Topline
Three months after a fatal midair collision between a PSA Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter in Washington D.C., the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged a hotline with the Pentagon has been out of service for years, raising fresh concerns about the co-existence of commercial and military aircraft in the congested capital airspace.
Commercial aircraft were directed to abort landing at Reagan National Airport when a U.S. Army … More
Key Facts
A hotline connecting air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport with their counterparts at the Pentagon had been “inoperable” since March 2022, Franklin McIntosh, deputy head of air traffic control at the FAA, testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
FAA officials only learned of the issue after a May 1 incident, when controllers at Reagan National directed two commercial flights to abort landing attempts because an Army helicopter was circling the Pentagon, McIntosh said.
The Army unit flying the helicopter on May 1 was the same one involved in January’s midair collision that killed 67 passengers on board a commercial jet and Blackhawk helicopter, CNN previously reported.
Following the May 1 flyover, military flights to the Pentagon have been suspended since the incident and will not resume until the hotline is fixed, McIntosh said.
While the FAA has permanently banned helicopters from flying near Reagan National on the same route where the fatal crash occurred, there are exceptions for some use, including presidential flights, law enforcement and lifesaving missions.
Key Background
In its preliminary report on the fatal accident, released in March, the National Transportation Safety Board called for a permanent ban on helicopters near Reagan National. That move followed a review of near misses between helicopters and commercial aircraft near Reagan National from 2011 through 2024, which found at least one incident per month where the threat of a collision was detected. Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, criticized the FAA for failing to recognize the pattern of incidents, noting “there clearly were indicators,” and that the data for the NTSB analysis came from the FAA. At Wednesday’s Senate committee hearing, McIntosh acknowledged the agency “missed something” at Reagan National Airport. In response to a New York Times report last month that the Blackhawk helicopter pilot had been flying too high and failed to heed a directive from her more experienced co-pilot to change course, the Army cautioned “against speculating about potential causes or contributing factors prior to the [National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)] completing its investigation.”
Crucial Quote
“This NTSB action is highly unusual,” Mary Schiavo, Motley Rice aviation attorney and former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said in a statement to Forbes in March. “The release of an emergency recommendation requesting the FAA take immediate action, before the completion of the NTSB investigation is rare.”
