Comment by godshatter

Shouldn't the dispatcher have given more precise directions than "follow the river"? If they had said "take a right and follow the river", this wouldn't have been a problem. I suppose they were used to professional pilots knowing what was meant, but they were already working to fit a small plane into a larger system presumably filled with mostly larger jets from commercial airlines that flew in and out of that airport regularly. Although I do agree that the pilot should have had no-fly zones at the top of their mind when flying in or around D.C.