Reagan National Airport Mid-air Collision

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user 43847

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Does airport radar pick up below 200'?

There are two types of radar, believe it or not. Primary radar is what you traditionally think of when you think of radar and involves a radio beam leaving the antenna, bouncing off an object, and returning to the radar dish. Secondary radar is what transponders are used for. An interrogator signal is sent out, received by the airplane, and the airplane's transponder responds to the interrogator signal with altitude, type of aircraft, and registration number/callsign. Whether something is picked up by primary radar is completely dependent on line of sight to the radar's beam. The further away the object is, the higher it has to be to be detected (think curvature of the earth). I would imagine in a busy area like DC, the radar site is somewhere very close by, so objects could be detected practically to the surface.

All that being said, radar was not the culprit in this accident. The CRJ was proceeding to the airport visually, the helicopter was flying its route visually, and the controllers were looking out the window. At a busy airport like DCA, airplanes will be lined up in a long trail stretching 20-30 miles away from the airport. If the tower asked the helicopter if he had the CRJ in sight, I can tell you right now there's no way to distinguish a CRJ from a 737 at night. The helicopter pilot could have seen any one of the half dozen airplanes that were lined up to land and not realized that he was looking at the wrong one.

Does the Blackhawk have radar jamming?

It wouldn't have been using radar jamming, even if it did have it, in congested DC airspace.
 
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