The Wire - January 30, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z January 30, 2025//
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//BLUF: COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT COLLIDES WITH ARMY HELICOPTER IN WASHINGTON D.C.//

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-HomeFront-

Washington D.C. - At approximately 9:00pm last night, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a VH-60M Blackhawk helicopter while on short final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Both aircraft collided catastrophically, with the debris field largely landing in the Potomac River southeast of the airport. Following the incident, an extremely large scale Mass Casualty (MASCAL) Incident was declared, leading to a large inter-agency rescue operation. Throughout the night, 28x fatalities were reportedly recovered from the involved aircraft. This official casualty figure is expected to rise as the manifest of the American Airlines flight indicated 64x souls onboard at the time of the incident, and 3x crew onboard the Blackhawk. So far, no survivors have been reported from either aircraft. AC: Due to water temperatures being at freezing levels, even if anyone did survive the initial violent collision it is extremely unlikely for anyone to have survived being immersed in water at these temperatures for any length of time.

Regarding the manifest of the Blackhawk, few details have been released due to both the privacy considerations for the families, as well as security concerns. The VH-60M helicopter in question was a US Army helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion operating out of Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir, VA. This airframe was operating under the callsign of "PAT25", functioning as one of the Priority Air Transport aircraft for VIPs throughout the National Capitol Region (NCR). Per the latest information released by authorities, no VIPs were onboard at the time of the incident as this was a training flight.

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Analyst Comments: At the moment, there are no indications of malign action regarding the collision of AA5342 and PAT25. So far all indications line up suggesting that not only was this a tragic accident, but that the potential for this exact scenario to happen has been many years in the making.

Right now, one of the more overwhelming aspects of this accident is that of engagement farming, outrage-baiting, and the spread of generally false information. Or course, the question on everyone's mind is "How could this have happened?". Unfortunately, when it comes to Army aviation, especially within the National Capitol Region (NCR), this mishap is completely within the realm of possibility.

Over the past few years, it also became popular for military aviation to fly without their transponders on, or perhaps more accurately, without using ADS-B transponder modes. In short, few military helicopters even have ADS-B, and those that do have been less inclined to use it. As much outrage abounds regarding this helicopter "flying dark" one must remember that most military aircraft do not have even have ADS-B transponders equipped, rather relying on different transponder modes to make their presence known to aircraft around them. As such, the absence of ADS-B data on public flight tracking websites does not automatically mean that the aircraft was "flying dark", they could have been using a different transponder mode that wouldn't show up on many public websites.

Further concern has been expressed by various entities (to include the POTUS AND VPOTUS) regarding the cause of the collision. Rather unusually, both the President and Vice President have highlighted deficiencies among Air Traffic Control operators which may have lead to this incident. While many will take this as a crass and inappropriate response while families are still grieving, there may be more to the story than meets the eye, which requires the dropping of sugarcoating. For instance, closed-source mainstream media reporting has suggested that the FAA is aware that a non-standard operating posture was in place in the tower at DCA last night, which resulted in only one person undertaking critical duties that normally are the job of two people. Right now, the sourcing for this information has not been released, so the veracity of this information is unknown and unconfirmable. Additionally, newly-confirmed SECDEF Pete Hegseth stated that the VH-60 was conducting a "Continuity of Government" training mission, which (while extremely common) causes more strategic concerns regarding national defense than any other aviation mishap.

What is more certain, however, are the other details leading up to the incident. Visibility was poor due to low lunar illumination...even flying with night vision goggles would have been challenging at the time of the incident. The American Airlines flight was also approaching the airport to land at a runway that's rarely used; most people familiar with the area know that Runway 33 is not really used that often, with the longer Runway 1 being far more common. Various defense officials have stated that the VH-60M was on a routine training flight. Locals know that these flights are carried out daily, multiple times per day, so it is possible that complacency led to a lack of awareness of an aircraft landing at a runway that isn't normally used much. This change was made at the last minute due to winds reportedly allowing a more favorable landing on Runway 33, which could have added to the confusion. Additional speculation has focused on the point-of-view of those piloting the Blackhawk, which would have presented unique lighting conditions that may have led to even more confusion for the pilots. All in all, all indications suggest the perfect conditions were present for the chain of causation to remain unbroken, leading to this disaster.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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