Oh my. That is certainly eerie. I enjoyed watching Dick Button and ice skating as a kid
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A Maryland local of the United Association steamfitter union announced that four steamfitters were killed in the crash.
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My daughter was a skater growing up and took lessons from Sasha and he was her partner for some ice dance tests. He was so talented and such a nice man. She has recently started skating again as a adult and was flying out to a competition today. Itâs a sad day for the skating community and all those with loved ones impacted by this accident.
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When you fly into DCA, it is a controlled drop. Itâs a very steep approach, in part because of the heavy air traffic and military/secure airspace in the area.
I gave birth to S1 and S2 at GWU and Georgetown Hospitals and the planes shake the windows. Looked like they were buzzing the buildings. One of the approaches is down the Potomac from Montgomery County, and then swing right at the Kennedy Center/Watergate. They practically fly down K Street. Military helicopters take that same route up and down that same route.
South of DCA gets similar traffic, but there are more military facilities along the water there.
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I went to college in DC and was routinely woken up by low flying helicopters (this was during the Clinton years). When I was there a couple years ago, I was struck by the nonstop air traffic noise from DCA. It was inescapable. Air space in DC is insanely crowded.
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My BIL lives in an apartment right next to the airport. I havenât been there, but my H says you canât imagine how close and loud the planes a are. His balcony looks out across the airport to the river. Practically right across from the collision.
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Iâm flying into DCA next week and Iâll fly in again in March. I donât worry about it generally, and Iâm sure theyâll be hyper vigilant now.
There were the core part of a friend group of young men who were returning from a âboysââ hunting trip. Some of the hunters drove back to carry the equipment, so they are alive.
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Spencer Lane is also survived by his younger brother Milo. Both boys were adopted from Korea. Father was interviewed on TV. He said Spencer watched the Olympics, saw Nathan Chen compete and said âI can do that!â He only began skating lessons 3 years ago.
I feel so sorry for his dad because he lost both his wife and son AND has to be a single dad to a younger son. (I mean I know itâs tough for all the families, but I think thatâs a particularly tough scenario.)
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A really detailed article by our local veteran aviation reporter Dominic Gates. Apologies for not being able to gift a link as the paper doesnât have that capability.
âAnother potential factor contributing to the missed communication, he said, is the fact that the military and commercial aircraft use different frequencies to communicate with air traffic control. The controller can hear both, but they cannot hear each other.â
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Good article. It definitely hurts situational awareness if you canât hear the controller speaking to other aircraft. If the controller is telling someone to avoid you, you instantly start thinking, hey, where is he? But if you donât hear that, youâre at a disadvantage.
A last minute runway change to a circling approach is definitely a goat rope, especially at night. Itâs one thing if the pilots are completely familiar and expected it (though still not easy), and a completely different thing if they didnât. Now theyâre both inside (meaning no one is looking outside), changing the approach, punching in changes into the nav system, thinking about the runway, how they are going to taxi, etc. Personally, since I would have been unfamiliar, I would have said no to a last minute runway change like that, but it is very difficult to say no, itâs in your DNA to try to make it happen, and sometimes itâs just plain dangerous. Not saying that the crew should not have accepted this approach at all, I have no idea of their familiarity.
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I also keep telling myself Iâm safer in the air. Approximately 45k people lose their lives every year in car accidentsâŠ.every year in the U.S.
4 billion people flied globally in 2024 on commercial jets, with 318 deaths. Itâs horrificâŠ.but look at those odds!
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I tell myself the same thing all the time, what I need to suppress in my mind is that there are no fender-benders in the airâŠ
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Landing and take-off are where most airline crashes occur.
Right, just mentioning to my wife that is when I hold my breath figuratively until weâre safely up or down
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Faces of the crash victims⊠
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The identity of the Blackhawk pilot has been released.
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