For your consideration ...
A comment from a Blackhawk pilot that's flown the area and his take from another site.
"Couple of thoughts here, having flown the same route the H60 was on more then 80 times in my CG career (H65 driver). There are discrete helicopter routes throughout the DCA aerodrome (Link to the chart below) and helicopter pilots need a SFAR add on to operate within 30 nm of DCA. Here are a few of my thoughts & observations...
(1) The altitude restrictions on the helicopter routes are absolute & critical. The closer you are to DCA, be more precise you have to be. Between the Memorial Bridge & Wilson Bridge, you MUST be BELOW 200' (I tried to stay between 125'-150')
(2) The routing is also critical, when in close to DCA, you want be straddling the east bank of the Potomac. I typically had 'one foot wet and one foot dry.'
(3) Flying the published route is your best defense for traffic deconfliction with commercial traffic. When I few those routes, As long as I was on the route, I did not worry too much about commercial traffic. I always worried about the other helicopters... but if you slowed down a little, it could buy you some reaction time. (I will admit the first time I flew route 4 & had a UAL 737 over my head I was having kittens & sweating bullets)
(4) NVGs were likely aboard the H60, if they were used is in question. To what extent that was a factor remains to be determined.
(5) It is clear ATC was concerned about traffic confliction. Their challenge to the H60, "Do you have the RJ insight?" was indecisive & relied too much on the 'visual sepation' doctrine. 'Visual Separation' is detailed in the SFRA (Special Flight Restriction Area) for pilots operating in the DCA aerodrome. It allows pilot to deviate their course to deconflict with traffic.
I would suggest this to be more Accurate, Bold & Concise... "PAT25, turn to 090 & remain below 200' then fly route 1 as published" Once acknowledged by PAT 25... "Traffic at your 3 O'clock 350', RJ on final to RWY33, report them insight".
This was just tragic & having flown this route so many times and makes me ask what makes me any different? DCA is just 'Dense Air Spaces" I could imagine. You have massive amounts commercial and military aircraft, Restricted air space galore, distractions & a lots of radio towers & cranes that all over."
"I've spent a lot of hours under NVGs years ago, we usually pulled them up in the city because they became almost useless with too much stimulus. I'm not sure about the newest version of NVGs though if it's better or not? The federal agency I work for now does a lot of flying in that area and you are spot on, it's 200' or below in that area, and it's drilled into their heads to do that. All of my near misses flying rotor were with other rotor wing, news, LE, etc., or were student pilots while over flying airfields that had aviation schools. We never had a near miss with fixed wing because we were required to stay below and out of their way."
https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/09-05-2024/PDFs/Balt-Wash_Heli.pdf
Flying out of DCA mid Feb, should I be worried??
