from Hacker News

Dallas midair tragedy: New videos show startling change in flight path of p-63

by ethotool on 12/9/22, 12:17 AM with 112 comments

  • by danuker on 12/9/22, 12:53 AM

  • by thrill on 12/9/22, 2:14 AM

    FWIW, I have a few thousand hours flying jet fighters and have hit rather large birds at high speed (me, not them), and have been hit by rather large caliber bullets (I assume also at high speed). From the two videos, taken at two locations, I cannot positively id a drone. What is described as a sudden altitude change in the second video doesn't look like anything in the first video, though it's mostly blocked by the inconveniently placed large sign. The appearance of a "large altitude change" could be easily explained by the pilot simply easing off the g in the turn to gain visibility, to gain a little speed if it was needed, or sure, to suddenly try to avoid something. It looks exaggerated in the second video I think because the camera is manually tracking something.

    hitting a drone is unlikely to cause significant damage unless it hit in just the right spot. Seeing and overreacting to a drone might cause some damage but there is probably one second of altitude change there if any - that collision was already quite likely from the intercept path being flown. I've not flown either of those aircraft (before my time) but looking underneath during a turn requires effort and may not have even been possible, especially if there was a lack of awareness to prompt the look.

    I think Juan's youtube video explaining the airborne change of directive from what in the comments on that video appears to have been an under briefed, and sadly under questioned briefing, is by far the most likely explanation.

  • by anigbrowl on 12/9/22, 3:57 AM

    Former pro video editor here. The second video looks like bullshit.

    Serious people would show the video at normal speed, then slowed done, and added timecode, as well as documenting their methods. They also wouldn't make assumptions about what was going on, eg 'tries to restart the engine'. These black blobs look to me like compression artifacts, from zooming a video from a phone camera that was compressed for storage and then compressed again when uploaded to social media.

    Also, even if there was an object and the engine went out (which seems unlikely, most drones are pretty fragile and would be destroyed by a propellor), losing power doesn't mean losing all control of the plane. Manual flight control would still work to some extent. But I don't see last-minute efforts to avoid a collision that tragically failed; it looks like the fighter was pointed straight at the bomber.

    I haven't checked to see if it originates on 4chan, but it wouldn't surprise me. No-standards amateur sleuthing is the norm there, occasionally they get something right but their hit rate is like 5% at best. That's not stereotyping, I've been a regular there since 2008.

    -------------------

    EDIT: fieryskiff11 33 minutes ago [dead] | parent | next [–]

    >I've been a regular there since 2008 Your username makes sense now

    Not sure why, it's a made-up word I came up with in the 1990s for myself and is not meant to convey any secondary meaning. 4chan allows persistent usernames but I've never bothered to create one.

  • by leetrout on 12/9/22, 12:56 AM

    The Blancolirio channel covered the preliminary report and it says the air boss ordered them to change flight paths. Nothing was mentioned about a drone.

    https://youtu.be/IRVqg-pCb6o

  • by stephen_g on 12/9/22, 3:46 AM

    I saw a good analysis by a pilot who does this kind of formation flying (and I think who knew some of the people involved). I think this is before the preliminary NTSB report was released, so it is speculative, but his view was that there was a pretty good likelihood that the shape of the P-63 probably meant that the pilot probably lost sight of the B-17 for a decent amount of time during the turn, and that while we don't yet know exactly where the planes were supposed to be in the formation, his view from the ADS-B data was that the pattern seemed to be just plain dangerous and shouldn't have been done without vertically separating the slower planes (B-17 etc.) and the faster planes.

    EDIT: I think it was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C342dfNPCyg

  • by ghastmaster on 12/9/22, 4:38 AM

    Nonsense. Utter nonsense. There are multiple video angles of this if you do the research. Dan Gryder has done some research and has come to a very logical conclusion. General aviation is his forte. Check out his analysis: https://youtu.be/prk0j8cveYY?t=1352

    Basically, it appears that the organizer/commander instructed the p-63f to take the 500ft path (distance from the crowd) and the b-17g to move to 1000ft distance while they were at the same altitude. Disorganization from the getgo led to the crash. If you see a general aviation crash and want to know what happened, check out what Dan has to say first.

  • by WalterBright on 12/9/22, 1:05 AM

    Ought to be able to find the wreckage of the drone to confirm.

  • by esaym on 12/9/22, 4:06 AM

    This appears to be the original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfz7eFSX_FU and a heck of a lot clearer.

  • by pastaguy1 on 12/9/22, 3:16 AM

    FWIW, there was a near miss during a blue angels flyover a couple years ago.

    https://youtu.be/Wh3TIy2gtPs

  • by adamsb6 on 12/9/22, 5:14 AM

    That looks a lot like a compression artifact, especially given how it seems to blip out of existence between frames.

  • by dangle1 on 12/9/22, 12:54 AM

    Well, if true, some drone operator now has a lifetime of painful guilt to look forward to.

  • by jpgvm on 12/9/22, 11:48 AM

    No mention of a drone from any of the actually trustworthy sources.

    The sad reality of this incident is that it was likely just a result of poor vertical separation, either due to badly planned flight paths or lack of preparation, more likely both.

  • by vforvendettador on 12/9/22, 12:22 AM

    It's tragic if it's true about the drone. It's my worst nightmare whenever I'm flying these days.