On February 6, Salvage crews are working to recover the remains of the nearby Potomac River, where American Airlines jets and Black Hawk helicopters collided into the air as the jet was about to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 29th.
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Jose Luis Magana/AP
The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said there are “severe safety issues” in the airspace surrounding Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
NTSB's Jennifer Homedin asked the Federal Aviation Administration to implement several “urgent safety recommendations” at a press conference Tuesday. Her comments follow the release of a preliminary investigation report on a January 29 airborne collision between the US Army Black Hawk helicopter and the American Airlines regional jet that were about to land at DCA airport.
Both aircraft plunged into the ice Potomac River, with all 67 people on board.
Homedy described flight patterns around the DCA as “extremely unbearable risks” as helicopters and commercial aircraft operate in close proximity to each other in busy airspaces in the US capital. She says an analysis by the NTSB found that over the 13 years from 2011 to 2024 there was at least one “close call” per month between commercial planes and helicopters operating at DCA.
In more than half of these encounters, the helicopters were operating higher than they should have, with two-thirds of the instances at night, Homedy said.
The January crash occurred at night, with the crash at 278 feet. The helicopter was supposed to be flying under 200 feet. The NTSB previously said it is unclear whether the helicopter altimeters are showing appropriate altitudes for the pilots.
The new NTSB analysis further determined that DCA had a total of 944,179 commercial operations between October 2021 and December 2024. Meanwhile, there were 15,214 “melee events” between commercial planes and helicopters. Of these, 85 had horizontal separations of less than 1,500 feet horizontally and less than 200 feet vertically.
Jennifer Holmey, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, will speak at a press conference at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. The NTSB has issued a report urging the FAA to take immediate action on safety recommendations regarding possible airborne collisions near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Alex Wong/Getty Images hides captions
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Alex Wong/Getty Images
“This was not an isolated incident, it was a symptom of wider failure in our aviation safety system,” said the 18 families killed by the jet in a statement. “The NTSB report sheds light on key factors in this event, but reinforces what we are already suspected, as the victims' families are already suspected. The serious failure of air travel continues to cost the lives of our loved ones and threaten public safety.”
“It makes me mad. I feel incredibly devastated for a family who is grieving because they have lost a loved one,” Homendy said. She told reporters that the FAA may have used the same publicly accessible data that the NTSB did in its analysis. “Tragedy should not be taken to demand immediate action.”
The council warned. “The NTSB report provides ample data that this helicopter route and commercial airline landing route should not be allowed to coexist,” said D-Wash Sen. Maria Cantwell. “The data also raises serious questions about how such routes will continue when the alarm bell is literally gone.”
Homedy has called on the FAA to make some “urgent safety recommendations.” She said the FAA should “permanently ban helicopter operations” near the DCA if certain runways are being used to arrive or depart. She praised Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, who temporarily introduced these restrictions after the collision until March 31st.
It didn't take much time to act.
Shortly after the NTSB press conference, Duffy held herself and accepted both NTSB safety recommendations. He permanently restricted the operation of non-essential helicopters around the DCA, eliminating mixed helicopters and fixed wing traffic. He also said the FAA will deploy artificial intelligence tools to sift through data from the country's airspace systems and take preemptive action to avoid future disasters. “How did the FAA know? Maybe they were focusing on something other than safety. But this administration is focusing on safety,” Duffy said.
Homedy said the NTSB is also looking into other factors in the investigation, including what pilots of each aircraft may see or hear minutes before the accident. The NTSB also investigates possible roles of air traffic controllers.
The FAA is being scrutinized due to a long-standing shortage of air traffic controllers. Last month, the Trump administration began firing hundreds of FAA employees as part of the federal government's efforts to cut workers. Duffy said the layoffs were not of existing controllers or “critical safety personnel.” Still, government ministry Elon Musk appealed to an air traffic controller who recently returned to work and retired.
The air collision was the most fatal aviation accident in the United States since 2001. A complete NTSB investigation is expected to take about a year.
Joel Rose of NPR contributed to this story from Washington, DC and David Shaper in Chicago.
