January 30, 2025 • 33 mins
Tim kicks off the show talking about the tragedy in D.C. and how everyone can relate when a public aircraft is involved in such a horrific incident. And then Tim talks with Airline consultant, Patrick Weil, about yesterday’s collision in D.C. // iHeart and Fox Aviation Analyst, Jay Ratliff, joins the show to discuss the tragic collision that happened at Reagan International Airport last night. They focus on how rare these aviation accidents are, and how each tragedy needs to serve as a learning lesson. // Tim continues his conversation with Jay Ratliff about what the future of the DCA airport might look like, and how this tragedy could impact the airport's flight capacity and the future of aviation in D.C. // Former KTLA reporter and pilot, Tim Lynn joins Conway to shed some light on how yesterday’s tragic collision unfolded.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's KFI Am sixty and you're listening to the Conway
Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app Conway Show. A
little after six o'clock last night, we saw something on
TV that we thought was a private plane crashing in Washington, DC.
And when a private plane goes down, and you know,
(00:20):
it gets your attention, but it doesn't get your attention like.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A commercial jet.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
When a commercial jet goes down, we all feel like
we could relate to that a little more.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You know, we all feel like that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We've almost gone down in turbulence or we've had some
scares in the air, and you just have to think
of what it was like for these poor people on
this American Airline jet. The guys in the helicopter to
plummet into the Potomac River and they were so close.
They're fifteen seconds away from landing last night at Ronald
(00:51):
Reagan Airport, and it was it's a catastrophe. There's a
lot of young people on there, a lot of you know,
very good skaters in the United States State's figure skating team,
and it's just a real it's going to be a
real heart wrencher when you see those funerals when you,
you know, in four or five days from now, and
(01:11):
you see these funerals of the skaters that show up
and all the people that celebrate that sport show up
to say goodbye, that's going to be really heart wrenching,
really a heartbreak. My daughter texted me when she left
her work today and she asked me to send her
any list of the victims because she's got friends and
friends who oh no, people that might have been on
the plane, and did you know any of them?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
She doesn't know yet. They haven't really all the names,
but the ones they have she hasn't known.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Patrick Wilders with a season airline consultant, creator of the
series Airlines of the World, and the release date is
to be determined. But Patrick, welcome to Kafi. How are
you sir?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello? Tim? How are you wish this was a better day?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah? Man, oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I think you know you look at something like this
way differently than we do when you know the lay
person like myself. I just keep saying to myself, how
the hell can this happen nowadays? How is a helicopter
flying so close to a busy airport and not looking around?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Oh yeah, no, I was astonished by what I saw.
I mean, it was quite clear that you know. My
guess is that the helicopter took the tail off the
jet and that that's how it plummeted so quickly. Something
like this happened back last year air show in Dallas,
where it was a B seventeen. They had his tail
(02:30):
cut off and it just plummeted within three or four
seconds it hit the ground. There was no chance And
the same similar thing I saw when I saw that
video really came to mind.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You know, a couple of airports come to mind when
something like this happens, because that's a smaller airport. It's
like Burbank, and I get I'm flying and out of
Burbank because of the convenience, but man, do I pay
for it with the rattled nerves on landing?
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, that in Orange count And there's a handful of
other ones all cross of the world.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
New York.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Laguadi is one of them, even Santos Dumont and Rio
dejan Era, which I was down there investigating some stuff
to do for our show. But yeah, it was it's
a little postage stamp and it's very tight quarters there,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There's another airport that comes to mind. Tijuana's airport is
set up in a strange way where a lot of
the planes, if the wind's right, the planes have to
come in over San Diego, so they're breaking, you know,
the the border there and then fly back towards Mexico.
And there's a lot of air traffic there with the
with the helicopters and the Navy and the air Force.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, Imperial Beach Naval air Station is directly underneath the
approach path to Tijuana Airport, and I was to stay
on their last week, and I was looking at the
airplanes coming in over San Diego and the helicopters were
not much further below the incoming aircraft. That got my
attention pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Now I'm not familiar with this airport, I know you are.
Is its equivalent to Burbank about the same size, a
little bigger, little smaller.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
It's it's I would say, it's right in the same
range of it. There's a there's intersecting runways, which is
where this airplane was unapproached to. So there is That's
why you saw in the video. You saw one airplane departing,
which it almost looked like it was in the same space,
but it really wasn't. But yeah, the runways are close,
closely stitched together if you will, at that particular field
(04:31):
and the military base that they are a helicopter base
that the helicopter was over came from that area, was
directly across the river from from the from the Reagan Airport.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Now, now what I also heard that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, there's a lot of restricted airspace in Washington,
d C. Maybe the most restricted in the country, if
not the world. And so those planes coming into Ronald
Reagan International Airport, Uh, they've got to follow the river
almost like it was a old steamship before they get
to that airport because of the restrictions.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, they really have to stay right over the middle
of the river. At the last minute they'll turn sharply
to make the landing. And that happens like in Burbank,
for instance, that's a very similar situation. So, yeah, they
they were there. The airliner was right where it was
supposed to be. There was no doubt in my mind
(05:24):
that they were straying off their course of any any bit.
I think they were right where they're supposed to be.
The thing is the military helicopter was not where it's
supposed to be and it should never been anywhere near
the arrival portion of the runway there. It just it
boggles my mind to think how that could have happened.
And the air traffic controller gave a warning to that
(05:47):
military helicopter and the helicopter never responded to the warnings.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Do you think they were on a different frequency or what.
Do you think the lack of response was due to, Well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
They were talking to him initially, because they wouldn't have
known that call sign or called to that helicopter. It
was passed T two five and there was no Like
I said, there was no response after the air traffic
guidance that there was an aircraft coming in. So I
mean that probably the controllers should have sent the CRJ
(06:21):
around at that point because there was there was definitely
no response from the helicopter.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know, that airport has always been talked about like
Santa Monic Airport. The people live around that airport hated
and they want it closed. But the politicians and the
big businessmen and the blobbyists they are strong enough to
keep that airport open.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Apparently, So yeah, I mean, you know, it's Washington everything
in the world happened there.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, So when when a plane flies into that airport
do they do They have to go around the entire
city of Washington, DC and then approach it from the south.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah, that's well not exactly, no, they it depends on
which way the ends up coming from. But the approach
is a lot more hectic if you come from the north,
so you can't fly over the White House. You literally
have to stay directly over the river all the way
to the runway, and then on the on the right
side of it. If you're coming from the north, you
have the Pentagon right there. So I mean it's it's
(07:19):
really like a a whack a mole kind of thing there,
you know. For that that arrival, the one from the
south is a lot easier because it's the river's very
wide there and there's not so many sensitive installations along
that that part of the approach path.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I imagine if the Secret Service had their drawthers and
and they had you know, they're on their wish list.
I'll bet they're part of that wish list is to
the airport closed down.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Well that was always the issue from the back in
the seventies and and the reason Dellos was built was
to relieve that airport. The problem was that the metro
train from the city would not go into the Dulles airport,
so it was always quite cumbersome to have to get
to Dulles and that was the reason that they kept
Reagan hoping.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
But didn't they solve that recently? Didn't they extend the
train where now it does go out to uh, the
bigger airport.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah, now it is. But like I said, for
years and years and then so the complacency is, oh,
we have this airport, it's operating great, and so forth
and so on till yesterday, and now I think it's
going to probably be studied quite carefully to see if
they should keep it open.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Patrick. I really appreciate you coming on with us.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I heard you on the Mark Thompson Show earlier on
YouTube and a lot of knowledge and we'd love to
have you back on if there's any more that develops here.
But I really appreciate you coming on such late notice.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure and a big fan of
your dad's.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh that's great man, that's right. I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Nice to talk to you onnetto yeah, oh that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Okay, excellent. Oh oh you went to taping. Okay, yeah,
you probably saw.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
So. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I've been around forever.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, good old days, right, good old days. Nice to
talk to you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Patrick Will expert, airline consultant and creator of the series
Airlines of the World, which would be released at a
future date, And we'll tell you all about it when
we come back. We have another airline expert, a guy
named Jay Ratliffe. He is the Fox, the iHeart and
Fox Aviation analysts, and we'll try to get some more
(09:35):
details on how this happened last night with you know,
a commuter jet loaded with passengers, a lot of them
on the on the figure skating team, the US figure
skating team, leaving Kansas for Washington, d C. They were
fifteen to twenty seconds away from landing. On a normal night,
everybody goes home, everybody gets a meal, everybody goes to bed,
(09:58):
and now you have, you know, literally minutes later, four
hundred first responders looking for bodies in the water. It
happens that quickly. It's unreal.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Jay Ratliffe is with us.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
He's iHeart and Fox Aviation analysts to talk about this
horrible plane crash American airliner filled with people sixty plus
people plus the crew and then the crew of the helicopter.
Just a disaster last night. And it took place a
little before six o'clock. And we went on the air
about six fifteen with it, and then talked about it
again at six forty five. And we thought as we
(10:38):
went off the air, it's just a small private plane.
Not that that's not a disaster, but when private planes
go down, they don't get the attention the commercial airliners get.
Then we found out it was an American airliner filled
with people on the US figure skating team, and it
turned it into a much bigger story. And Jay is
with us. Jay, Welcome to KFI. How you bobb doing well?
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I wish this was one of our fun conversations.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, I know we've had over the years.
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Those are a lot more fun than this. In fact,
it's been sixteen years since I've had to spend a
day talking about a US plane crash, and that was
the Continental or the Colgan Air crash the Continental Express
back in Buffalo in February of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's where the wings froze.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Right, yep.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
Well, well that and there was a whole bunch of
things that were some mistakes that were made by the
crew and the investigation of that particular flight, and really
the lobbying group of the families of the fifty people
that were killed, forty nine on the plane and one
on the ground, they pushed for so many changes within
the industry, better training, more flight hours, for pilots to
(11:47):
be hired, better rest rules, all kinds of things that
that crash changed the direction of aviation and made it
that much safer. And that's the hope of the National
Transportation Safety Board on every accident fatality that they investigate,
is let us learn so that in this case we
can honor the lives of those that were lost by
(12:07):
trying to make aviation safer by finding out where we
dropped the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And I think that's what we do after every one
of these accidents, and I think we do it better
than any other country.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
Well, and it's true because we were enjoying the safest
are ever of commercial jet travel, going nearly sixteen years
between major accidents. Now, we did have the Asiana situation
in San Francisco where that plane came down and there
were two fatalities, but that happened after the plane actually
came down and.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Had they run over by the fire department.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
That was it. And then you had the situation with
the Southwest passenger over Pennsylvania that died when that engine
had the decompression and she was sucked temporarily out the aircraft.
They pulled her back in. But this is the first
time we've had a disaster like this in all of
these years. And of course now the questions begin and
everybody wants immediate answers, and sadly it's it's going to
(13:00):
take the National Transportation Safety sometime to begin to collect
the evidence, examine the evidence, and then allow the evidence
to dictate the direction and flow of the investigation. And
in a few weeks we'll get probably a preliminary report,
but we're going to see a final report for eight, ten,
maybe twelve months.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You know, Jay Jay Rattliftz with this iHeart and Fox
Aviation analyst, you know what, as you were talking about
those previous accidents where people got injured, it's a real
tribute to how safe American air travel is because I
remember a lot of details about every single one of
those incidents, that's how rare they are.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
They are. In fact, we were just talking about the
anniversary of nineteen eighty two and you had the Potomac
Air crash of the Air Florida flight that crashed into
the bridge at the Potomac River, and you know, seventy
eight or seventy six people perished in that. We learned
from that that there were some serious problems with the icing,
the holdover time, and how it was applied to a
(13:55):
bunch of other things, and that made aviation that much safer.
But you know, well, the day before yesterday, we could
say two million plus people flew today with no problems,
and you could go back the day after, the day before,
the day before, and go back for all of those years,
for sixteen years, talking about how it'd been that long
since there's been any situation. It's like the odds of
(14:18):
you going outside and getting struck by lightning twice in
one day. It's just it rarely happens. But the problem
is people tend to get complacent and human nature being
what it is, and we've seen it with Boeing and
the manufacturing of aircraft. We've seen it in training with airlines,
We've seen it in training with the FAA, where we're
just not as diligent as what we've been in the past,
(14:40):
and we need to be even more so to make
sure that we can get back to making sure that
we don't have the close calls. And I've spent way
too much time last year talking about near MISSUS and Austin,
near missus Hare, all of these, you know times where
we've had airplanes that were approaching being in the same
area at the same time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, you'll remember this because you're in aviation. But back
in the summer of nineteen eighty seven, the Northwest Orient
plane that flew out of Detroit Metro that crashed on takeoff,
my uncle, Mike Bresnan was a fire captain with the
fire department at Metro and he was one of the
first guys on the scene. And he was never the
(15:19):
same after that. He shut down. And you know, he
used to be a character, always telling great stories and
wild and funded parties. He was never the same after
that accident. And I think an element that we don't
talk about enough are these first responders and how it's
going to change their lives as well. Obviously the people
have died, that's a devastating part of their life. But
(15:39):
I think the first responders' lives will be changed forever
as well.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
They do it, and not only them, but the American
Airlines Care Team. I was on the go team for Northwest.
These are individuals that go to the crash airport and
they are signed a specific family that they work with
for the next several weeks and months as far as
bringing family in, working with the funeral home, and doing
(16:04):
everything you can for that family. And I can tell you,
thank God I never had to go through that as
far as exercising, but the training we went through to
get us ready, guys, that was the toughest training I've
ever gone through my life. I Mean, it was unbelievably
emotional just the things we had to go through as
we were preparing for that horrible event. That way, we
knew what we were doing when we got there. So
(16:26):
the American Airlines Care Team, for the employees that work
with American, their lives are never going to be the same.
This is going to touch so many people in so
many excuse me, so many ways, and that Northwest Orient
to crash, it was that the one that there was
only one survivor on the little.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Girl who's still alive today. I believe yes.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
And when you when you have that kind of an
event where these first responders have to deal with that
magnitude of death in that kind of a situation, and
it's always a very public thing, you can't get away
from it for a while, and that just makes it
more difficult for everybody that's involved. And you know, yes,
(17:06):
we're trying to figure out what's going on, Yes we
want answers all of those kinds of things, but let's
not forget to take care of the mental health of
all the people that desperately needed at this point. And
I'm so glad that you brought that up, because far
too often that's something that's that's forgotten about. And I
saw them talking to the city officials in Kansas City
and they said, look, if any family member wants to
(17:27):
come to this airport, we have care teams here. They
had one person who opted to do so because for
people that are trying to go through this alone or
who just need somebody with them, that's what that's there for.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jay, Can let me we got to take a break,
Can I ask you to hold on absolutely because I
want to talk you know, obviously the airplane acts that
was horrible. The funerals are going to be horrible to watch.
But the logistics of shutting an airport down of that
size and then reopening it, and the scheduling, and I'd
like to talk to you a little bit about that,
all right, Jay Ratliffe with us, and then Tim Lynn.
(18:02):
We scheduled him for four thirty five. Hopefully he can
come back at four forty five and and and and
talk to us about the helicopter aspect of this. All right,
we're gonna have all the information that we can get
you on this horrible plane crash that happened last night
in Washington, d C.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
We continue talking about the mid air collision that killed
sixty seven people, the deadliest US this air disaster in
almost a quarter century.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It's been decades and decades.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It happened last night a little after a little before
six o'clock. We got word around six fifteen, and again
it was just reported as a private jet And those stories,
while they're tragic, they don't get the attention of commercial
jets for you know, a million reasons. And Jay ratt
Liff is with us the iHeart and Fox Aviation analyst.
(18:58):
Jay we had talked to Patrick Wild earlier. There's been
a lot of talk about this airport shutting down. Is
this going to push that closer to be happening?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Perhaps? I don't see it simply because where you going
to put the traffic that would be displaced from that?
If you're talking about the removal or it's about the
removal of the entire airport.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Itself, Yeah, that's they're talking about.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Yeah, airlines want to put more flights in there. So
it's a a lot of like when you've got an
interstate that was designed for X amount of traffic a day,
you have two hundred percent of that and you're going
to have more traffic showing up and you're trying to
figure out how the world to stay ahead of it.
And with some of these airports in cities like DC,
you've got a real estate issue. There's no place to
(19:45):
put extra runways and to do more things to increase
the capacity. And that's really what makes it difficult as
you move forward, because guys, we're talking about the future
of aviation in the next fifteen years plus, they're talking
about the numbers doubling from what we have right now.
So if we've got issues now that we can't contain
the control jay.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
What about what about this story that came out that
the FAA is three thousand air traffic controllers shy of
where they want to be?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
How is that? How did that possibly happen?
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Well, it happened when Ronald Reagan threatened the air traffic
controllers all those years ago, saying if you go on strike,
we're going to fire you. And they're like, yeah, right,
Well they did and he did, and a lot of
them were hired at one time. And then dog Gonnet.
You know, when you hire a bunch of people at
one time, they tend to retire at the same time.
Oh I somehow, somehow the FAA missed that one because
all of a sudden they started getting behind on the
(20:39):
number of their hiring.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So how does it take to train one of these
guys or gals to do this.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
It's been a while since I've been involved in They
start to finish, but you're talking about six months to
a year many times as far as depending on the
capability of getting somebody where they need to be now.
Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration hit their goal of
fifteen hundred I think by septeen number first, but something
they did a couple of years ago that just left
me scratching my head was they wanted to become more inclusive,
(21:07):
so they decided to lower the entry requirements for individuals,
making it easier for anyone to get in. The thought
was that they wanted to have more minorities, more women,
and more people involved in it, which is great as
long as they are qualified. Sadly, the practice has gotten
us to the point where we are seeing some issues,
(21:27):
but the bottom line is we're still shorthanded and the
Federal av ah Administration has got to do what they
need to do at this point in time to get
the air traffic controllers staff to where they need to now.
Last year and the year before, around the fall travel
season November December, the air traffic control staffing was at
a point where the FAA went to airlines in the
(21:49):
Northeast saying, guys, you're going to cut your traffic by
ten percent is if you don't, we're going to have
ninety minute delays now to the airline's credit. They worked
with the FAA and reduced the number of flights for
that period of time last year and the year before
so that they could help the FAA as they're trying
to do a better job of keeping the air traffic
(22:09):
control situation under wrapped. So there's a lot of back
and forth cooperative effort, which is good, but we've got
to get more people hired, we've got to get more
people trained. And that's one of the things the NTS
we's going to look at, is this air traffic control
tower short staff. Do you have people working over time,
do you have the possibility of fatigue that might be
setting in. There's just so many things that they look
(22:30):
at as they tried to determine, you know, was everybody
at the top of their game when this situation happened.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Jay RATTLVI is with US Aviation iHeart and Fox Aviation
Analysts heard. I heard you on this station talk about
how strange it was to ask the helicopter pilot if
he saw the plane which would delay any kind of
reaction or action that he should have taken. How should
(22:56):
that have been related to him? Shouldn't it have been
in direct order?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Well?
Speaker 6 (23:00):
It depends on how close they are. And again, the
air traffic controllers may not have had a firm fix
on the location of the helicopter versus where the airplane
was at. So because when you listen to the feedback
or the playback, there doesn't seem to be a great
deal of urgency in the air traffic controller's voice when
they're asking the question of do you have a visual
(23:20):
of the CRG on approach? And then when the thing
came back where they said yes and they were going
to try to get the helicopter to descend and go underneath.
Obviously none of that had time to happen because the
collision took place almost immediately thereafter, which led to the question,
was the crew of the helicopter looking at a different
(23:42):
aircraft than what they should have been And look, there's
a lot of things that are going on out there.
And even though this was a training flight that these
weren't newbies in the helicopter. These were experienced individuals that
have flown and this was their annual recurrent training that
they were going through. So you had experienced people here.
And when you have two pilots a third person on
(24:05):
the cockpit of that aircraft that is designed for sight.
You have windows on the side, the top, the bottom.
I mean it's a panoramic view. You see a lot
and with him being on that visual flight rules that
when they're flying, part of that responsibility is making sure
that separation and tragically that did not happen.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, Jay, about thirty seconds here.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But when that airport opens up again, and obviously there
has to be the first flight out this morning, the
pilots are probably nervous to the people on that plane
know they're the first, uh you know, first plane to leave.
And is there some kind of superstition where they'll say
something to the first uh you know plane leaving, godspeed
(24:46):
or God bless yours.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Something Is there?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Is there anything that that is a tradition when an
airport finally opens up after a disaster like this.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
No, I mean, we have will have moments where we
remember those that we lost, but we're not going to
make it event of it where it might cause other
passengers to become good more uncomfortable. It's gonna be business
as usual like any other time you flow.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thanks all, Jay, I really appreciate coming on. You know, sorry,
it is such a you know horrible circumstance. We'd love
to have you back as the details come out, though I.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Make myself available anytime a friend.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Thank you, sir, Jay Ratliffe.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Iheartfox Aviation Analysts really appreciate coming on. Welcome back and
talk to Tim Lynn, who has flown thousands of hours
in a helicopter and so he might be able to
shed some light on how this possibly happened. These poor kids,
you know, who are on this ice skating team, the
US ice skating team, their entire lives in front of them,
(25:40):
all the work that they did, all the other passengers
as well. It's just a huge disaster that should have happened.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
You're listening to Tim Conwayjunior on Demyan from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
We're still talking about this horrible plane crash last night,
Flight fifty three forty two coming arriving from Kansas into Washington,
d C.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Reagan Airport. There it's hit by a helicopter.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It goes down and sixty seven people are no longer
with us. A lot of the of the passengers had
some kind of connection to the US figure skating team,
and that's gonna be a big story as that comes
out and we see the funerals of these young people
who have their whole lives in front of them.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It just shouldn't happen. Shouldn't happen?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Tim Lynn has flown thousands and thousands of hours in
a helicopter. Maybe you can shed some light on how
this possibly happened. And he's with us, Tim, How you Bob?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I'm doing well, sir, doing well? How are you? What
you know?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
In almost every helicopter I've been in, I haven't been
in many, maybe three or four in my life, it
is nothing but windows. How possibly could this aircraft not
have been seen by these professionals in this helicopter?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, I've been going over there service since that happened
and listening to the different accounts and things of that
sort and what I've kind of come from. And I
look for the actual routing or what they call the
letter agreement for the route the helicopter was on, with
the altitude, with the restrictions are I couldn't find it.
So more likely it's say an agreement between the military
(27:15):
and the tower. But I can tell you from personal
experience that the closer a larger jet is to you,
And is that your same altitude. It's hard to see
at night because the running lights on that jet spread
out because it's so close that it blends into the
background lights behind it. And you can easily lose a
(27:37):
jet close in like that if you don't see it
early or easy to see when they're far away, because
the lights are all concentrated. As they get close, you
have to realize those hat lights are going to be
seventy feet apart and sometimes one hundred feet apart, and
it's hard to see. My thing is what I've been
listening to everybody talking about, is that they're flying down
the river. The three military folks on board, more likely
(28:01):
two pilots and a crew chief in the back, and
I've heard they're on night vision goggles. They was on
that type of flight. Night vision goggles take away a
lot of your peripheral vision. You only have a forty
degree area of the view, so and also it takes
away the color, so you're looking at a black and
white picture. On the other hand, the night vision goggles
(28:24):
will allow you to actually see the aircraft's body versus
a being unlit at night. You can't see with the
naked eye, So another possibility that happened is they were
transitioning down the river. The aircraft controller called out the
aircraft to them and had asked them if they had
it in sight. Now everybody's saying that the helicopter did
(28:44):
not respond. You have to remember that helicopters sometimes operate
on different frequencies than the fixed wing aircraft, and with
military aircraft they operate on a completely different band a
UHF frequency the military side, so the the air traffic
control recordings may not pick up that frequency on that track.
(29:09):
In other words, that there's probably track that will come
out later. So the thing is there's multiple things going
to happen. One, they were distracted by their training, their
MVGS was limiting their view. The aircraft was the wrong aircraft.
They were looking at one further away thinking that was
the one the tower was talking about. And a thing
phenomena of the phenomena that happens an aircraft that it's
(29:30):
going to hit you. If you're looking at an aircraft
and the one that's going to hit you, there is
no relative motion with that aircraft as you're if you're
starting to converge on each other, that aircraft will stay
in the exact same spot. And not move your eyes
pick up movement, and if there's no movement, sometimes you
won't see that. And then you have doorframes, you have
(29:52):
window frames, and if that movement is behigh or if
that picture side pictures behind that doorframe, it'll stay behind
that doorframe.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
A big blind.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Habit of right. But then you get into the habit
of leaning forward, looking around it, looking leaning back, looking
behind it. There's some helicopters that really have a blind
spots on it and you have to really work at
looking around it. And like I said, the thing I'm
I'm going at is there's a few different theories that
I've seen distraction of the training with the MDGs not
(30:22):
maintaining the proper utity to stay out of the approach
path of the aircraft going into the airport, and then
uh in attention is put not scanning very well looking
for traffic and if you're not sure to helicopter, you
can stop. So there's a lot of that's going to
come out. And so just to give you an idea
how these transitions on airports go, let's talk about lax
(30:45):
when you want to drive, when you want to fly
down the shoreline, the shoreline transition for a helicopter is
no higher than one hundred and fifty feet. You have
to fly at one hundred and fifty feet over you know,
will stay beach and you cannot go over one hundred
and fifty feet. If you go over one hundred and
fifty feet, they will violate you because the aircraft coming
off the departure into LAX are only going to be
(31:08):
about seven hundred feet above you. In fact, if they
send out a large aircraft, they'll hold you because of
the wake turbulence.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Go you're so close, right, So they refer to those
a lot is they'll on the tail end of that
announcing that plane's number.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
They'll they'll repeat heavy. Is that true?
Speaker 4 (31:27):
That's true. Yeah, they'll stay heavy after the start. I
can't remember exact numbers on the weight, but once it's heavy,
they let you know. And also different aircraft type will
will put out more weight turbulence to than others. So
what happens is in a situation like LAX, you have
to hold because you can't stay far enough away from them.
(31:47):
Even on what we call the Harbor Freeway transition that
you go from north to south, you have to say
addor below nine hundred feet, So you can go lower
than nine hundred feet, but you cannot go above nine
hundred because the aircraft are still about seven hundred feet
above you.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
That's a lot to know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's a lot to know, because it's not that's just
one airport and there's a dozen airports in southern California
that have their own rules and regulations. It's impossible to
get around it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Well, not really, because that's where training comes in and
air in premierization, and that when they go back to
talking about this night flight was a pamiliarization flight. You
keep practicing, you keep training, you keep learning, and I
can tell you on the military side, those guys do
not fly without a complete pre flight briefing, a mission briefing,
(32:39):
all kinds of things that they go through. Matter of fact,
we had a formation flight with the Orange County Sheriffs.
We were doing a formation flight and the officer in
charge of the flight was a former captain in the army.
He blew Blackhawks. After he had his briefing and we
got the briefing notes, I looked at him, I said,
we can either go find ben Laden or fly a
photo flight. Here, man, this is it was such a
(33:01):
a accurate and more in depth briefing that ever had
on a formation flop bat All.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Right, Tim, I appreciate you coming on. We got to
take a break here. I appreciate the information, and thank
you for chiming. I know you're on vacation, so I
appreciate you taking time to hang with us. All right,
Conray Show, We're live on KFI AM six forty Conway
Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Now you can
always hear us live on KFI AM six forty four
(33:31):
to seven pm Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
It's KFI Am sixty and you're listening to the Conway
Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app Conway Show. A
little after six o'clock last night, we saw something on
TV that we thought was a private plane crashing in Washington, DC.
And when a private plane goes down, and you know,
(00:20):
it gets your attention, but it doesn't get your attention like.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A commercial jet.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
When a commercial jet goes down, we all feel like
we could relate to that a little more.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You know, we all feel like that.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We've almost gone down in turbulence or we've had some
scares in the air, and you just have to think
of what it was like for these poor people on
this American Airline jet. The guys in the helicopter to
plummet into the Potomac River and they were so close.
They're fifteen seconds away from landing last night at Ronald
(00:51):
Reagan Airport, and it was it's a catastrophe. There's a
lot of young people on there, a lot of you know,
very good skaters in the United States State's figure skating team,
and it's just a real it's going to be a
real heart wrencher when you see those funerals when you,
you know, in four or five days from now, and
(01:11):
you see these funerals of the skaters that show up
and all the people that celebrate that sport show up
to say goodbye, that's going to be really heart wrenching,
really a heartbreak. My daughter texted me when she left
her work today and she asked me to send her
any list of the victims because she's got friends and
friends who oh no, people that might have been on
the plane, and did you know any of them?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
She doesn't know yet. They haven't really all the names,
but the ones they have she hasn't known.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Patrick Wilders with a season airline consultant, creator of the
series Airlines of the World, and the release date is
to be determined. But Patrick, welcome to Kafi. How are
you sir?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello? Tim? How are you wish this was a better day?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah? Man, oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I think you know you look at something like this
way differently than we do when you know the lay
person like myself. I just keep saying to myself, how
the hell can this happen nowadays? How is a helicopter
flying so close to a busy airport and not looking around?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Oh yeah, no, I was astonished by what I saw.
I mean, it was quite clear that you know. My
guess is that the helicopter took the tail off the
jet and that that's how it plummeted so quickly. Something
like this happened back last year air show in Dallas,
where it was a B seventeen. They had his tail
(02:30):
cut off and it just plummeted within three or four
seconds it hit the ground. There was no chance And
the same similar thing I saw when I saw that
video really came to mind.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You know, a couple of airports come to mind when
something like this happens, because that's a smaller airport. It's
like Burbank, and I get I'm flying and out of
Burbank because of the convenience, but man, do I pay
for it with the rattled nerves on landing?
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, that in Orange count And there's a handful of
other ones all cross of the world.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
New York.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Laguadi is one of them, even Santos Dumont and Rio
dejan Era, which I was down there investigating some stuff
to do for our show. But yeah, it was it's
a little postage stamp and it's very tight quarters there,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There's another airport that comes to mind. Tijuana's airport is
set up in a strange way where a lot of
the planes, if the wind's right, the planes have to
come in over San Diego, so they're breaking, you know,
the the border there and then fly back towards Mexico.
And there's a lot of air traffic there with the
with the helicopters and the Navy and the air Force.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, Imperial Beach Naval air Station is directly underneath the
approach path to Tijuana Airport, and I was to stay
on their last week, and I was looking at the
airplanes coming in over San Diego and the helicopters were
not much further below the incoming aircraft. That got my
attention pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Now I'm not familiar with this airport, I know you are.
Is its equivalent to Burbank about the same size, a
little bigger, little smaller.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
It's it's I would say, it's right in the same
range of it. There's a there's intersecting runways, which is
where this airplane was unapproached to. So there is That's
why you saw in the video. You saw one airplane departing,
which it almost looked like it was in the same space,
but it really wasn't. But yeah, the runways are close,
closely stitched together if you will, at that particular field
(04:31):
and the military base that they are a helicopter base
that the helicopter was over came from that area, was
directly across the river from from the from the Reagan Airport.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Now, now what I also heard that.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, there's a lot of restricted airspace in Washington,
d C. Maybe the most restricted in the country, if
not the world. And so those planes coming into Ronald
Reagan International Airport, Uh, they've got to follow the river
almost like it was a old steamship before they get
to that airport because of the restrictions.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, they really have to stay right over the middle
of the river. At the last minute they'll turn sharply
to make the landing. And that happens like in Burbank,
for instance, that's a very similar situation. So, yeah, they
they were there. The airliner was right where it was
supposed to be. There was no doubt in my mind
(05:24):
that they were straying off their course of any any bit.
I think they were right where they're supposed to be.
The thing is the military helicopter was not where it's
supposed to be and it should never been anywhere near
the arrival portion of the runway there. It just it
boggles my mind to think how that could have happened.
And the air traffic controller gave a warning to that
(05:47):
military helicopter and the helicopter never responded to the warnings.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Do you think they were on a different frequency or what.
Do you think the lack of response was due to, Well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
They were talking to him initially, because they wouldn't have
known that call sign or called to that helicopter. It
was passed T two five and there was no Like
I said, there was no response after the air traffic
guidance that there was an aircraft coming in. So I
mean that probably the controllers should have sent the CRJ
(06:21):
around at that point because there was there was definitely
no response from the helicopter.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know, that airport has always been talked about like
Santa Monic Airport. The people live around that airport hated
and they want it closed. But the politicians and the
big businessmen and the blobbyists they are strong enough to
keep that airport open.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Apparently, So yeah, I mean, you know, it's Washington everything
in the world happened there.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, So when when a plane flies into that airport
do they do They have to go around the entire
city of Washington, DC and then approach it from the south.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah, that's well not exactly, no, they it depends on
which way the ends up coming from. But the approach
is a lot more hectic if you come from the north,
so you can't fly over the White House. You literally
have to stay directly over the river all the way
to the runway, and then on the on the right
side of it. If you're coming from the north, you
have the Pentagon right there. So I mean it's it's
(07:19):
really like a a whack a mole kind of thing there,
you know. For that that arrival, the one from the
south is a lot easier because it's the river's very
wide there and there's not so many sensitive installations along
that that part of the approach path.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I imagine if the Secret Service had their drawthers and
and they had you know, they're on their wish list.
I'll bet they're part of that wish list is to
the airport closed down.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Well that was always the issue from the back in
the seventies and and the reason Dellos was built was
to relieve that airport. The problem was that the metro
train from the city would not go into the Dulles airport,
so it was always quite cumbersome to have to get
to Dulles and that was the reason that they kept
Reagan hoping.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
But didn't they solve that recently? Didn't they extend the
train where now it does go out to uh, the
bigger airport.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah, now it is. But like I said, for
years and years and then so the complacency is, oh,
we have this airport, it's operating great, and so forth
and so on till yesterday, and now I think it's
going to probably be studied quite carefully to see if
they should keep it open.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Patrick. I really appreciate you coming on with us.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I heard you on the Mark Thompson Show earlier on
YouTube and a lot of knowledge and we'd love to
have you back on if there's any more that develops here.
But I really appreciate you coming on such late notice.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Oh yeah, it's my pleasure and a big fan of
your dad's.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh that's great man, that's right. I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Nice to talk to you onnetto yeah, oh that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Okay, excellent. Oh oh you went to taping. Okay, yeah,
you probably saw.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
So. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I've been around forever.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, good old days, right, good old days. Nice to
talk to you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Patrick Will expert, airline consultant and creator of the series
Airlines of the World, which would be released at a
future date, And we'll tell you all about it when
we come back. We have another airline expert, a guy
named Jay Ratliffe. He is the Fox, the iHeart and
Fox Aviation analysts, and we'll try to get some more
(09:35):
details on how this happened last night with you know,
a commuter jet loaded with passengers, a lot of them
on the on the figure skating team, the US figure
skating team, leaving Kansas for Washington, d C. They were
fifteen to twenty seconds away from landing. On a normal night,
everybody goes home, everybody gets a meal, everybody goes to bed,
(09:58):
and now you have, you know, literally minutes later, four
hundred first responders looking for bodies in the water. It
happens that quickly. It's unreal.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Jay Ratliffe is with us.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
He's iHeart and Fox Aviation analysts to talk about this
horrible plane crash American airliner filled with people sixty plus
people plus the crew and then the crew of the helicopter.
Just a disaster last night. And it took place a
little before six o'clock. And we went on the air
about six fifteen with it, and then talked about it
again at six forty five. And we thought as we
(10:38):
went off the air, it's just a small private plane.
Not that that's not a disaster, but when private planes
go down, they don't get the attention the commercial airliners get.
Then we found out it was an American airliner filled
with people on the US figure skating team, and it
turned it into a much bigger story. And Jay is
with us. Jay, Welcome to KFI. How you bobb doing well?
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I wish this was one of our fun conversations.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, I know we've had over the years.
Speaker 6 (11:05):
Those are a lot more fun than this. In fact,
it's been sixteen years since I've had to spend a
day talking about a US plane crash, and that was
the Continental or the Colgan Air crash the Continental Express
back in Buffalo in February of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
That's where the wings froze.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Right, yep.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
Well, well that and there was a whole bunch of
things that were some mistakes that were made by the
crew and the investigation of that particular flight, and really
the lobbying group of the families of the fifty people
that were killed, forty nine on the plane and one
on the ground, they pushed for so many changes within
the industry, better training, more flight hours, for pilots to
(11:47):
be hired, better rest rules, all kinds of things that
that crash changed the direction of aviation and made it
that much safer. And that's the hope of the National
Transportation Safety Board on every accident fatality that they investigate,
is let us learn so that in this case we
can honor the lives of those that were lost by
(12:07):
trying to make aviation safer by finding out where we
dropped the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And I think that's what we do after every one
of these accidents, and I think we do it better
than any other country.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
Well, and it's true because we were enjoying the safest
are ever of commercial jet travel, going nearly sixteen years
between major accidents. Now, we did have the Asiana situation
in San Francisco where that plane came down and there
were two fatalities, but that happened after the plane actually
came down and.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Had they run over by the fire department.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
That was it. And then you had the situation with
the Southwest passenger over Pennsylvania that died when that engine
had the decompression and she was sucked temporarily out the aircraft.
They pulled her back in. But this is the first
time we've had a disaster like this in all of
these years. And of course now the questions begin and
everybody wants immediate answers, and sadly it's it's going to
(13:00):
take the National Transportation Safety sometime to begin to collect
the evidence, examine the evidence, and then allow the evidence
to dictate the direction and flow of the investigation. And
in a few weeks we'll get probably a preliminary report,
but we're going to see a final report for eight, ten,
maybe twelve months.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
You know, Jay Jay Rattliftz with this iHeart and Fox
Aviation analyst, you know what, as you were talking about
those previous accidents where people got injured, it's a real
tribute to how safe American air travel is because I
remember a lot of details about every single one of
those incidents, that's how rare they are.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
They are. In fact, we were just talking about the
anniversary of nineteen eighty two and you had the Potomac
Air crash of the Air Florida flight that crashed into
the bridge at the Potomac River, and you know, seventy
eight or seventy six people perished in that. We learned
from that that there were some serious problems with the icing,
the holdover time, and how it was applied to a
(13:55):
bunch of other things, and that made aviation that much safer.
But you know, well, the day before yesterday, we could
say two million plus people flew today with no problems,
and you could go back the day after, the day before,
the day before, and go back for all of those years,
for sixteen years, talking about how it'd been that long
since there's been any situation. It's like the odds of
(14:18):
you going outside and getting struck by lightning twice in
one day. It's just it rarely happens. But the problem
is people tend to get complacent and human nature being
what it is, and we've seen it with Boeing and
the manufacturing of aircraft. We've seen it in training with airlines,
We've seen it in training with the FAA, where we're
just not as diligent as what we've been in the past,
(14:40):
and we need to be even more so to make
sure that we can get back to making sure that
we don't have the close calls. And I've spent way
too much time last year talking about near MISSUS and Austin,
near missus Hare, all of these, you know times where
we've had airplanes that were approaching being in the same
area at the same time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, you'll remember this because you're in aviation. But back
in the summer of nineteen eighty seven, the Northwest Orient
plane that flew out of Detroit Metro that crashed on takeoff,
my uncle, Mike Bresnan was a fire captain with the
fire department at Metro and he was one of the
first guys on the scene. And he was never the
(15:19):
same after that. He shut down. And you know, he
used to be a character, always telling great stories and
wild and funded parties. He was never the same after
that accident. And I think an element that we don't
talk about enough are these first responders and how it's
going to change their lives as well. Obviously the people
have died, that's a devastating part of their life. But
(15:39):
I think the first responders' lives will be changed forever
as well.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
They do it, and not only them, but the American
Airlines Care Team. I was on the go team for Northwest.
These are individuals that go to the crash airport and
they are signed a specific family that they work with
for the next several weeks and months as far as
bringing family in, working with the funeral home, and doing
(16:04):
everything you can for that family. And I can tell you,
thank God I never had to go through that as
far as exercising, but the training we went through to
get us ready, guys, that was the toughest training I've
ever gone through my life. I Mean, it was unbelievably
emotional just the things we had to go through as
we were preparing for that horrible event. That way, we
knew what we were doing when we got there. So
(16:26):
the American Airlines Care Team, for the employees that work
with American, their lives are never going to be the same.
This is going to touch so many people in so
many excuse me, so many ways, and that Northwest Orient
to crash, it was that the one that there was
only one survivor on the little.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Girl who's still alive today. I believe yes.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
And when you when you have that kind of an
event where these first responders have to deal with that
magnitude of death in that kind of a situation, and
it's always a very public thing, you can't get away
from it for a while, and that just makes it
more difficult for everybody that's involved. And you know, yes,
(17:06):
we're trying to figure out what's going on, Yes we
want answers all of those kinds of things, but let's
not forget to take care of the mental health of
all the people that desperately needed at this point. And
I'm so glad that you brought that up, because far
too often that's something that's that's forgotten about. And I
saw them talking to the city officials in Kansas City
and they said, look, if any family member wants to
(17:27):
come to this airport, we have care teams here. They
had one person who opted to do so because for
people that are trying to go through this alone or
who just need somebody with them, that's what that's there for.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jay, Can let me we got to take a break,
Can I ask you to hold on absolutely because I
want to talk you know, obviously the airplane acts that
was horrible. The funerals are going to be horrible to watch.
But the logistics of shutting an airport down of that
size and then reopening it, and the scheduling, and I'd
like to talk to you a little bit about that,
all right, Jay Ratliffe with us, and then Tim Lynn.
(18:02):
We scheduled him for four thirty five. Hopefully he can
come back at four forty five and and and and
talk to us about the helicopter aspect of this. All right,
we're gonna have all the information that we can get
you on this horrible plane crash that happened last night
in Washington, d C.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from KFI
Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
We continue talking about the mid air collision that killed
sixty seven people, the deadliest US this air disaster in
almost a quarter century.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It's been decades and decades.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It happened last night a little after a little before
six o'clock. We got word around six fifteen, and again
it was just reported as a private jet And those stories,
while they're tragic, they don't get the attention of commercial
jets for you know, a million reasons. And Jay ratt
Liff is with us the iHeart and Fox Aviation analyst.
(18:58):
Jay we had talked to Patrick Wild earlier. There's been
a lot of talk about this airport shutting down. Is
this going to push that closer to be happening?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Perhaps? I don't see it simply because where you going
to put the traffic that would be displaced from that?
If you're talking about the removal or it's about the
removal of the entire airport.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Itself, Yeah, that's they're talking about.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Yeah, airlines want to put more flights in there. So
it's a a lot of like when you've got an
interstate that was designed for X amount of traffic a day,
you have two hundred percent of that and you're going
to have more traffic showing up and you're trying to
figure out how the world to stay ahead of it.
And with some of these airports in cities like DC,
you've got a real estate issue. There's no place to
(19:45):
put extra runways and to do more things to increase
the capacity. And that's really what makes it difficult as
you move forward, because guys, we're talking about the future
of aviation in the next fifteen years plus, they're talking
about the numbers doubling from what we have right now.
So if we've got issues now that we can't contain
the control jay.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
What about what about this story that came out that
the FAA is three thousand air traffic controllers shy of
where they want to be?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
How is that? How did that possibly happen?
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Well, it happened when Ronald Reagan threatened the air traffic
controllers all those years ago, saying if you go on strike,
we're going to fire you. And they're like, yeah, right,
Well they did and he did, and a lot of
them were hired at one time. And then dog Gonnet.
You know, when you hire a bunch of people at
one time, they tend to retire at the same time.
Oh I somehow, somehow the FAA missed that one because
all of a sudden they started getting behind on the
(20:39):
number of their hiring.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So how does it take to train one of these
guys or gals to do this.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
It's been a while since I've been involved in They
start to finish, but you're talking about six months to
a year many times as far as depending on the
capability of getting somebody where they need to be now.
Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration hit their goal of
fifteen hundred I think by septeen number first, but something
they did a couple of years ago that just left
me scratching my head was they wanted to become more inclusive,
(21:07):
so they decided to lower the entry requirements for individuals,
making it easier for anyone to get in. The thought
was that they wanted to have more minorities, more women,
and more people involved in it, which is great as
long as they are qualified. Sadly, the practice has gotten
us to the point where we are seeing some issues,
(21:27):
but the bottom line is we're still shorthanded and the
Federal av ah Administration has got to do what they
need to do at this point in time to get
the air traffic controllers staff to where they need to now.
Last year and the year before, around the fall travel
season November December, the air traffic control staffing was at
a point where the FAA went to airlines in the
(21:49):
Northeast saying, guys, you're going to cut your traffic by
ten percent is if you don't, we're going to have
ninety minute delays now to the airline's credit. They worked
with the FAA and reduced the number of flights for
that period of time last year and the year before
so that they could help the FAA as they're trying
to do a better job of keeping the air traffic
(22:09):
control situation under wrapped. So there's a lot of back
and forth cooperative effort, which is good, but we've got
to get more people hired, we've got to get more
people trained. And that's one of the things the NTS
we's going to look at, is this air traffic control
tower short staff. Do you have people working over time,
do you have the possibility of fatigue that might be
setting in. There's just so many things that they look
(22:30):
at as they tried to determine, you know, was everybody
at the top of their game when this situation happened.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Jay RATTLVI is with US Aviation iHeart and Fox Aviation
Analysts heard. I heard you on this station talk about
how strange it was to ask the helicopter pilot if
he saw the plane which would delay any kind of
reaction or action that he should have taken. How should
(22:56):
that have been related to him? Shouldn't it have been
in direct order?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Well?
Speaker 6 (23:00):
It depends on how close they are. And again, the
air traffic controllers may not have had a firm fix
on the location of the helicopter versus where the airplane
was at. So because when you listen to the feedback
or the playback, there doesn't seem to be a great
deal of urgency in the air traffic controller's voice when
they're asking the question of do you have a visual
(23:20):
of the CRG on approach? And then when the thing
came back where they said yes and they were going
to try to get the helicopter to descend and go underneath.
Obviously none of that had time to happen because the
collision took place almost immediately thereafter, which led to the question,
was the crew of the helicopter looking at a different
(23:42):
aircraft than what they should have been And look, there's
a lot of things that are going on out there.
And even though this was a training flight that these
weren't newbies in the helicopter. These were experienced individuals that
have flown and this was their annual recurrent training that
they were going through. So you had experienced people here.
And when you have two pilots a third person on
(24:05):
the cockpit of that aircraft that is designed for sight.
You have windows on the side, the top, the bottom.
I mean it's a panoramic view. You see a lot
and with him being on that visual flight rules that
when they're flying, part of that responsibility is making sure
that separation and tragically that did not happen.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, Jay, about thirty seconds here.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But when that airport opens up again, and obviously there
has to be the first flight out this morning, the
pilots are probably nervous to the people on that plane
know they're the first, uh you know, first plane to leave.
And is there some kind of superstition where they'll say
something to the first uh you know plane leaving, godspeed
(24:46):
or God bless yours.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Something Is there?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Is there anything that that is a tradition when an
airport finally opens up after a disaster like this.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
No, I mean, we have will have moments where we
remember those that we lost, but we're not going to
make it event of it where it might cause other
passengers to become good more uncomfortable. It's gonna be business
as usual like any other time you flow.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thanks all, Jay, I really appreciate coming on. You know, sorry,
it is such a you know horrible circumstance. We'd love
to have you back as the details come out, though I.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Make myself available anytime a friend.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Thank you, sir, Jay Ratliffe.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Iheartfox Aviation Analysts really appreciate coming on. Welcome back and
talk to Tim Lynn, who has flown thousands of hours
in a helicopter and so he might be able to
shed some light on how this possibly happened. These poor kids,
you know, who are on this ice skating team, the
US ice skating team, their entire lives in front of them,
(25:40):
all the work that they did, all the other passengers
as well. It's just a huge disaster that should have happened.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
You're listening to Tim Conwayjunior on Demyan from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
We're still talking about this horrible plane crash last night,
Flight fifty three forty two coming arriving from Kansas into Washington,
d C.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Reagan Airport. There it's hit by a helicopter.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It goes down and sixty seven people are no longer
with us. A lot of the of the passengers had
some kind of connection to the US figure skating team,
and that's gonna be a big story as that comes
out and we see the funerals of these young people
who have their whole lives in front of them.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It just shouldn't happen. Shouldn't happen?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Tim Lynn has flown thousands and thousands of hours in
a helicopter. Maybe you can shed some light on how
this possibly happened. And he's with us, Tim, How you Bob?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
I'm doing well, sir, doing well? How are you? What
you know?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
In almost every helicopter I've been in, I haven't been
in many, maybe three or four in my life, it
is nothing but windows. How possibly could this aircraft not
have been seen by these professionals in this helicopter?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, I've been going over there service since that happened
and listening to the different accounts and things of that
sort and what I've kind of come from. And I
look for the actual routing or what they call the
letter agreement for the route the helicopter was on, with
the altitude, with the restrictions are I couldn't find it.
So more likely it's say an agreement between the military
(27:15):
and the tower. But I can tell you from personal
experience that the closer a larger jet is to you,
And is that your same altitude. It's hard to see
at night because the running lights on that jet spread
out because it's so close that it blends into the
background lights behind it. And you can easily lose a
(27:37):
jet close in like that if you don't see it
early or easy to see when they're far away, because
the lights are all concentrated. As they get close, you
have to realize those hat lights are going to be
seventy feet apart and sometimes one hundred feet apart, and
it's hard to see. My thing is what I've been
listening to everybody talking about, is that they're flying down
the river. The three military folks on board, more likely
(28:01):
two pilots and a crew chief in the back, and
I've heard they're on night vision goggles. They was on
that type of flight. Night vision goggles take away a
lot of your peripheral vision. You only have a forty
degree area of the view, so and also it takes
away the color, so you're looking at a black and
white picture. On the other hand, the night vision goggles
(28:24):
will allow you to actually see the aircraft's body versus
a being unlit at night. You can't see with the
naked eye, So another possibility that happened is they were
transitioning down the river. The aircraft controller called out the
aircraft to them and had asked them if they had
it in sight. Now everybody's saying that the helicopter did
(28:44):
not respond. You have to remember that helicopters sometimes operate
on different frequencies than the fixed wing aircraft, and with
military aircraft they operate on a completely different band a
UHF frequency the military side, so the the air traffic
control recordings may not pick up that frequency on that track.
(29:09):
In other words, that there's probably track that will come
out later. So the thing is there's multiple things going
to happen. One, they were distracted by their training, their
MVGS was limiting their view. The aircraft was the wrong aircraft.
They were looking at one further away thinking that was
the one the tower was talking about. And a thing
phenomena of the phenomena that happens an aircraft that it's
(29:30):
going to hit you. If you're looking at an aircraft
and the one that's going to hit you, there is
no relative motion with that aircraft as you're if you're
starting to converge on each other, that aircraft will stay
in the exact same spot. And not move your eyes
pick up movement, and if there's no movement, sometimes you
won't see that. And then you have doorframes, you have
(29:52):
window frames, and if that movement is behigh or if
that picture side pictures behind that doorframe, it'll stay behind
that doorframe.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
A big blind.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Habit of right. But then you get into the habit
of leaning forward, looking around it, looking leaning back, looking
behind it. There's some helicopters that really have a blind
spots on it and you have to really work at
looking around it. And like I said, the thing I'm
I'm going at is there's a few different theories that
I've seen distraction of the training with the MDGs not
(30:22):
maintaining the proper utity to stay out of the approach
path of the aircraft going into the airport, and then
uh in attention is put not scanning very well looking
for traffic and if you're not sure to helicopter, you
can stop. So there's a lot of that's going to
come out. And so just to give you an idea
how these transitions on airports go, let's talk about lax
(30:45):
when you want to drive, when you want to fly
down the shoreline, the shoreline transition for a helicopter is
no higher than one hundred and fifty feet. You have
to fly at one hundred and fifty feet over you know,
will stay beach and you cannot go over one hundred
and fifty feet. If you go over one hundred and
fifty feet, they will violate you because the aircraft coming
off the departure into LAX are only going to be
(31:08):
about seven hundred feet above you. In fact, if they
send out a large aircraft, they'll hold you because of
the wake turbulence.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Go you're so close, right, So they refer to those
a lot is they'll on the tail end of that
announcing that plane's number.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
They'll they'll repeat heavy. Is that true?
Speaker 4 (31:27):
That's true. Yeah, they'll stay heavy after the start. I
can't remember exact numbers on the weight, but once it's heavy,
they let you know. And also different aircraft type will
will put out more weight turbulence to than others. So
what happens is in a situation like LAX, you have
to hold because you can't stay far enough away from them.
(31:47):
Even on what we call the Harbor Freeway transition that
you go from north to south, you have to say
addor below nine hundred feet, So you can go lower
than nine hundred feet, but you cannot go above nine
hundred because the aircraft are still about seven hundred feet
above you.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
That's a lot to know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's a lot to know, because it's not that's just
one airport and there's a dozen airports in southern California
that have their own rules and regulations. It's impossible to
get around it.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Well, not really, because that's where training comes in and
air in premierization, and that when they go back to
talking about this night flight was a pamiliarization flight. You
keep practicing, you keep training, you keep learning, and I
can tell you on the military side, those guys do
not fly without a complete pre flight briefing, a mission briefing,
(32:39):
all kinds of things that they go through. Matter of fact,
we had a formation flight with the Orange County Sheriffs.
We were doing a formation flight and the officer in
charge of the flight was a former captain in the army.
He blew Blackhawks. After he had his briefing and we
got the briefing notes, I looked at him, I said,
we can either go find ben Laden or fly a
photo flight. Here, man, this is it was such a
(33:01):
a accurate and more in depth briefing that ever had
on a formation flop bat All.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Right, Tim, I appreciate you coming on. We got to
take a break here. I appreciate the information, and thank
you for chiming. I know you're on vacation, so I
appreciate you taking time to hang with us. All right,
Conray Show, We're live on KFI AM six forty Conway
Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Now you can
always hear us live on KFI AM six forty four
(33:31):
to seven pm Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Tim Conway Jr. on Demand News
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