American Airlines CRJ-700 collides with helicopter near Reagan National

I can state from personal experience that piloting an aircraft at night is a completely different animal than daytime flying. When you add to total 'blackness' of the water mixed with the contrasting city lights over the land areas, it only adds to the potential for mental disorientation. The closest I ever came to perishing in flight was on a night flight over Lake Pontchartrain after departing MSY with about a 1000ft cloud ceiling. The brain is easily confused in those instances.

But there will be a lot more to investigate in this crash than just the nighttime conditions (which was obviously clear skies based on all the distant video recordings of the incident at the time of impact). Two things that were a least a factor in the crash appears to be the vague instructions from the ATC to the helicopter pilot. Generally such instructions will include a 'clock position' of where the pilot should be focused when looking for traffic. Also for whatever reason the helicopter pilot should never have been at any altitude that would cause him to intersect with the glideslope to that runway. At the very least the transmission of instructions to the helicopter pilot should have concluded with something similar to: "Descend and maintain 200 feet until clear of the terminal control area". (Unless that area has obstructions that were at least that high)

If the flight of the helicopter was truly a training flight, then the visual reference would have appeared to be very close to the surface of the river. He would have been quite happy to fly the higher altitude if he was focused on a different aircraft than the one the ATC had intended him to be looking out for. Sadly this area has very narrow flight corridors due to the number of 'no fly zones' in the area. The ATC has no idea what the skill level is of the PIC in the helicopter. And being such a clear evening it's not hard to imagine why he may have assumed the helicopter was visually locked on to the approaching jet. However, once an ATC issues an instruction and he gets an affirmative reply, he assumes the pilot will carry out the instructions and he turns his attention to other traffic concerns.

The fault will likely be placed on the helicopter pilot for not maintaining separation during the flight. But there will obviously be several other contributing factors. Now we wait for the final report. :cry: