Summary
The FAA is facing a leadership vacuum amid a major aviation disaster after former administrator Michael Whitaker resigned on January 20th, following clashes with Elon Musk.
Musk, angered by FAA fines against SpaceX, publicly called for Whitaker’s resignation.
The crisis intensified after an Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet in Washington, D.C., killing all on board.
Trump has appointed Chris Rocheleau as acting FAA administrator, with Musk reportedly influencing government staffing decisions.
The FAA also struggles with underfunding and air traffic control staffing shortages.
The flight aware or whatever and atc audio is already out there and such for YouTubers and whatever. Your take sounds like mine as well; the helicopter pilots were cautioned by ATC, confirmed visual on the plane, hit the plane. I think it’s at least likely that they were observing that other plane seen on radar and the crash footage.
Helicopter had a 200ft. ceiling and broke it. Plane
was assumed on ILS butappears was VFR and got a runway change. It seems to have been below its intended 500ft during the maneuver with the crash at 400ft.This is probably better than my paraphrasing and probably screwing shit up:
https://youtu.be/_3gD_lnBNu0
And yeah, TCAS is 1000 ft. and above I think for resolution advisories.
More edit: also appears night vision was in use so yeah. I look forward to hearing further from Elon and Don how this was DEI and how they spin the military part of the blame.
It still seems kind of insane to have a helicopter at 200 ft. and a plane in the same place at 500 ft. - since the helicopter and plane only need to be at slightly different altitudes from that to crash, which of course is exactly what happened.