“Except for the part when the aircraft collided, everything was perfectly normal” does not inspire confidence in the system…
And it really shouldn’t.
Aviation safety is built around the “Swiss cheese” model. Things can (and, by virtue of human nature, will) go wrong, but for an accident to occur, multiple things have to go wrong. The holes in the Swiss cheese have to line up for something to pass all the way through a block of it.
Here, there was ONE thing, maybe two, that went wrong. The helicopter pilots identified the wrong plane when told to confirm visual and fly behind it. One could argue an overtaxed ATC wasn’t able to properly monitor them, for a potential second thing that went wrong.
One, maybe two things going wrong shouldn’t cause fatalities. If this is how DC airspace regularly operates then something needs to change.
And it really shouldn’t.
Aviation safety is built around the “Swiss cheese” model. Things can (and, by virtue of human nature, will) go wrong, but for an accident to occur, multiple things have to go wrong. The holes in the Swiss cheese have to line up for something to pass all the way through a block of it.
Here, there was ONE thing, maybe two, that went wrong. The helicopter pilots identified the wrong plane when told to confirm visual and fly behind it. One could argue an overtaxed ATC wasn’t able to properly monitor them, for a potential second thing that went wrong.
One, maybe two things going wrong shouldn’t cause fatalities. If this is how DC airspace regularly operates then something needs to change.