Helicopter flights at Washington’s Reagan airport should be partially banned amid ‘intolerable risk’ of collisions with planes – investigators

Some helicopter flights at Washington’s Reagan National Airport should be banned amid an “intolerable risk” of collisions with planes, crash investigators have said.

It comes after 67 people were killed in a mid-air collision earlier this year between a Black Hawk military helicopter and an American Airlines flight as the plane was coming in to land at the airport.

The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said helicopter operations near planes at the airport pose an “intolerable risk” to aviation safety.

As the NTSB issued its preliminary report into January’s deadly crash, chair Jennifer Homendy said the board was calling for action to prevent a similar catastrophe from reoccurring.

Two urgent safety recommendations

One of the board’s recommendations is to prevent helicopters from flying near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when two lesser-used runways are operational.

Ms Homendy said the current separation distance between planes and helicopters at the airport was “insufficient”.

At the moment, helicopters and planes can be as close as 75ft apart during landing, Ms Homendy said, adding it was “far too close”.

Investigators have found 15,214 cases of planes getting alerts about helicopters being in close proximity between October 2021 and December 2024, she added.

Ms Homendy said the NTSB was releasing a report containing two urgent safety recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concerning the helicopter routes near the airport.

Besides proposing the ban on certain helicopter flights, the NTSB is also recommending the FAA create an alternate route that can be used by helicopters when the two secondary runways at Reagan National are in use.

‘It shouldn’t take a tragedy’

Speaking of how the risk hadn’t been identified until the crash occurred, Ms Homendy said: “It does make me angry but it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones.”

The NTSB chair added: “It shouldn’t take a tragedy to require immediate action”.

Read more:
Washington DC plane crash: What we know so far
Remains of all 67 victims of Washington DC plane crash recovered

Asked if there had been an oversight, she said “it’s stronger than an oversight” as there was data between 2021 and 2024 the FAA “could’ve used anytime” to determine that “we have a trend here and a problem here and looked at that route”.

“That didn’t occur which is why we are taking action today but unfortunately people lost lives and loved ones are grieving.”

Inaccurate readings

Investigators have said the helicopter may have had inaccurate altitude readings in the moments before the crash, and the crew may not have heard key instructions from air traffic controllers.

The collision likely occurred at an altitude just under 300ft (91 metres), as the plane descended toward the helicopter, which was well above its 200ft (61-metre) limit for that location.

Following the crash between the passenger jet and the Black Hawk military helicopter, the FAA temporarily barred most helicopters near the airport – located in Arlington, Virginia – until it could review the NTSB’s initial findings.