Passenger flight from Wichita collides with military helicopter in D.C.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by seamonster

Laughable to claim the pilot couldn't see the plane after watching that video. Especially considering they were flying well above their 200ft ceiling.

I don't think any of us here have anywhere near the expertise to definitively conclude anything about what they could or couldn't see. I just know that other incidents that outsiders would conclude should have been easily avoided are less so once they really look at the factors at play. It's obviously not the same situation, but an A350 collided with a coast guard plane on the runway in Japan a year ago. People have asked how it's possible that the A350 wouldn't have seen the coast guard plane sitting on the runway, which seems logical until they actually mocked up what it would look like to the pilots...



(Note the slight break in the centerline about halfway down the runway. That's what they estimate the coast guard plane looked like to the A350 pilots.)

This is why investigations are important. We can guess all we want, but until they carefully study everything that happened, we don't really know where the fault lies.