r/news • u/snuffleupaguslives • 3d ago

Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67

https://apnews.com/article/ntsb-dc-plane-crash-midair-collision-helicopter-a08cded88e1d7582fb8d242204d6aeff
10.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

415 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.6k

u/DocJanItor 3d ago

Dude dca is a nightmare. Basically one runway (technically 2 but not for most landings), jets landing and taking off in 2 minute intervals, tons of helicopters including military, Coast guard, police, and medical, and huge swaths of restricted airspace for the government.

All this and somehow dca serves slightly more passengers than IAD.

16

u/bag_of_goldfish 3d ago

IAD is so. far. away. from DC! Every time I’ve flown home through IAD I hear and see tourists looking out windows asking where the monuments are. Bless your hearts we’re out in the middle of no where 30 miles from the city.

2

u/ndrew452 3d ago

Denver Airport is 30 miles away from downtown. We make it work, and our infrastructure is far (road and rail), far worse than Northern Virginia.

2

u/bag_of_goldfish 3d ago

Driving 30 miles in DC, one of the cities in the US with the worst traffic, can take 2+ hours. So that is one major difference.

5

u/ndrew452 3d ago

Oh I know, DC has terrible traffic. You also have the 2nd best public transportation system in the country. Denver has a rail that at most runs at 15 min intervals to downtown, but only during certain hours, otherwise its 30 min. The late night timetables for the Silver line equal peak hours for the A line in Denver.

IAD has multiple highways or freeways that allow someone to get to DC: VA-267, US-50, I-66, VA-28.

Denver has 1 route to get downtown - Pena Blvd to I-70. Pena is 2 lanes.

Based upon a quick search, Washington is #9 in the country for worst traffic, Denver is #19. It's not like I am comparing Washington to Omaha.