A review of incident reports reveals that pilots and air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport (DCA) had raised concerns about helicopters and airplanes flying too close for at least three decades. Some reports warned that the flight space was 'an accident waiting to happen,' eerily foreshadowing the fatal collision.
Megan ChristieAll 67 victims killed in the helicopter and plane collision have been recovered from the Potomac River, the Unified Command announced Tuesday.
The safety reports were filed with the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a program established by the FAA and managed by NASA that enables professionals within the aviation community to voluntarily and confidentially report safety concerns and incidents in a non-punitive manner. In 2015, the flight crew of a regional jet reported a near mid-air collision when it was switched from landing on runway 1 to runway 33 at DCA, coming "within very close contact" of a helicopter also in air. The safety report continues, "This occurred about 400 feet off the ground to the point where the pilot monitoring had to take the controls to make a correction in order to prevent it from becoming a midair collision.
One airplane captain reported a near mid-air collision with a helicopter in April 2024, writing, "We never received a warning of the traffic from ATC so we were unaware it was there." The captain urged "better separation for DCA traffic on the river visual to the helicopter traffic that is flying up and down the river."
In a separate incident report filed in 1997, an airplane first officer detailing a close encounter with a military helicopter said, "I was not comfortable with the level of safety involved with flying within 400 ft of a heli and that is considered a normal op."
AVIATION SAFETY AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AIRPLANE COLLISION REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT BLACK HAWK HELICOPTER
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