There was a near miss involving a jet and a helicopter near Washington’s Reagan National Airport once a month for 13 years before the crash that killed 67 people in January, according to a new report into the tragedy.
The “vast majority” of Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System alarms were triggered as jets approached on landing.
In some cases, the planes might have been as close as 75 feet to the helicopters below.
According to National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, the chopper routes posed “an intolerable risk to aviation safety.”
The close calls were revealed in the NTSB’s preliminary report released Tuesday of its investigation into the cause of the mid-air collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet on Jan. 29.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Homendy said that in about half of the incidents, the helicopters may have been “above the route altitude” restriction and two-thirds happened at night.
She said there were 944,179 commercial operations at the D.C.-area airport between October 2021 and December 2024 and during that period there were 15,214 occurrences of “close proximity” between a plane and a helicopter.
In 85 of those incidents, the aircraft was less than 1,500 feet away from the helicopter and less than 200 feet above, she added.
The distance between the two could close to 75 feet in a section of the eastern Potomac River where jets descend to land on Runway 33.
Homendy said she is recommending to the Federal Aviation Authority that helicopter routes near runways 33 and 15 should be shut down when planes are taking off and landing.
The NTSB boss suggested last month that faulty data may have been to blame for the January clash and that the helicopter crew probably had no knowledge of the impending collision.
She commended Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had “restricted helicopter traffic from operating over the Potomac River at DCA until March 31,” but added: “As that deadline nears, we remain concerned about the significant potential for future midair collision at DCA.”
But Homendy insisted air travel was still safe.
“DCA is where I always fly out of,” she added. “Your biggest personal risk is driving your personal vehicle to the airport.”
