Shorouk Express
The National Transportation Safety Board has found that helicopter traffic out of Ronald Reagan International Airport posed an “intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a mid-air collision” ahead of a crash in January that resulted in the deaths of over 60 people.
“It is stronger than an oversight,” said NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at a news conference in Arlington, Virginia, where the DCA airport is located, on Tuesday while announcing the agency’s preliminary report into the incident.
Sixty-seven people were killed on January 29, when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington D.C. American Airlines Flight 5342 was on its descent from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people on board, as three soldiers on the helicopter participated in a training mission.
It’s believed the service members were traveling above their 200-foot allocated air clearance and wearing night-vision goggles that could have obscured their vision.
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Black Hawk helicopters frequently flew along Route 4, an airway spanning from Hains Point to Wilson Bridge in Washington D.C., before the U.S. Transportation Department restricted the airspace after the crash until March 31.
The restriction does not apply to helicopters entering the airspace for lifesaving medical support, active law enforcement, air defense and presidential transport, but operations outside of those exemptions are prohibited.
“As that deadline nears, we remain concerned about the significant potential for a future mid-air collision at DCA, which is why we are recommending a permanent solution today,” Homendy said. “We believe a critical safety issue must be addressed without delay.”
Homendy called on the Transportation Department to bar helicopter operations along the route when airport runways one, five and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals, in addition to establishing an alternative route to facilitate military and law enforcement travel when the route segment is closed.
The agency is not issuing a recommendation for an alternative route, instead requesting the Federal Aviation Administration determine a suitable airway.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy agreed to implement the recommendations following Homendy’s remarks.
Through initial data analysis, NTSB investigators found airport officials fielded one traffic collision alert per month from 2011 to 2024 due to helicopters. Over half of those instances showed helicopters may have been above the 200-foot route altitude restriction. Two-thirds of those incidents occurred at night.
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Moreover, a significant percentage of the close calls involved helicopters flying along Route 4 and planes landing on Runway 33, the same landing strip that was to be used by the American Airlines flight.
Additionally, from October 2021 through December 2024, there were 15,214 instances of close proximity events between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than one nautical mile and vertical separation of less than 400 feet. The airport logged 944,179 flights during that time.
Within the last two and a half years, there have been 85 near misses within 200 feet of vertical separation.
Existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on the route and airplanes landing on the runway are insufficient, Homendy stated.
Responding to a reporter’s question regarding her sentiments about the collision, Homendy said: “It does make me angry, but it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones.” Several of the crash victims were children and their parents returning to the DC area from a figure skating competition.
The chairwoman noted that the data the NTSB used to compile its report was pulled from a voluntary safety reporting system that the FAA had access to.
“They could have used that information any time to determine that we have a trend here and a problem here and looked at that route. That didn’t occur,” she said.
The Independent has emailed the FAA for comment.
Speaking at a separate news conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy voiced his outrage at the FAA, an agency under his control.
“How did the FAA not know?” Duffy questioned, raising his voice. “How did they not study the data to say, ‘Hey, this is a hot spot. We’re having near misses, and if we don’t change our way, we’re gonna lose lives.’ That wasn’t done. Maybe there was a focus on something other than safety.”
Duffy said the Transportation Department would be suggesting an alternate route for helicopters soon. The military appeared to approve of the changes, Duffy stated, following a conversation he had with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier Tuesday.
Carveouts for law enforcement and presidential missions will remain in place, but Mary Schiavo, an aviation attorney and former inspector general at the Transporation Department, worries that could lead to a slippery slope.
In her opinion, the FAA, which she refers to as the “tombstone agency” due its history of issuing reactive measures, is negligent in failing to take action before the crash. She anticipates the agency and U.S. Army will be facing litigation in the near future brought by families of the victims.
“This data is stunning,” Schiavo told The Independent. “DCA was in a very special, precarious position.”
Had Duffy not immediately adopted the NTSB’s recommendations, DCA would’ve remained the “most dangerous airport in America,” she said.
Schiavo commended Homendy’s rare action in issuing urgent guidance, noting she’s rarely seen the chairwoman as furious as she appeared Tuesday.
“I think she wanted to save people’s lives,” said Schiavo. “Because if this action didn’t happen, others will die.”
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The DCA tragedy marked the first in a series of US aviation disasters at the start of the year. Two days after the incident, a medevac jet crashed in a residential and commercial area of Philadelphia, killing six people on board, including 11-year-old Valentina Guzmán Murillo and her mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna, 31.
The pair had just left Shriners Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, where Valentina spent five months receiving life-saving treatment. The aircraft, en route to Tijuana International Airport in Mexico with a planned refueling stop in Missouri, crashed after a minute in the air.
The NTSB issued its preliminary report on the Philadelphia crash last week but did not state what might’ve caused the incident.
In another major aviation accident on February 17, a Delta plane from Minneapolis, Minnesotta, crash-landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport with 80 people on board, causing the aircraft to flip upside down.
Commenting on the safety of air travel, Homendy stated she had just flown out of DCA airport with her daughter.
“Aviation is incredibly safe,” Homendy continued. “DCA is where I always fly out of. I say often that your biggest risk is in your personal vehicle when you’re going to and from the airport. Aviation is safe. However, there are safety issues and areas where we need to improve.”
