By Susan Ferrechio The Washington Times
Air traffic controllers concerned about safety were denied a request to decrease the number of arriving aircraft at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before the deadly midair collision last year between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet.
A Federal Aviation Administration official sat on the May 9, 2023, request from air traffic controllers in Warrenton, Virginia, according to an internal FAA memo made public by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The air traffic controllers, who work at Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control, or PCT TRACON, sought a decrease in the number of hourly commercial aircraft arrivals into Reagan Airport, which operates the nation’s busiest runway and is the main airport used by congressional lawmakers.
The PCT TRACON team cited several safety factors in their request, including an inability to meter arriving aircraft to maintain the required 4-mile spacing, which made it difficult to manage traffic flow.
Their request sought to reduce the number of arrivals at the airport’s main runway from 36 to 32 per hour.
An FAA official, now retired and serving as the agency’s Washington district general manager, resisted forwarding the request up the chain of command, according to the memo.
Members of the PCT TRACON team said they never received a formal written answer to their request. An unidentified official said the request would not be forwarded up the FAA management chain to avoid the wrath of House and Senate lawmakers.
Lawmakers depend on frequent flights in and out of Reagan Airport to travel to and from their districts. At the time, they were also advancing legislation to expand the number of “slots” granted to airlines to fly in and out of the airport.
“It’s too political,” air traffic controllers were told, according to an internal memo released in June. The memo is part of the NTSB’s investigation into the cause of the Jan. 29, 2025, collision.
The NTSB is expected to hand down dozens of new safety recommendations when the board votes Tuesday on a final report about the probable cause of the deadly crash, just days before the anniversary.
People familiar with the investigation said the report may not include a recommendation to reduce the number of flights into and out of Reagan Airport.
Air traffic controllers’ warnings about Reagan Airport’s congested flight paths have been muffled by concerns about other factors in the crash, particularly the crew operating the Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
The helicopter flew into the American Airlines flight 5342 as the plane was on final approach to the airport’s lesser-used Runway 33.
Crew members were wearing night-vision goggles, which limited their peripheral vision, and were flying 78 feet above the permitted altitude when the helicopter flew directly into the jet’s path.
The crash killed 64 passengers and crew members of the jet as well as the three crew members aboard the Black Hawk helicopter.
On Thursday, one week before the anniversary of the crash, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a permanent restriction on helicopter operations over certain areas near the airport.
The move will close the route the Black Hawk took on the night of the crash and modify other zones and routes to keep helicopters farther from flight paths into the airport.
More safety changes are expected after the NTSB announces its proposed findings, probable cause and recommendations.
Although the NTSB isn’t expected to call for reduced slots, it may recommend provisions in an aviation safety bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican.
Mr. Cruz’s legislation, now stalled in the House, does not address the growing number of slots at Reagan Airport.
Mr. Cruz was among the chief sponsors of the 2024 legislation that added five daily round-trip slots at the busy airport. One of the round-trip slots was awarded to Texas-based American Airlines for nonstop service to San Antonio.
Mr. Cruz’s legislation would require technology that alerts pilots to other aircraft, including a mandate that aircraft entering busy commercial airspace be equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, In equipment, which provides weather and traffic positions of other planes directly to the cockpit.
The NTSB report may address the frequency of arriving aircraft. Shortly after the crash, the number of arrivals was reduced to 28 per hour.
The reduction isn’t permanent, which means arrivals could eventually return to 34 or 36 flights per hour, reviving all the safety threats along with it.
The number of arrivals has crept up to 30 per hour.
A source familiar with the investigation said arrivals before the crash sometimes exceeded 50 per hour.
The Washington Times reached out to the Transportation Department, which oversees the FAA.
The NTSB documents released in June note that air traffic controllers resorted to “continual mitigation” to manage incoming planes as a result of the airport’s packed arrival and departure schedules.
Among the frequently used strategies to address congestion was offloading arrivals to Runway 33, where American Airlines Flight 5342 was redirected to land moments before the collision.
Because of the last-minute change, the aircraft’s pilots broke off their final approach and circled toward Runway 33.
The shorter, less frequently used runway required a more complex approach, and it put the American Airlines passenger jet directly over the corridor where the Black Hawk helicopter was traveling.
In the 90 seconds before the crash, the air traffic controller in charge of the airspace at Reagan Airport was managing 12 aircraft, including five helicopters.
The air traffic controller allowed the Black Hawk to continue on its route rather than holding it while the passenger jet approached. The helicopter was flying too high and may not have heard the air traffic controller’s final warning to pass behind the jet. The helicopter was traveling incognito, having silenced its ADS-B system that alerts other aircraft to its presence. The air traffic controller did not follow the standard procedures requiring an alert to the passenger jet about the helicopter.
“Controllers were essentially used to, and had begun accepting as the status quo, situations and actions that were both objectively and by the book unsafe. They weren’t even recognizing unsafe situations, like the one on January 29th, because they were happening all the time,” a person familiar with the investigation said. “And they were happening all the time because there was too much traffic coming in and out of the airport.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
