(If this read doesn't piss you off.....it might explain pretty much why this country has no hope.....when its own citizens are apathetic to actual incompetence caused by deliberate tolerance of it in the name of DEI.
When you add to this not having proper staffing which we can charge directly to the FAA as they have a decade-long reported refusal to hire thousands of qualified white people for the job -- a refusal that is illegal since discriminating based on race is against the law and you have all the ingredients -- even if the controller is competent he or she was deliberately overworked by those who assigned the shifts. While that specific decision was overturned in 2018 how far behind are you after five years and why would qualified people want to work for an agency with a documented history, proved by lawsuit, that you will discriminate against them? Never mind the FAA's rather obvious and deliberate lie that they had met staffing goals just a few months ago.
Again safety-critical systems require at least two ****ups for a bad outcome to occur and this is intentional because people do **** up -- thus one ****up is never enough in a properly-designed safety system to get people killed.
The bottom line is that while it is clear the helo flew into the path of the aircraft and thus that is the actual cause of the collision what is also clear is that ATC had the corridor violation on their scope a full minute before the collision and a conflict alert 40 seconds before. The presence of an aircraft outside of its known safe corridor is hard proof that the operator of that aircraft has lost situational awareness and that renders the risks unbounded.
There is exactly one correct course of action upon detection of that condition and incapacity to immediately rectify it: You order the aircraft on approach to go around and turn away from the conflict as that is the only reasonably-safe known path available since the helo pilot has conclusively demonstrated he or she does not know where they are. Chew the helo pilot's ass afterward but you must immediately clear the conflict and thus restore the boundaries on risk by instructing the aircraft who's pilot knows where he is to do so.
That is always the correct decision -- this is not Monday-morning quarterback crap. The person who has demonstrated lost situational awareness (irrespective of why) cannot be expected to accurately honor the command and since you have the other party at risk who has demonstrated to that point their competence and knowledge of where they are and a de-conflicting command can be given to them that will resolve the issue you issue the de-conflicting command to them. There was plenty of time to do so from the point in time ATC was aware of a no-prior-notice excursion from the authorized flight corridor by the helo and that option was still effective even if you wait the additional 20 seconds (but IMHO you definitely should not) until the conflict alarm is formally posted by the ATC system.
We must demand that the root cause be publicly disclosed and remedied with criminal penalties for all involved who took deliberate actions leading to it, when the systems in place DID apparently give plenty of warning as designed and said system and its warnings was not executed against and thus the collision prevented. Again it takes at least two ****-ups in safety-critical systems for a bad outcome to occur and we know the machinery, given that Rep. Massie has now validated the track data as true and not a fabrication, operated exactly as designed with plenty of margin and clear, unambiguous, no-clutter warning in plenty of time to prevent the collision and hard evidence visible to the controller that the helo was above the ceiling for its corridor and thus by definition operating unsafely, had thus unbounded the risk of flight in the area and was at risk of collision with another aircraft -- per the designed layout for that airspace.
We must not accept any sort of excuse-making for this event and its outcome. If DEI crap is in any way responsible for this, and it certainly appears it was a factor AS THE FAA REFUSED TO HIRE QUALIFIED PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR RACE GOING BACK MORE THAN A DECADE every single ****ing person involved in that **** all the way up the line must HANG personally.
