I fucking loathe this timeline.
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what race was the pilot?
The third Blackhawk crew member has not been identified, which has created a vacuum for conspiracies to take hold. Iāve read that it was a woman, but I honestly have not been able to find confirmation of that, or determine if thatās another falsehood related to the trans pilot lies.
If it was a woman, I feel like Trump would not have been able to hold back on that. But then the Tweet came this morning fulling blaming the helicopter, and now Iām leaning towards maybe the third crewmember is not a white male.
Edit: reported by Reuters that the third crewmember was a woman
The Black Hawk crew included two male and one female soldier, an Army official said.
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My theory on all this DEI shit is Iām just going to ignore it until it jumps the shark and they move on to something else. If theyāre just going to spout it out every time anything goes wrong w/o even pointing to anything specific, I think even the base will just kind of snicker and move on. Itās reached the point where itās just a joke to them.
What the base will never lose interest in, however, is liberals freaking out about Republicans blathering about DEI. That will always be fun. So Iām not giving it any oxygen.
The trans stuff is different to me because it directly attacks already vulnerable people and puts them in danger.
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I know a guy whose first move is to question whether it was a trans person or some other DEI target and Iām going to use this to troll his ass.
You do understand that plane crashes donāt just kill the people you dislike?
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Yes, of course. Why wouldnāt I understand that?
Warning, this is a pretty graphic view of the crash:
Itās crazy that the helicopter doesnāt even seem to try to get out of the way. I assume it was. But youād think it would only take a second or two to get out of the way once it saw the plane. Maybe they both tried to take the same evasive maneuver?
In the second view you can see them both moving toward each other. It makes you wonder if it could be intentional by the helicopter. But the recordings they do have didnāt give any indication of that.
I also didnāt realize how big the helicopter was relative to the plane. I thought the plane would just slice right through it. But the helicopter stopped the plane in its tracks.
Also why was someone filming this?
I saw someone tweet that they got their apartment specifically with a view to watch airplanes. Maybe someone was just enjoying filming them. Or maybe someone was just out watching and could see something was about to happen.
I was wondering this also when I saw the video earlier today. Even if you were an aviation enthusiast or plane-spotter, it seems odd youād be taking crappy phone video in the dark.
Iāve heard that videos are sometimes taken by commercial sources and zoomed in to highlight the details.
Apologies if this has been posted already
https://youtu.be/hfgllf1L9_4?si=jzzpTtKs71EyBxg6
This guyās theory is that the Blackhawk pilot had a visual on the wrong plane (heās a pilot and explains the communications between copter and control)
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Any speculation on whether the female crew member was wearing a short skirt?
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There are a lot of plane nerds out there.
The In-N-Out location by LAX is one of the most popular for a reason, and if you go there youāll see not only standard tourist types oohing and ahhing about the planes taking off, youāll also see diehards camped out there with their 600mm lenses just watching for whatever reasons (conspiracies, aviation nerds, whatever)
But the original video of the DCA crash was from a webcam on top of the Kennedy Center.
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Yeah, seems highly likely to me. Iād be curious to hear d10ās opinion now that we have additional details. But Iām kinda becoming more sympathetic to the helicopter pilot.
Ultimately itās his responsibility, but it seems more like an honest mistake than a massive fuckup. I think Iāve seen three main reasons why the helicopter pilot should be blamed, but theyāre all a bit more understandable now imo:
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Flying too high. Maybe true if the 300ā reading is accurate. But even then, d10 says thatās not uncommon in this area, and Iāve seen the same from other pilots. So maybe technically his fault, but something that other pilots do at least sometimes.
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Picking out the wrong plane. The key problem, but again many pilots have said this is super difficult to do at night with all the city lights, multiple planes, etc. And they were wearing night vision goggles, making it even harder.
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Not double checking that he has the right plane when ATC gives info about the CRJās location (ācrossing Wilson Bridgeā) or when ATC asks him a second time if he sees the plane. I donāt know enough to judge this, but this is all happening in a matter of seconds. Iād imagine it would be very difficult to update your priors that quickly without a more direct warning.
So yeah, I dunno if the helicopter pilot really deserves quite as much blame as heās been getting. Iām not sure how heās supposed to know for sure that heās looking at the wrong plane when he has no radar (insane) and ATC doesnāt directly relay the collision warning.
One of my coworkers was on a project with two passengers on this flight
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a) The Black Hawk is on the larger side for helicopters, at least length. It weights 12.5k lbs, compared to this plane which is 43.5k lbs, according to the wikis.
b) The Bombardier CRJ700 is on the smaller side for a commercial passenger aircraft, when compared to like a 737 or what have you. The max capacity (including crew) is 78 vs. 148 respectively. It is a regional flight, not a big main route.
c) On approach, the plane is traveling much slower than at altitude so it has less force. (600+mph vs. 180mph per the flight logs)
Pretty sure a Black Hawk would take down any plane, especially with how it looked like a direct hit.