Updated March 12, 2025 at 03:23 AM ET
The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board says that "there's a serious safety issue" in the airspace surrounding Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The NTSB's Jennifer Homendy called on the Federal Aviation Administration to implement several "urgent safety recommendations" during a Tuesday news conference. Her comments followed the release of a preliminary investigation report into the Jan. 29 midair collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, which was attempting to land at DCA airport. Both aircraft plunged into the icy Potomac River, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
Homendy described the flight patterns around DCA as "an intolerable risk" as helicopters and commercial planes operate in close proximity to each other in the busy airspace over the U.S. capital. She says an NTSB analysis found that in a 13-year period from 2011 to 2024, there was at least one "close call" each month between a commercial plane operating at DCA and a helicopter.
In over half those encounters, Homendy said, the helicopter was operating higher than it should have been, and two-thirds of the instances were at night.
The January crash happened at night, and the collision occurred at 278 feet. The helicopter was supposed to be flying no higher than 200 feet. The NTSB said previously that it's unclear whether the altimeters in the helicopter were showing the pilots the proper altitude.
The new NTSB analysis further determined that between October 2021 and December 2024, there were a total of 944,179 commercial operations at DCA. During that time, there were 15,214 "close-proximity events" between commercial airplanes and helicopters. Of those, 85 had a horizontal separation of less than 1,500 feet and were less than 200 feet apart vertically.
"This was not an isolated incident, but a symptom of broader failures in our aviation safety system," said 18 family members of those killed on the jet in a statement. "While the NTSB's report sheds light on key factors of this event, it also reinforces what we, as the families of the victims, already suspected: serious, systemic failures in air travel safety cost our loved ones their lives and continues to threaten public safety."
"It does make me angry. I feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones," said Homendy. She told reporters the FAA could have used the same publicly accessible data that the NTSB did in its analysis. "It shouldn't take a tragedy to require immediate action."
Congress has taken note. "The NTSB report provides ample data that this helicopter route and the commercial aviation landing route never should have been allowed to coexist," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "The data also raises serious questions as to how such a route was allowed to continue when alarm bells were literally going off."
Homendy called on the FAA to make several "urgent safety recommendations." She said the FAA needs to "permanently prohibit helicopter operations" near DCA when certain runways are in use for arrivals or departures. She applauded Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who put these restrictions in place temporarily after the collision until March 31.
It did not take Duffy long to act.
Not long after the NTSB news conference, he held his own, accepting both NTSB safety recommendations. He permanently restricted non-essential helicopter operations around DCA and eliminated mixed helicopter and fixed-wing traffic. He also said the FAA is deploying artificial intelligence tools to sift through data in the nation's airspace system to take preemptive actions to avoid future disasters. "How did the FAA not know? Maybe there was a focus on something other than safety. But in this administration we are focusing on safety," Duffy said.
Homendy says the NTSB is also examining other factors in its investigation, including what the pilots of each aircraft might have seen or heard in the minutes before the accident. The NTSB will also investigate the possible role of air traffic controllers.
The FAA has been under scrutiny for a yearslong shortage of air traffic controllers. In the last month, the Trump administration began laying off hundreds of FAA employees as part of a federal effort to cut back on workers. Duffy said none of the layoffs were of existing controllers or "critical safety personnel." Still, Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency pleaded last month with air traffic controllers who have recently retired to return to work.
The midair collision was the deadliest aviation accident in the U.S. since 2001. The full NTSB investigation is expected to take about a year.
NPR's Joel Rose contributed to this story from Washington, D.C. and David Schaper in Chicago.
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