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The danger of bureaucracies

Yesterday, lives were lost in the USA as the result of what I believe are bureaucratic bungles.

A US military helicopter and a commuter air flight collided over a river on approach to an airport in Washington DC with the loss of all onboard both craft.

How could this have happened?

Both aircraft were equipped with the latest in technology that is designed specifically to prevent exactly this sort of disaster.

As well as ADSB, a system that constantly broadcasts an aircraft's exact position so as to allow air-traffic control to route them safely past each other, the craft also had TCAS, an automated collision avoidance system.

The exact facts surrounding the incident have yet to be fully determined and much misinformation has already been published by the mainstream media who initially claimed that the helicopter had turned off its ADSB system. Later reports have corrected this.

It is yet to be determined however, whether the military helicopter had activated its TCAS technology. Even if TCAS was operative however, it is only of limited use at the very low altitudes that these craft were operating at. Under normal circumstances, at higher altitudes, TCAS will advise the pilots of aircraft to climb or dive when a risk of collision is detected. At altitudes below 1,000 feet however, the system itself gives no deconfliction advice and it's up to the pilots to alter course based on their own observations and judgements.

Ultimately, the collision is the responsiblity of air traffic controllers (ATC) who have the burden of ensuring that no two aircraft attempt to occupy the same place in the sky at exactly the same time -- which is exactly what caused this disaster.

The spotlight has now fallen back on ATC which is under the domain of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). President Trump has alleged that the FAA is responsible because they were employing controllers based on DEI guidelines rather than simply choosing the best person for the job.

Is that true?

Well I honestly don't know but I have observed, and commented on the fact, that if you look at the videos on the FAA's YouTube channel, minorities are massively over-represented within the ranks of FAA staff. I would not be surprised if many of the ATC hires were based on ticking boxes on a DEI checklist and meeting quotas rather than on selecting the best candidate for the job based on abilities and experience.

Sadly, many in the aviation industry have been warning the FAA for quite some time now that a disaster such as the one we've just seen is inevitable. They've highlighted the growing number of ATC failures that have endangered lives in recent times. Almost every day there is another incident in the USA where bad ATC has resulted in near-misses involving passenger jets.

Unfortunately, like most government bureaucracies, the FAA seems to believe that it is its job to talk *to* those it regulates, not *with* them. They create rules, regulations and hand down diktats whilst ignoring the alarm bells and advice being offered by those they regulate. "Who are you to question our authority or abilities?" seems to be the mindset.

It's my observation that airspace regulators around the world are now doing a very poor job and are suffering from arrogance and ignorance to an unacceptable degree.

For example, the CAA in the UK has been caught in a lie after they claimed to have consulted with an industry group over new regulations. Turns out that they won't disclose exactly who that group was and none of the established groups say it was them. It now appears as if the CAA just made that up because they knew none of the real industry groups would support the changes they were pushing through.

This would all be quite comedic... except that we're talking about human lives here.

Being a bungling, arrogant, ignorant bureaucrat in charge of something like building consents is one thing. Being in charge of services and regulations that we rely on to protect human lives in the skies is something altogether different and wholy unacceptable.

Carpe Diem folks!

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