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Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Bongino Brief. I'm Dan Bongino. You know what, guys? I'm going to skip the bell today. I don't usually do that, but given the tragic circumstances, that's usually more of a celebratory event for me starting the show, but I'm not. This is going to be deadly serious stuff today. So let me ask some open questions first.
If you're just waking up, getting the news, maybe you're out in the West Coast, Reagan Airport, There was a flight. It was descending, getting ready to land in what is unquestionably very congested airspace. There are a lot of programs, some I'm familiar with, we're obviously not going to be talking about, that involve tracking a lot of these incoming and outgoing aircraft.
It's a very congested area. It is not a huge airport. It is a very tough place to land due to the congested space. Aircraft is landing. It is a flight from Wichita, Kansas. Gets into a collision with a Black Hawk helicopter on an Army training mission, according to what Secretary Hegseth said. It doesn't appear at this point that there are any survivors.
Appears going to be close to 60 plus souls lost, which is horrific, obviously. So some open questions first, which we'll address. And we have some footage going on here, too, that we're going to get to. and footage of the crash, which I'll warn you, you may not wanna see it, but it's important that we cover it accurately. Number one is these aircraft,
not so much the helicopter, but the airplane involved, they have this crash avoidance system built in that if you've done anything with FAA, TRACON, TFRs, ADASs, FRIZs, air security picture stuff, which we do, you're pretty familiar with how this works. I'm not a pilot. I'm not the Wikipedia pilot. I don't pretend to be a pilot.
I'm just telling you things we've dealt with, having dealt with the air security picture often. Was that off when you get within a certain landing distance and a certain altitude? Was it working? Was it is it off? Is it off automatically? Why didn't it go off? Was it, you know, when they get below a thousand feet?
As I saw a couple of people commenting this morning, was that crash avoidance system not working or does it just go off with a below that certain altitude? So that'll be an open question, because obviously that's what this system is designed to avoid a crash like what happened. Second, was it a case of target fixation where sometimes you'll talk to these?
I will never forget one of the White House military aides was a helicopter pilot, talked to me often about flying at night, how it was difficult for him to operate at night without night vision. Also talked about things like target fixation and things like that, crowded battlefields. Did they... the helicopter pilots, were they fixated on an aircraft taking off and did they miss the one landing?
That's a big miss. Obviously a tragic one. Were they fixated on the wrong target? Open question. Third question, was there night vision involved? Did it have anything to do with the closing of the visual field? I believe the night vision was available from what I'm hearing from early reports, but it's an open question because until I get a conclusive answer, I'm applying the Bongino rule here.
Fourth is the obvious one. Just how did this happen flight path-wise? This is a known flight corridor that's very busy. How did this happen? Is it an altitude issue? Obviously, we're going to wait for some reporting on that. And then fifth, the uncomfortable question people have to ask. I see it as highly unlikely. I want to say that in advance, but it'd be irresponsible not to at least consider
Was there a possibility that some of this was maybe not accidental? I just want to say in advance, given from what I've heard from a number of pretty good sources and some media homework I've been doing, that seems highly unlikely. However, applying the Bongino rule works both ways. Don't draw conclusions means don't draw conclusions.
It doesn't mean don't ever ask a question ever for the rest of your life. Then what's the purpose of this show? So those are five open questions I have right now. Let's check out the VO, the voiceover. Sorry for using lingo. We'll talk over. You can see the video here on the screen right now. You see it right there.
Obviously, it's not the greatest video, but you can see the aircraft on descent into the runway. And then you'll see at the end, obviously, a flashing light. That's the crash between right there, between the helicopter aircraft. And the plane lands in the Potomac. It apparently inverted at some point. It's in three pieces. Again, an unimaginable tragedy. And I use my words carefully.
I have flown in and out of that airport so many times. As have many of you. It's nothing specific to me. I actually enjoy flying out of Reagan. It's very convenient. It's one of the reasons that D.C. lawmakers will do almost anything to keep that airport open and running. I don't know if you know this, but there was some significant talk after 9-11.
about closing that airport because of its proximity. Now, it would be inappropriate completely for me to comment on these matters, but I think it's a matter of public information out there.
There are obviously programs to control and monitor the air traffic there because, ladies and gentlemen, you make one wrong turn, you're on top of the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol like that. There is really very little time for contingency operations to take place. After 9-11, there was some talk about closing Reagan. However, the convenience of it, lawmakers use it.
The talk about closing, it has now pretty much disappeared. The only talk now is how to expand it. So there is significant traffic that comes in and out of there. More in a minute, but first. Have you seen the news from some economists forecasting a depression? Not a recession. Depression. by the year 2030.
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Text DAN to 98989 and get your free info kit on gold and a copy of the Ultimate Guide for Gold in the Trump Era with a foreword by Donald Trump Jr. There's no obligation, only information. I buy my gold from Birch Gold. You can trust them too. Text my name, DAN, to the number 989898 today. Message and data rates apply. Secretary Hegseth issued a statement.
Secretary Pete Hegseth, of course, Secretary of Defense. Aisha Hosni reported on the statement on her Twitter feed. She's a reporter from Fox. Quote, this was an annual proficiency training flight. It was a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation. They did have night vision goggles. We'll see if they were using them or not.
That's why I'm going to leave that an open question. The 12th Aviation Battalion, as of now, was granted a 48-hour operational pause on contingency missions as what happened is reviewed. Obviously, Secretary Hegseth's a guy I trust. He's not going to lie to us. When we get some conclusions on what happens, I'm sure he'll be the one to tell us. Let me say as well,
I have a lot of personal connections to the cabinet secretaries involved. They have been in office for less than a few days, including Secretary Hegseth, who just swore in. Secretary Duffy, Sean Duffy, former congressman, another close personal friend. I mean, obviously the father of Evita, who's, I mean, it's just obvious, one of the hosts of our show here.
So we have a lot of close personal ties. Secretary Duffy just swore in yesterday. yesterday so talk about i mean they won on a job so his briefings have been as good as you can expect at this point but he just got there he just got there dealing with this unimaginable tragedy um I want to play this. It's a clip from CNN. Disregard that it's CNN for a second.
Sometimes on these matters, I just go to the commentators. This guy is a subject matter expert, a guy by the name of Pete Muntean. But this is a really, really informative clip where he's talking about Again, I'm trying not to talk about this like I'm some kind of like new Wikipedia pilot. I am not an expert on this. Let me say this in advance. I am not a pilot.
But I have been on both of these aircraft, Blackhawks, and obviously just flying at the Reagan many times. If you've ever been on a Blackhawk, you'll notice right away that these helicopters are typically designed for air-to-ground missions. You know, they're not typically air-to-air missions. They're designed for air to ground missions, especially these.
So when you look at the visual field of the helicopter, it's hard to see up, but relatively easy to see down.
I want you to listen to this guy, Pete Muntean on CNN, who explains pretty well, this clip's about a minute 30, but it's worth your time, about if there was a visual obstruction and this is just a catastrophic, we didn't see him and we crashed into each other, which we'll never know because it appears everybody's dead at this point. And the Blackhawk, from what I know, does not have a black box.
Obviously the aircraft does, the airplane. I want you to listen to how the visual obstruction may have played into this. Check this out.
If you can take me live for a second, I can sort of demonstrate with my hands what the crews were and were not able to see. And so the helicopter, the Black Hawk helicopter, appeared to be coming from the right of the commercial flight that was descending into runway 33. It's a particularly perilous
situation for pilots because they can often not see very well below them as helicopter crews are often looking at the ground, flying primarily in reference to the ground, especially in a very critical phase of flying as a crew is descending, making that final critical approach to landing. They are focused primarily on the runway and primarily on their instruments.
They're not necessarily looking left and right, scanning for other traffic. This may be something where the crew simply just did not have the ability to see the helicopter and the situation unfolding in front of them. This is something that aviation experts have warned me about over and over since the start of 2023 when we saw these commercial flight near collisions take off.
in the United States. Many of them became under the watchful eye of the National Transportation Safety Board and were the result of very sweeping probes. Those situations never involved an actual collision. What we are seeing now is the result of the warnings. It very much is the worst case scenario.
So there's a lot in that clip. Obviously, I would prefer you listening to experts who are actual transportation, aerial transportation experts, aviation experts on visuals and how it works, because it's not my specific area of expertise. But what he's saying there is accurate from someone who's flown on these many times. And in why I was in that area, I'll have to leave for another day.
But I've flown up and down the Potomac many, many times on Blackhawks, many times. the visuals are not great, especially what he just described. Pilots looking at the ground, very difficult in the helicopter to see up. I'm not telling you that's what the reason is or the only reason. I'm just telling you you should consider it. What he's saying there is not inaccurate.
Also, at the end, there have been consistent problems with the FAA for a long time. The left's first impulse here disgustingly has been to politicize this. Let me just tell you in advance, it's a shame I have to cover this the way I will. We'll take President Trump when he's live in a few minutes. However, the media are disgusting.
They're going to make cheap politics out of a situation that has been ongoing for a long time. I have to fight back. That is my job, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not going to let you be misled by communist media propaganda. So that was a clip from the Dan Bongino Show. You can watch the full show on Rumble.
All you have to do is go to rumble.com slash Bongino, where we go live every weekday at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you there. The Dan Bongino Show. If you'd like to hear more, subscribe to the Dan Bongino Show wherever you get your podcasts.