"I guess", "my thoughts", "I think." It's all the same.
But, why are you guessing is my point? We've already had a president use DEI as a way to diminish the safety standards of the helicopter crew and it's operation. It's completely unfair. It starts rumours and creates unnecessary consequences. Not to mention it creates extra work for the people fully entrenched in this accident who are trying to piece together what happened.
Like I said earlier, you did a great job presenting the facts from the NTSB. All the system info you've presented has been good reading and a nice way to understand how they work and how crews use them. Why can't you just leave it at that?
Yes, exactly, those words all clearly show that what's said is a speculation, not a factual statement. That's why I'm confused about your claim that I made an assertion when I clearly did not.
As to why I am guessing? Why not? Again, I'm not a press agency, official, or any other source with a claim to credence, I'm just some plonker on the internet, I get to make guesses. And when I do, I word my sentences to show that I do so like I did above (unless I screw up). It's not the first time that I've taken a guess in this thread either, I've speculated as early as page one that the helicopter crew might have mistaken and tracked a different aircraft for the CRJ, so I definitely was not reporting pure facts until now. If you only want facts then I'm definitely not your guy.
It's not like that possibility I mentioned is just something I'm pulling out of thin air either, there's decently good indication for it, even if it's not good enough to be called proof in any way. I've explained why I consider it a likely possibility above. I'd like to call it an educated guess, but maybe even that's going to far. An educated possibility, maybe?
I certainly don't think it's the only factor either, that this would be only on the CRJ pilots, and neither did I ever indicate to think so.
The entire situation looks like total FUBAR. A highly active helicopter route with a ceiling that puts them only around a hundred feet below the final of a very active commercial airport is pure insanity! And that's even if everyone adheres to the route perfectly - I've read multiple people claiming to be familiar with the airspace saying that military helicopters buzzing that ceiling and being told off by ATC is a regular occurence. The ATC relying on visual separation by the heli crew rather than telling the helicopter where to hold until the incoming aircraft has passed and they're cleared to continue is apparently the regular procedure there from what I read, which I'd also regard as too error-prone, at least at night where making out an aircraft light above a bright city and correctly estimating its distance and relative speed is quite hard. And while we're at it, something certainly also went wrong on the side of the helo pilots, as they just crossed into the final to runway 33 without waiting for the CRJ to pass in front of them. They knew that the plane was inbound for 33, there was no other aircraft landing on that runway that they could have mistaken the actual accident CRJ for which could have made them think that it had already passed, yet they continued on without so much as asking ATC. It looks like they were too high on their route as well. Circle-to-land for a regularly used runway is an imprecise approach that has no place over the city center of the nation's capital, at least give it a proper RNP approach if not an ILS one. And after all of those issues, yes, I also think the CRJ's reaction to a traffic warning appears to be lacking.
So as you can see, I consider a lot of issues being at play here. Classic swiss cheese model, a lot of things have to line up for this to happen. From the FAA who set the route and approach as are, to the ATC leaving imho too much to personal responsibility of the pilots, to the military seemingly habitually not taking the altitude restrictions seriously enough, to the helicopter pilots doing whatever they did to not correctly pick up and wait for the CRJ, to the CRJ crew's lack of timely reaction to TCAS - I consider all of them a factor in this, and out of all of them, I'd blame the CRJ crew by far the least even if it should turn out that they entirely overlooked or disregarded the TCAS warning.
Yep, no problem. It’s not every day that you end up having someone you’re related to involved with something this high profile, so I figured I’d pass along the info he gave me as best I could.
Added an edit above which I don't think you saw: "Can you thank him, just in general, too? The NTSB is doing an outstanding job, has been for a long time, too. It's a shame they don't actually get to order anything, and can only make suggestions to the FAA, which those then promptly ignore half the time."
