(WASHINGTON) — The National Transportation Safety Board chairman called for immediate changes at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, saying the current helicopter routes around the airport “pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety.”
Chairman Jennifer Homendy said the NTSB is recommending that the Federal Aviation Administration permanently ban helicopter operations near Reagan when runways 15 and 33 are in use.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has “restricted helicopter traffic from operating over the Potomac River at DCA until March 31,” Homendy said at a news conference Tuesday. “And I want to commend him for that and commend the work of the FAA to also take swift action.”
However, “as that deadline nears, we remain concerned about the significant potential for future midair collision at DCA,” she said.
Homendy outlined a history of close calls at Reagan and offered a solution as the NTSB continues to the investigate the devastating crash between an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed all 67 people on board both aircraft.
The crash happened on the night of Jan. 29 when the PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people on board, was about to land at Reagan (DCA). The three soldiers on the helicopter were conducting an annual training flight and night vision goggle check ride for one of the pilots at the time when the two aircraft collided. Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River.
Between October 2021 and December 2024, there were 944,179 commercial operations at Reagan, Homendy said. During that time, there were 15,214 close proximity events between commercial airplanes and helicopters, she said.
Encounters between helicopters and commercial aircraft near Reagan show that, from 2011 through 2024, a vast majority of reported events occurred on approach to landing, she said.
Homendy said last month that there was no indication the helicopter crew involved in the January crash could tell there was an impending collision.
The soldiers may have had “bad data” on the altitude from their altimeter, as the pilots had differing altitudes in the seconds before the crash, Homendy said. One helicopter pilot thought they were at 400 feet and the other thought they were at 300 feet.
The transmission from the tower that instructed the helicopter to go behind the plane may not have been heard by the crew because the pilot may have keyed her radio at the same second and stepped on the transmission from ATC, the NTSB added.
The Black Hawk crew was likely wearing night vision goggles throughout the flight, Homendy said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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