Black Hawk Pilot Rep. Gabe Evans Discusses DCA Crash with CNN
In case you missed it, Congressman Gabe Evans joined CNN last night to share his insight about flying UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.
As a Black Hawk helicopter aviation officer and company commander, Rep. Evans’focus was risk management. He has a decade of experience with how to avoid these types of accidents in Denver airspace, which is the sixth busiest airspace in the world and third busiest in the U.S.
Watch more here or read highlights below:
➡️ “The limitation for night vision goggles is, while they're very, very good at amplifying the light, they give you an incredibly small field of view. […] When you're looking through the standard issue night vision goggles that most helicopter aircrews are issued, that's a 40 degree field of view. You also lose a lot of depth perception when you're looking through them.”
➡️ “I know from flying around the Denver metro area that if you're looking toward bright lights, they're going to dim down a little bit so that they don't wash out. Then if you just turn your head and look toward a darker area, it may take just a quick fraction of a second for the goggles to see that react to that, and then turn up the intensity of the amplification of those night vision goggles.”
➡️ “TCAS is a piece of equipment that's mounted on typically your airliners, and yes, it can interact with the transponders that are on Black Hawk helicopters. As we just heard, that system is disabled once you get below certain altitudes for the airliners.”
➡️ “When you're a military aircraft and you're operating in the national airspace, you have to comply with national airspace standards. You're going to be on a frequency, particularly in Class B airspace like is around Reagan National Airport, you're going to be talking to air traffic control. they're going to be talking back to you. You're not actually allowed to even enter the airspace until you have that positive communication with air traffic control.”