The DC Plane and Helicopter Crash

I won’t write much about the crash but I watched early footage and news reports.

When I lived in Virgina I could see the lights from the airport in the distance; those bright spotlights which would rotate from the airport. I have traveled through DCA (the Wasington Airport) a number of time, mostly in the 60’s and once in the past 20 years as it was the cheapest DC destination near where I was going. I am quite familiar with DCA, BWI in Baltimore, IAD Dulles, CHO Charlottesville, RIC in Richmond and PHF Newport News area.

On one aproach to Washington we had some turbulance as we went along the Potomac and turned to land on the runway. As you aproach you are fairly close to the water and the runway is right at the edge.

In the 1980’s I was living in Maryland and was a ‘Net Control Operator’ for R.A.C.E.S. (the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) which were Ham Radio volunteers associated with Civil Defense and providing communications in emergency situations. For example when the water pumping facility went down, we sent Hams to various locations to help coordinate water truck locations. When the County 911 service went down, we would have Hams at hospitals, fire stations and various obvious locations around the County where the public could come to us and we could radio emergency traffic to fire and police.

One particlar event happened in 1982. An Air Florida flight 90 took off from Reagan (DCA) Airport but crashed into the 14th street bridge nearby. Video taken at the time showed the icy water which hampered rescue. The airport had reopned but the area had 6 inches of snow from the storm. I started calling volunteers to go down to provide communications. At the time these seemed to be a lack on interagency communications (which was later fixed). Fire, Police and other first repsonders could be helped with our abilities. However, fate did not allow us to help that day. Many roads were it terrible shape but our biggest hinderence would be to get to the the actual site. We could ahve taken our mobile and handheld equipment on the Metro but that was not possible.

(WIKIPEDIA) The inclement weather had caused an early start to Washington’s rush-hour traffic, frustrating the response time of emergency crews. The early rush hour also meant that trains on the Washington Metro were full when just 30 minutes after Flight 90 crashed, the Metro suffered its first fatal crash, at Federal Triangle station. This meant that Washington’s nearest airport, one of its main bridges in or out of the city, and one of its busiest subway lines were all closed simultaneously, paralyzing much of the metropolitan area. 

So we were not able to lend any assistance at all.

While I listened to the reports of the recent crash, these thoughts and visions of the 1982 crash came back to me.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of those effected by this event. It cannot be an easy time for them.

I am also mad and embarrased that our current President has taken this time to grandstand, cast blame and misdirect the public in this time of sorrow. Never have I seen a President rant and rave and blame everyone but himself for anything. While he did start out asking fir unity, he then descended into madness. The following was not appropriate for the time nor place.

(DailyMail.Co.UK) But in between, he railed against diversity hiring practises for air traffic controllers, including people with dwarfism and complete paralysis, accused his predecessor Joe Biden of watering down standards, and slammed former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for having ‘a good line of bulls***.’

I will leave my comments at that.