Delta Air Lines flights approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia on July 2, 2022. On Thursday, two commercial jetliners had to cancel their landing at the airport for the Army Black Hawk helicopter. Stefani Reynolds/AFP hides captions via Getty Images
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Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says it is “unacceptable” that two commercial jetliners had to cancel their landings at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this week for the Army Black Hawk helicopter.
Thursday afternoon came three months after 67 people died in an airborne collision between Blackhawk and passenger jets near the airport.
Chris Sen, assistant manager of the Federal Aviation Administration for Government and Industrial Affairs, said in an email reported by Politico that the Army helicopter “takes a scenic route around the Pentagon, as opposed to direct from the west to the heliport.”
Sen said the helicopter violates safety standards, requiring that the air traffic controllers order two commercial jet liners, perform a “go-around operation,” abort the landing and return to a different approach.
There were restrictions on helicopter flights near the airport at the airport following an airborne collision between the Black Hawk helicopter and the American Airlines regional jet that was about to land at the DCA on January 29th. It has been the most fatal aviation accident in the United States since 2001.
“It’s not acceptable. The restrictions on helicopters around DCA are transparent,” Duffy said in a post on Social Platform X.
The FAA said the incident that occurred around 2:30pm on Thursday included Delta Line Flight and Republic Airlines flights. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are both conducting research.
Duffy said he was talking to Pentagon officials about “why our rules were ignored.”
In March, after the release of a preliminary investigation report for the crash in January, NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy described flight patterns around the DCA as “extremely unbearable risks” as helicopters and commercial aircraft operate close to each other in Washington’s busy airspace.
The NTSB analysis found that between 2011 and 2024 there was at least one “close phone call” per month between commercial planes and helicopters operating at the airport.
Duffy permanently restricted non-essential helicopter operations around the DCA.
In late March, close calls between the Delta plane and the Air Force jet outside Washington caused a crash warning and “correction instructions” from an air traffic controller.
