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, as Reuters reported.
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.
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.”
According to Homendy, the Transportation Department should prohibit helicopter operations along the route when airport runways one, five, and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals.
Following the release of the report it was recommended that the Transportation Department establish an alternative route to allow travel for law enforcement and military personnel when the segment of the route is closed.
This organization has thus far only made the request of the FAA to find an appropriate airway; it is not offering any alternate routes.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded to Homendy's comments and consented to comply with the suggestions.
Initial data analysis by the NTSB revealed that between 2011 and 2024, airport officials received one traffic collision alarm each month as a result of helicopters.
The helicopters may have been operating above the 200-foot route altitude restriction in more than half of those reports. Two-thirds of those incidents took place during the night.
Additionally, helicopters flying along Route 4 and planes landing on Runway 33 accounted for a significant amount of the near misses.
There were 15,214 instances of close proximity events that took place between commercial aircraft and helicopters from October 2021 to December 2024, in which the lateral separation distance was less than one nautical mile and the vertical separation was less than 400 feet.
About 944k flights were recorded at the airport during that period. Within the past two and a half years, 85 near misses have occurred within a vertical separation of 200 feet.
