A helicopter carrying President Donald Trump came less than a mile from a passenger jet over D.C. after an air traffic communications failure, a new report alleges.
The close call unfolded after Trump, 80, boarded Marine One at the White House on Tuesday afternoon for a short flight to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One was waiting to take him to Los Angeles.
Air traffic controllers did not halt commercial flights at the nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport as required at takeoff, and the 80-year-old president came within 0.8 miles of lateral distance and 700 feet of vertical distance from an airliner, sources tell The New York Times.
Marine One’s crew made three unsuccessful attempts to warn air traffic controllers at Reagan National that the helicopter was three minutes from takeoff. The controllers appeared not to hear the transmissions, the Times reported, citing two people familiar with the Federal Aviation Administration’s preliminary assessment of the incident.
At one point, the tower acknowledged Marine One’s communication but asked the crew to repeat the message because it “was broken and unreadable,” according to CBS News.
The president’s helicopter took off despite the communications breakdown, putting it near the flight path of Envoy Air 3742, an Embraer E170 regional jet bound for Pensacola, Florida, two sources told Reuters. The E170 jets flown by Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, typically carry 65 passengers.
The tower eventually warned, “Marine One, you’ve got traffic rotating off runway one,” once the helicopter was airborne, prompting Marine One’s crew to delay departure, according to CBS.
The air traffic controllers at Reagan National are required to order a ground stop at the airport when Marine One or emergency flights fly across the Potomac under a policy set last year following the midair collision of a military helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet over the river in January 2025.
When reached for comment, the FAA told the Daily Beast, “Based on our preliminary safety review, there was momentary loss of separation after which the aircraft continued to move away from one another.”
“The air traffic controller was in contact with both the commercial pilot and Marine One pilot during the loss of separation. As the White House has said, the President was never in danger.”
The agency said it would continue to review the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board said it would also investigate the incident.
