Another factor that adds to those two is that the airport is operating over-capacity. The incident flight was only on the path it was on because it had to be rerouted last minute due to some "bunching" with the other landing planes. Fewer flights = much lower risk of getting jammed up = no redirects.

Another additive factor is that because of the "redirect", the flight crew is no longer on their planned flight plan in, but they are actively flying the plane to divert to a different runway. In itself, there's nothing unsafe about it. They agreed to it with ATC (who may have said "can't safely divert and land? Ok you have to go-around."). At the same time, it's a situation where they are operating at a higher capacity than if they were on a more routine landing, which is that much lower of a chance that they will avert the collision.

[–] TerminalEncounter@hexbear.net 39 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

Also why does a military helicopter have to cross over a busy airport like at all? Apparently they mostly do training flights, so... wtf? Quit going over the DC airport

[–] poppy_apocalypse@hexbear.net 15 points 6 days ago

Training to get the politicians out of DC if there were an attack. I shit you not

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 11 points 6 days ago

This is my biggest question. Hot take, helicopter training flights shouldn’t happen within like 50 fucking miles of a passenger airport.

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 6 days ago

This is all coming out of my ass, but knowing what the military is like: some 18-20s year old losers love doing stupid shit. These losers are generally who the military recruits.

When I was in high school years ago, the hunting, gun loving, confederate flag wearing types all got in a pretty bad car accident because they were playing chicken with a tree and lost. (Drove 50mph into a tree)