted designated height of 200 feet.

No wonder, Mark Stephens, former pilot of Delta with 30 years of accident-free flying, also considers New York's La Guardia and Washington DC's Reagan airports as "particularly dangerous."

Further skeletons tumbled out of the US aviation cupboard to inform that there is a huge shortage of ATCs.

Also, the reality is that the TACAS (traffic alert and collision avoidance system) surely couldn't have been as effective as it should be because it doesn't provide solutions at low altitudes in aircraft landing for safety reasons. The system reduces the number of alerts it issues as a plane descends in order to avoid false alarms from other aircraft on the ground. The TACAS is taken over by the GPWS (ground proximity warning system) before touch-down. Don't forget, the mid-air collision happened to the descending passenger craft and the chopper should have loitered below the runway-approaching Bombardier with 60 aboard.

Thus, whatever the inquiry report, the fact is that it is an avoidable flight safety failure mid-air disaster over water, or technically called CFIT (controlled-flight into terrain), wherein the machine is under control. and, yet, human error causes it to crash into the terrain.