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Joining me now to discuss all of this is former Black Hawk crew chief and host of the Bearded

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Federalist show, Mark Macrathon. Thank you so much for being here. We've been looking forward

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to talking to you. So first, let's just start with what happened in D.C. What are the chances

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that it is a coincidence that two helicopter related accidents, the tragedy in Philadelphia

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and the passenger jet midair collision with a Black Hawk in D.C., actually a plane and a plane

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and a Black Hawk occurred back to back. What does it say about the safety of air travel for the

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public? A lot of people are very concerned. Was it weather? Is it all A.T.C.? Now that you've had a

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few days under your belt to kind of think about all of this, what are your thoughts today on Sunday

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morning? Good morning, Laura. Yeah, not related. Completely separate incidents. There's no

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relationship whatsoever. They're different airspaces entirely, different climate situations entirely,

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different aircraft entirely, different crews entirely. And so the relation to that is completely

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unrelated. Everyone, every show so far has had guests on that have said the truth that this is

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the safest time in history for aviation. These incidents are tragic. They're terrible. They're

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terrifying for viewers and for people who fly and participate in this. But it is just a statistical

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fact that it's the safest time we've ever had. And these two incidents are completely unrelated.

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Right. It's just it's crazy that they happen so close together, Mark, because you are a former Black

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Hawk operator. I want to zero in on that D.C. crash and ask you what you think could have gone wrong

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when you take a look at it, because I was listening to another expert who talked about the safety

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systems that are in place. Right. We've talked about the one person in the control tower.

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We've talked about all of the different things that could have happened. But when we keep going back

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to that piece of video where we see the Black Hawk going in towards the plane, I just keep thinking

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about you know what I keep thinking about, Mark, I keep thinking about driving in my car. And when I go

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to park or if I get too close, my car freaks out and tells me on my screen I'm about to have a crash.

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Does that happen in the Black Hawk? Does that happen in the plane? Shouldn't there have been some type of

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alarm? I mean, maybe there was. And we'll learn more with the black boxes. But that's something that I keep

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thinking about. What about you?

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So we know for sure from the NTSB report yesterday that the airliner absolutely had that warning as they were

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getting closer. They had an alert that was automated, said traffic, traffic, traffic.

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And then we find out there was an attempt to gain altitude to pull up on that. So that aircraft

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absolutely had those kind of collisions alert systems. I was retired in 2007. So the packages

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that are on the Black Hawk's now were different from when I was there. But I can say that the radar

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systems that are designed to track weapon threats and incoming objects from that are different systems

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that would do airspace and obstacle avoidance. Sure. And I've heard that responsibilities in the

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Black Hawk is called a three-dimensional responsibility because we know that they were

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it sounds like they were wearing night vision. At least that's what we've been told so far. But the

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third dimensional responsibility of looking all around. Talk to us about what it's like at night

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being in a Black Hawk. Yeah. So the pilot's jobs are to fly the aircraft. The crew chief's job

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is airspace surveillance and obstacle avoidance. That's the job of the crew chief. And especially

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at the angle that the Black Hawks will fly, they fly nose down just before the main rotor to be able

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to pull it along. So the pilots are looking straight ahead, looking down, or even looking in the aircraft

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for the tasks and duties they have to do. Where the crew chief is the only one that could be looking up,

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back, down, below. So they're the ones that really clear that airspace. Unfortunately,

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in this incident, we had one crew chief on the aircraft, not two. We don't always fly with two.

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That's not necessarily required. But there was only one. And unfortunately, he was on the opposite

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side of where this aircraft was coming from. And so he would have had no visibility of it.

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And now he is on the right. And so he followed the vehicle team with aد. And so we'll need

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to take care of whether to help fish and sausages with, um, or come through and order ensues,

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there must be a small Jar in line of time. And now, take care of his car. And now we're at the

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park come down with a big vehicle. So stephen has that battery of the whole crew. I think it's

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too early, the band ever noticing how many of the groups are going to be able to hang out and

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take care of thelus ça into the play video series of the plug. So the jacket comes in there. So the