[Scan-DC] DCA Tower shutdown

[michael rumberg]

just my two cents:

well, its not as if the planes were wandering around aimlessly circling over DC - and they were in contact and under Air Traffic Control the entire time until landing. the flight pattern is not as bad as the description invokes.

see the flight path for AA 1012 here:  http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL1012/history/20110323/0205ZZ/KMIA/KDCA 
 and the chart for UAL 628 here:  http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL628/history/20110323/0200Z/KORD/KDCA/tracklog

each plane only made one go-around.

and as noted below from another listserve, there was nothing unusual in the procedures used that would , everything about these flights fit the normal pattern.  Spend a day at National and you will regularly see several aborted landings

----------
[from another listserv]
from a strictly Air 
Traffic Control point of view, there are no special procedures for going
 into DCA anymore, and back when there were, those procedures were with 
Potomac Approach, not DCA tower. As a regularly scheduled Air Carrier 
with a TSA approved Security Program in two way comms with Potomac, 
those flights would be in full compliance with the DC Special Flight 
Rules Area (SFRA).  

 

Potomac declared DCA as a non Towerred airport and told the flights to 
utilize the 119.1 frequency as a CTAF.  At that point, you don't need 
landing clearance.....you simply announce your intentions to land.
 
------------

more to the point of other folks sleeping:


the days of the shadowing of regularly schedule commercial flights are 
long gone with the hardened cockpits and other measures.  and really, at
 200- 150mph it would literally take only seconds for a plane scheduled to DCA to divert and reach the WH or Capitol - certainly not enough time for an AA battery to
 stop a plane unless it was already locked on.  Only an Aegis system or two could possibly keep missiles locked on all the air traffic in, over and around Washington and ready to launch at a moments notice; there certainly arent Aegis ships parked in the Potomac and I have never heard any rumors of such systems in the area.....  I am not sure if the battery is still at Fort Washington, but even then the process to target and launch those missiles couldnt be completed in time to stop a plane from the north or catch a plane on a normal southern pattern that skips over the airport to the WH.




> From: bobjeter at verizon.net
> Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:04:07 -0400
> To: scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [Scan-DC] DCA Tower shutdown
> 
> Airplanes circling DCA airport in the vicinity of the Capitol and White House and no one has questioned a security breach?
> 
> The non-standard traffic pattern should have raised some eyebrows, especially the first aircraft made a "go around" (pull up)
> 
> There was a time armed fighters would surreptitiously follow airliners down the final approach course to prevent a diversion into a sensitive area which could have been signified by a deviation from the prescribed traffic pattern such as a go around manuever
> 
> How about the Stinger battery at Bolling AFB?
> 
> more than the ATC controller was asleep
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