The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released more information about a close call at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that occurred in March, two months after a fatal air collision in the same airspace.
On July 3, NTSB issued a preliminary report on the March 28 incident. This involved commercial passenger jet and military aircraft, similar to the January collision.
The report suggests that a misunderstanding or misunderstanding between air traffic controllers at the two facilities led to the takeoff when Delta Airbus A319 was not occurring.
At the time, four U.S. Air Force Northrop T-38 Talon Training Jets squadrons were running overpass missions at Arlington National Cemetery.
The T-38 route was to take the Potomac River northwest and across the northern tip of the airport. According to the NTSB's initial report, the delta jet was located approximately 0.5nm (1km) of the T-38.
The agency has not stated what appears to be the cause of the loss of separation event, but the preliminary report reveals Air Traffic Control (ATC) newsletter before the closure.
At 14:41 local time, a supervisor at the Federal Aviation Administration's Potomac Integrated Terminal Radar Approach Control (Tracon) Center told Reagan National's lead controller that the T-38 has “target time.”
Therefore, the Tracon supervisors instructed the Tower to plan a “17 downtime.” This means that the tower will pause departure at 15:17.
However, then at 15:02, the Tracon controller gave the T-38 pilot a different time at the 15:15 target.
Ten minutes later, at 15:12, the Tracon supervisor contacted the tower again and said, “I stopped all departures and I'm 17 now.” It is unclear why the supervisor referred to the time.
Tower Controller replied, “17 difficult times to stop all departures.” As was first said, the tower is still expected to cease departure at 15:17.
Meanwhile, the Reagan National Controller continued to remove the aircraft. One of them was Delta Flight 2983, which was cleared to take off from Runway 19 at 15:15.
As the delta jet was rolling, the trancon supervisor arrived at the tower again, asking why the aircraft was taking off, and all takeoffs stopped. The Tower Controller hopes to pause the departure at 15:17, saying it is too late for the Delta Jet to stop.
The A319 is just south of the airport and was closest to the T-38 flying down the Potomac River. At the time, the T-38 was east of the Delta Jet flying northwest.
The NTSB investigation is underway.
The same goes for an agency's investigation into an airborne collision on January 29th near the same location. That night, the US Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk collided with the PSA Airlines MHIRJ CRJ700 Regional Jet, the moment it landed at Reagan National.
The incident killed all 67 people on both aircraft – 64 on the CRJ700 and three on the Black Hawk. Preliminary information suggests that the Black Hawks flew higher than their assigned altitude.
