KDCA 3/1/25 1100-1430Z TCAS TA/RA phantom alerts & go-arounds

[baldiedc]

Back on morning of Saturday 3/1 between 1100-1430Z (6-9:30am), multiple aircraft on approach to DCA Rwy 19 reported 'phantom' TCAS TA's and RA's resulting in 3 go-arounds, no one reported seeing anything visually.

Here's cut from Tower feed spanning 1100-1430Z, heavily edited down for content and time.  FAA investigating per news reports.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dc-airport-false-collision-alerts/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=763871777

See attached approach map for Rwy 19 for DARIC and GREYZ locations.

11:25:45 JIA5328 3 TAs - Kennedy center and 2 prior
11:27:35 JIA5153 3 TAs - directly over river by RORRK, headed NW along the river
11:28:17 JIA5153 traffic 800ft above
11:28:57 JIA5153 another TA
11:44:22 JIA5639 TA prior to SLAKR just after RORRK
11:50:00 AAL1611 TA 600ft RORRK and SLAKR
11:53:07 JIA5261 RA/descend +400ft above & another target 800ft - GO AROUND
11:54:19 JIA5647 TA
11:55:40 JIA5444 TA
11:58:15 EDV5006 TA "right on top of us"

12:00:15 JIA5261 TA @ RORRK
12:21:35 JIA5312 RA - GO AROUND
12:25:00 RPA4576 TA
12:29:45 JIA5312 TA @RORRK
12:45:05 RPA4549 RA - GO AROUND

13:19:00 RPA4717 TA @1800-2000ft target 700ft below

14:04:33 RPA4469 RA @1200ft; continued to land "something diving straight onto us"
14:06:46 RPA4538 TA 600 ft above
14:07:00 JIA5197 TA before DARIC no altitude
14:10:44 RPA5802 RA over GREYZ @1200ft; RA to descend, target 200ft above, saw nothing; continued to land
14:12:15 JIA5146 TA at 11 o’clock

(all times Zulu)

[Rick108]

Very interesting - I wonder what is going on over there?  And just to clarify, those waypoints are RORRK (on the River Vis 19) and SLAKR (on the RNAV Y 19).

[baldiedc]

Great thanks for clarifying those waypoints I couldn't get them, was using opennav.com which I guess isn't so open - it doesn't have RORRK and puts SLAKR in GA

[baldiedc]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/aviation-flights-white-house-tcas-drones.html

The mystery began to unravel on March 27, when Ted Cruz announced at a Senate hearing, “It’s now come to my attention that these warnings were caused by the Secret Service and the U.S. Navy and improperly testing counter-drone technology.”

But then, a few days later, a reliable government source told me the Secret Service had been testing equipment at the Naval Observatory, which is the vice-president’s official residence. “They didn’t tell anyone or coordinate with anyone,” the source said. “Once it became known that this was causing issues throughout the area, they worked with the FAA.” As for the nature of the equipment that was being used, “I don’t know what they were installing, or what the reason was that they installed it.”

The story added up. The Naval Observatory lies east of the Georgetown Reservoir, in the general direction from which the phantom signals had appeared. It is nearly two miles away from where the aircraft received the spoofed RAs, meaning the perpetrators must have used customized hardware of the type that Longo had described in his presentation seven months before.

When I pressed the Secret Service, a spokesman essentially confirmed my source’s version of events, writing by email: “The U.S. Secret Service continues to review the circumstances of this event in order to better understand the specifics of how these alerts occur and ensure our systems do not interfere with commercial air-traffic operations.”

A spokesperson for the FAA tells me, “We were able to pinpoint the source and correct it and there were no further issues.”