April 29, 2025 • 10 mins
Aviation Expert Jay Ratliff looks at the latest on the Blackhawk/DC plane crash investigation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, and a legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
(00:02):
He is our aviation expert, Jay Ratliffe and you can
find him at Jay ratlift dot com. A lot of
ground to cover, Jay, good morning. Let's start with the
Blackhawk DC plane crash investigation. And remember this one back
in January, and we now have a better picture of
what happened, and it's it's not pretty.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Actually, it comes down to communication. And apparently the air
traffic control had made a transmission to the Blackhawk about
slight change in their heading, and it was one that
was acknowledged, but there was no change in their heading
(00:42):
at the time. In fact, the trainer that was on
board the flight, the flight instructor was even had asked
the pilot and command the woman if she heard that
or repeated it, and apparently she did, but there was
no change in the heading of the air and it
was moments later when the aircraft collided with the regional jet.
(01:05):
Now the thought is, had they made that adjustment, it
would have bought them a few seconds. Would that been
enough for them to have seen the regional jet and
take evasive action. I don't know, but I think all
of us would would like to have had those few
seconds just in case, because as the investigation continues, it
was clear the only crew that saw the other was
(01:27):
the American Airlines regional jet. They tried to make a
climb at the last second to get out of the way,
and obviously they could not in time, and apparently wasn't
until the moment of impact that we had this. So
when you have this communication issue, one of the things
that you'll probably find in this investigation is there's a
(01:49):
series of contributing causes that tends to be the case,
and I'm certain that communication is going to be one
of them. But one thing that I took great exception
with when and Trump and others were immediately blaming air
traffic controllers, the FAA, DEI and all this other stuff,
was well, time out here, we don't know that. And
(02:10):
as we've gone deeper into this investigation, the one thing
that I think seems clear is what a great job
air traffic control was doing constantly trying to make the
helicopter aware of the location of that regional jet. Do
you see it? Do you see it? There was constant
communication that was ongoing, and I thought they did an
(02:30):
exemporary job of doing everything that they could to make
sure that everybody knew what was going on. But whatever
that flight crew was looking at, it was not the
regional jet that the FAA air traffic controllers were talking about,
and it was just a horrific outcomeany Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm reading this Jay, as I'm reading through this, it
says that they were fifteen seconds away from hitting the airliner.
The air traffic control said, hey, turn left, and she
did not turn left. And the warrant officer eves he
was the co pilot, and the instructor said, hey, they
want us to turn left, and she did not. At
(03:07):
one point could was he able to take control of
the helicopter at all?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
He could have, but again he had no way of
knowing how close they were. And you know, because the
entire time, the black Hawk crew continually affirmed, we see
the approaching regional jet, we know where they're at. So
(03:31):
there's this idea that everybody's on the same page, when
obviously they were not. Now we'll never know why that
course correction wasn't made. We don't know. But what has
happened as a result of this is the military exercises
along the Potomac River have stopped and We've also seen
helicopters that operate around New York City and Las Vegas,
(03:52):
a lot of tourist type helicopters. They are changing a
lot of the flight patterns and restrictions there so that
we can try to prevent having the helicopters and the
commercial aircraft in close proximity. So, you know, you always
want to honor the lives of the people that were
lost in an accent like this by making necessary changes.
(04:14):
And not only is that happening in DC, but it's
happening in New York and Las Vegas at about seven
or eight other airports across the country. So we're doing
just that. But it's a lot like, you know, the
local neighborhood has a four way stop that keeps having accidents,
people are getting hurt, But when somebody dies, somebody says, hey,
we need to put a red light here, and it's
kind of like, why did it take a fatality for
(04:34):
us to take that necessary step. It's the same situation here.
The FAA was aware of the fact that we'd had
eighty five near misses at that particular location and then
some in d C, and why some of these things
weren't already in place. You know, we'll never know.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's a great question. Yeah, and as a result, sixty
seven people lost their lives in that accident. Speaking with
aviation expert Jratlift, you can see them a Jratlift dot com.
It's time to put Southwest Airlines in the barrel for
a few moments. Today. I got a couple of stories.
One we'll save the better one for the second story,
the fare bundles, the charging of the checked bags for
(05:14):
Southwest starts I believe May twenty eighth, which is it's
going to be a change for folks that they're going
to have to actually pay for bags now like some
other air carriers do with your check bags will cost
you somewhere between twenty five and fifty bucks checked bags.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Now, you know what's going to happen checked bags. I
wonder if I can get my big, super big bag
on board deerplane. Oh my look, it is going to
be an absolute nightmare. And apparently they're trying to arrange
it where you're going to have to take your bag
from the gate to a customer service counter to get
(05:52):
it checked or something to get it paid for it
the gate. From what I'm being told, we don't have
all the logistics squared away with regards to exactly how
this is going to work. So and they're doing it
right as we kick off the busy summer travel season. Yeah,
that was brilliant. South was yet another great move on
your part because it's you talk about something that's going
(06:15):
to impact departures and operations. They're on time performance is
about to go right down the toilet because they're not
going to be able to dispatch those flights on time
with all the stuff that's going to be taking place
because of this implementation, and so many people trying to
cram their carry on bags check bags onto the plane.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see how this
plays out. By fascinating, it's going to be a huge headache,
is what I really mean. And I think there's there's
some exemptions and if you buy, if you're a Southwest
credit card holder, you get a break, and there's some
other breaks you can get if you you know, have
an expensive flight, some of the higher end flights, you
get a couple of check bags included for free.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But it'll be interesting, Bore, But you're right, it's in
that higher fair.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, you're paying for one way or another. The other
Southwest story is, well, I'm just gonna let you talk
about there was a passenger who should be a check
for either substance abuse or some mental health issues. I'll
leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, thanks for leaving it to me. But a Southwest
light coming into land I believe it was in Chicago,
and it's a plane lands and is taxing in a
female passenger strips naked and uses the bathroom in the seat,
and it was mess. It was a big mess. And
you know, passenger, I mean, you're strapped into your seat.
You're not allowed to get up and move while the
(07:34):
aircraft is taxing. I think I might have broken that
FAA rule had I been anywhere near this situation. But
it pulls up to the gate to get the passengers
off that the passenger is taken away, not necessarily charged
or detained, but taken away. I'm sure to a hospital
for mental evaluation, just to see what in the world
(07:56):
was going on, because obviously this is not h you know,
the type of behavior that is normal. So uh, it
was in the plane had to be taken out of
service for a period of time. Why it was clean,
fumigated and everything else, because it took a while for
that to happen, so it only impacted that flight. But
the next flight, I mean, you're at the gate and
you find the airplane can't be used. They're towing it
(08:18):
away from the gate, and they're trying to bring another
aircraft in for you.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So they're landing. She strips naked and relieves herself in
her seat. I guess, thank goodness for small favors, that
it was at the end of a flight, not at
the beginning of one.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And it wasn't you know, when you're over you know,
Kansas City or something, and you think you've got to
land there. So it was moments away. And yet it
wasn't a little tinkle, that's for sure, And it was
something that the passengers around. And of course we know
most of these planes are packed, so I mean it's
it's I mean, can imagine sitting next to or no,
what's this person doing? Then what's this person doing? So yeah,
(08:55):
it just it went from one thing to another, and uh,
I just you know, like blight attendants had nothing else
to do, let's let's deal with this situation.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Is well, yeah, that's that's no, that's no good. Those
are the kind of things that Jay Ratliffe thrives on.
If you see anything that resembles anything like that out
of flight, let Jay know about it.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Pictures are not required in that particular situation. But it's
also why you'll never hear me use that asinine phrase
of I've seen it at all. No. I hear people
talk about that in radio and aviation and stocks, and
I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You haven't seen it all.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You never, I mean, don't sell people short. They're still
always going to come up with ways to kind of
surprise us all.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Jay, we've got some severe weather moving in today. It's
going to be difficult at least in central Ohio this afternoon.
How about any hub delays around the country.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You know, this afternoon I think is really going to
be where some of the problem issues are going to
flare up because some of the weather issues that we
have right now. As you're looking at the radar, you've
got Dallas's being impact and a lot of rain across
the center of the country. I think going to be
Detroit's going to take a glancing blow and pretty much
most of the hubs are going to be left alone
(10:11):
until later in the day where some of these pop
up things could take place. So if you're gonna be flying,
I don't expect too many weather related delays, but quite
a bit of turbulence if you're flying across the country,
so keep your seatbelt fastened about you. It's not dangerous,
just uncomfortable unless you don't have your seat belt on,
then yes, it is dangerous, so please keep it on.
All right, and a legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
(00:02):
He is our aviation expert, Jay Ratliffe and you can
find him at Jay ratlift dot com. A lot of
ground to cover, Jay, good morning. Let's start with the
Blackhawk DC plane crash investigation. And remember this one back
in January, and we now have a better picture of
what happened, and it's it's not pretty.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Actually, it comes down to communication. And apparently the air
traffic control had made a transmission to the Blackhawk about
slight change in their heading, and it was one that
was acknowledged, but there was no change in their heading
(00:42):
at the time. In fact, the trainer that was on
board the flight, the flight instructor was even had asked
the pilot and command the woman if she heard that
or repeated it, and apparently she did, but there was
no change in the heading of the air and it
was moments later when the aircraft collided with the regional jet.
(01:05):
Now the thought is, had they made that adjustment, it
would have bought them a few seconds. Would that been
enough for them to have seen the regional jet and
take evasive action. I don't know, but I think all
of us would would like to have had those few
seconds just in case, because as the investigation continues, it
was clear the only crew that saw the other was
(01:27):
the American Airlines regional jet. They tried to make a
climb at the last second to get out of the way,
and obviously they could not in time, and apparently wasn't
until the moment of impact that we had this. So
when you have this communication issue, one of the things
that you'll probably find in this investigation is there's a
(01:49):
series of contributing causes that tends to be the case,
and I'm certain that communication is going to be one
of them. But one thing that I took great exception
with when and Trump and others were immediately blaming air
traffic controllers, the FAA, DEI and all this other stuff,
was well, time out here, we don't know that. And
(02:10):
as we've gone deeper into this investigation, the one thing
that I think seems clear is what a great job
air traffic control was doing constantly trying to make the
helicopter aware of the location of that regional jet. Do
you see it? Do you see it? There was constant
communication that was ongoing, and I thought they did an
(02:30):
exemporary job of doing everything that they could to make
sure that everybody knew what was going on. But whatever
that flight crew was looking at, it was not the
regional jet that the FAA air traffic controllers were talking about,
and it was just a horrific outcomeany Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm reading this Jay, as I'm reading through this, it
says that they were fifteen seconds away from hitting the airliner.
The air traffic control said, hey, turn left, and she
did not turn left. And the warrant officer eves he
was the co pilot, and the instructor said, hey, they
want us to turn left, and she did not. At
(03:07):
one point could was he able to take control of
the helicopter at all?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
He could have, but again he had no way of
knowing how close they were. And you know, because the
entire time, the black Hawk crew continually affirmed, we see
the approaching regional jet, we know where they're at. So
(03:31):
there's this idea that everybody's on the same page, when
obviously they were not. Now we'll never know why that
course correction wasn't made. We don't know. But what has
happened as a result of this is the military exercises
along the Potomac River have stopped and We've also seen
helicopters that operate around New York City and Las Vegas,
(03:52):
a lot of tourist type helicopters. They are changing a
lot of the flight patterns and restrictions there so that
we can try to prevent having the helicopters and the
commercial aircraft in close proximity. So, you know, you always
want to honor the lives of the people that were
lost in an accent like this by making necessary changes.
(04:14):
And not only is that happening in DC, but it's
happening in New York and Las Vegas at about seven
or eight other airports across the country. So we're doing
just that. But it's a lot like, you know, the
local neighborhood has a four way stop that keeps having accidents,
people are getting hurt, But when somebody dies, somebody says, hey,
we need to put a red light here, and it's
kind of like, why did it take a fatality for
(04:34):
us to take that necessary step. It's the same situation here.
The FAA was aware of the fact that we'd had
eighty five near misses at that particular location and then
some in d C, and why some of these things
weren't already in place. You know, we'll never know.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's a great question. Yeah, and as a result, sixty
seven people lost their lives in that accident. Speaking with
aviation expert Jratlift, you can see them a Jratlift dot com.
It's time to put Southwest Airlines in the barrel for
a few moments. Today. I got a couple of stories.
One we'll save the better one for the second story,
the fare bundles, the charging of the checked bags for
(05:14):
Southwest starts I believe May twenty eighth, which is it's
going to be a change for folks that they're going
to have to actually pay for bags now like some
other air carriers do with your check bags will cost
you somewhere between twenty five and fifty bucks checked bags.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Now, you know what's going to happen checked bags. I
wonder if I can get my big, super big bag
on board deerplane. Oh my look, it is going to
be an absolute nightmare. And apparently they're trying to arrange
it where you're going to have to take your bag
from the gate to a customer service counter to get
(05:52):
it checked or something to get it paid for it
the gate. From what I'm being told, we don't have
all the logistics squared away with regards to exactly how
this is going to work. So and they're doing it
right as we kick off the busy summer travel season. Yeah,
that was brilliant. South was yet another great move on
your part because it's you talk about something that's going
(06:15):
to impact departures and operations. They're on time performance is
about to go right down the toilet because they're not
going to be able to dispatch those flights on time
with all the stuff that's going to be taking place
because of this implementation, and so many people trying to
cram their carry on bags check bags onto the plane.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see how this
plays out. By fascinating, it's going to be a huge headache,
is what I really mean. And I think there's there's
some exemptions and if you buy, if you're a Southwest
credit card holder, you get a break, and there's some
other breaks you can get if you you know, have
an expensive flight, some of the higher end flights, you
get a couple of check bags included for free.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But it'll be interesting, Bore, But you're right, it's in
that higher fair.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, you're paying for one way or another. The other
Southwest story is, well, I'm just gonna let you talk
about there was a passenger who should be a check
for either substance abuse or some mental health issues. I'll
leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, thanks for leaving it to me. But a Southwest
light coming into land I believe it was in Chicago,
and it's a plane lands and is taxing in a
female passenger strips naked and uses the bathroom in the seat,
and it was mess. It was a big mess. And
you know, passenger, I mean, you're strapped into your seat.
You're not allowed to get up and move while the
(07:34):
aircraft is taxing. I think I might have broken that
FAA rule had I been anywhere near this situation. But
it pulls up to the gate to get the passengers
off that the passenger is taken away, not necessarily charged
or detained, but taken away. I'm sure to a hospital
for mental evaluation, just to see what in the world
(07:56):
was going on, because obviously this is not h you know,
the type of behavior that is normal. So uh, it
was in the plane had to be taken out of
service for a period of time. Why it was clean,
fumigated and everything else, because it took a while for
that to happen, so it only impacted that flight. But
the next flight, I mean, you're at the gate and
you find the airplane can't be used. They're towing it
(08:18):
away from the gate, and they're trying to bring another
aircraft in for you.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So they're landing. She strips naked and relieves herself in
her seat. I guess, thank goodness for small favors, that
it was at the end of a flight, not at
the beginning of one.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And it wasn't you know, when you're over you know,
Kansas City or something, and you think you've got to
land there. So it was moments away. And yet it
wasn't a little tinkle, that's for sure, And it was
something that the passengers around. And of course we know
most of these planes are packed, so I mean it's
it's I mean, can imagine sitting next to or no,
what's this person doing? Then what's this person doing? So yeah,
(08:55):
it just it went from one thing to another, and uh,
I just you know, like blight attendants had nothing else
to do, let's let's deal with this situation.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Is well, yeah, that's that's no, that's no good. Those
are the kind of things that Jay Ratliffe thrives on.
If you see anything that resembles anything like that out
of flight, let Jay know about it.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Pictures are not required in that particular situation. But it's
also why you'll never hear me use that asinine phrase
of I've seen it at all. No. I hear people
talk about that in radio and aviation and stocks, and
I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You haven't seen it all.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You never, I mean, don't sell people short. They're still
always going to come up with ways to kind of
surprise us all.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Jay, we've got some severe weather moving in today. It's
going to be difficult at least in central Ohio this afternoon.
How about any hub delays around the country.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
You know, this afternoon I think is really going to
be where some of the problem issues are going to
flare up because some of the weather issues that we
have right now. As you're looking at the radar, you've
got Dallas's being impact and a lot of rain across
the center of the country. I think going to be
Detroit's going to take a glancing blow and pretty much
most of the hubs are going to be left alone
(10:11):
until later in the day where some of these pop
up things could take place. So if you're gonna be flying,
I don't expect too many weather related delays, but quite
a bit of turbulence if you're flying across the country,
so keep your seatbelt fastened about you. It's not dangerous,
just uncomfortable unless you don't have your seat belt on,
then yes, it is dangerous, so please keep it on.
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