The Plane Crash Thread

Another sad update:

US figure skaters were on board plane that crashed into Potomac River | Reuters https://search.app/qzgAAD1PsuA3yVMe7

U.S. Figure Skating, the governing body for figure skating in the United States, said athletes, coaches and family members were returning from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas.

A source told Reuters that as many as 15 people on the flight may have been involved in figure skating.

Russian state media meanwhile reported that ice skating coaches and former world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among those on board the plane. Their son, Maxim, also a skater, may also have been on the plane, Russia’s TASS and RIA news agencies reported.

Even if the tower staff was undermanned, how can the helicopter miss that plane? Don’t they have radar and warnings? Especially when flying in that busy airspace, you would expect them to be extra careful.

Sad, sports club deaths

Although no official report on the reasons of the crash had been released, the US president is already blaming the pilots of the helicopter, the previous administrations (Biden and Obama) and DEI initiatives:

Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet while it was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital. But he quickly returned to the theme that diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had created unsafe skies, implying that those moves had to have contributed to the disaster.

It seems to be a common pattern recently in the US that tragedies like this are always quickly politicized.

Russia has been trying to put dodgy batteries or something like that on planes in Europe. Not saying in this case but could have been, need to investigate.

Wasn’t there another administration between Obama and Biden? :thinking:

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Amazing conspiracy Theory.

Holy crap.

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All crashes that result in death are tragic, but this one is very tragic.

It was a lifeline flight. A very ill child was being flown to a hospital. Everyone perished.

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Pilot was a Biden official
Captain Rebecca Lobach is identified as third Black Hawk pilot who died in collision with American Airlines flight in DC | Daily Mail Online

Lobach had worked as a White House aide during the Biden administration and had served as an aviation officer in the Army from July 2019 until January 2025.

Its been a horrible week or so in aviation. The horrible 737-800 crash into a mound in korea, this horrible helicopter into regional jet with all dead , another US plane caught fire before take off (engine on fire), another jet in korea had a cell phone go up in smoke in the cabin and burned the plane down. And now this plane landed and collided with the tug somehow and the driver of the tug is in serious condition. And of course the horrible medivac flight killing two pilots, a doc and assistant and the patient and her mom apparently on their way home to mexico after treatment in the USA. Saw a vid on youtube by a pilot who mentioned the plane crashed within a minute after take off without any may day call and it looked like it was climbing normally then suddenly started a descent which became obviously a loss of control situation very quickly as the descent speed exceeded 10,000 feet per minute. It was all over within a minute after take off. The plane was 44 years old! Which means it may have been too old. Commercial turboprops used to be used 40 plus years, but modern big jets they use only about 20 years before conversion to freighter as there is too much maintenance to do, it can find some more years as a freighter. Planes are not made to last anymore. The 727 often flew for 30 plus years!
Private jets often fly only 200 or so hours a year so they are often kept around 20 plus years but 44 years is probably pushing it. Commercial planes can fly as much as 6,000 hours a year or more ! And so after 20 years its got a lot of hours at some 120,000 hours !

it is believed the helicopter into regional jet accident is probably due to it being night time and the pilot of the helicopter who was being trained had only 500 hours but more importantly its near impossible to see traffic ahead and yet they were allowed to cross the glide slope, which is really a crash waiting and it happened this time. It is believed air traffic control should not have allowed the helicopter to use visual rules, instead using the towers radar to guide them. There is a whole line of jets landing and the heli pilot may have not seen this particular jet but mistook a different jet on the glide path and reported she had that plane in sight. But she had the wrong plane in sight and did not see the plane in front of them. Because they are approaching from the side so its hard to make out the plane lights from city lights etc.

heli should be under radar control if it is to cross the glide path. Which actually they really should not have been allowed to do so especialy at night.

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Wonder if the black boxes will retain the info we need to find out why this happened

She was flying at 325 feet altitude where the max height limit for her helicopter was 200 feet.

Favoritism Inevitably Draws Scrutiny: The Army’s Special Treatment of Capt. Rebecca Lobach Fuels Speculation and Dishonors all Who Perished in the Recent DC Air Collision

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/02/05/the_armys_special_treatment_of_capt_rebecca_lobach_1089352.html

This fortunately was not a crash but a good example of the dangers of bird strikes. Two birds did this:

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A swan isnt exactly a hummingbird

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Yep. And there were two of them against a 737, which ain’t tiny either. If they did that number on the cockpit, imagine crashing against the engine, which is actually far more delicate and fragile than it looks.

Wasn’t it a flock of Canadian geese that took down Sully’s plane?

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I’d say month, not week.

And you forgot the one that started this run of bad luck… the Azerbaijani plane that was shot down by a Russian missile a few days before the Jeju Air crash.

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She’s dead. Her family is mourning. People should hold off on the speculative blame game until an official report is published.

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She’s a student the system failed her
Her instructors failed her

She’s dead because of it too

Looks like she was put in a situation that should not be

Nobody should be crossing the glide slope when traffic is active

There was a.LINE of jets on the slope !!

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Aeroplane crash update