The National Transportation Safety Board has issued an urgent call for action as a result of the Jan. 29 collision between a passenger jet and a helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport.
The collision killed all 64 people aboard the jet, operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA, and all three aboard the Army Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter that struck the jet.
The NTSB said that the long-established route followed by helicopters, referred to in the report as Route 4, is fraught with danger.
“Existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on Route 4 and aircraft landing on runway 33 are insufficient and pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a midair collision,” the NTSB said in its report on the incident.
The report called for that helicopter route to be banned when runways 15 and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals. The PSA jet was heading for runway 33 when the collision took place.
The NTSB also recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration develop an alternate helicopter route for times when the existing one is not allowed to be used.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, called the report “highly unusual” according to Axios.
“The release of an emergency recommendation requesting the FAA take immediate action, before the completion of the NTSB investigation is rare,” she said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that he will follow the recommendations, with the exceptions of VIP and life-saving flights.
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The report said helicopters and planes are simply too close together.
“At an altitude of 200 ft, a helicopter operating over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River would have about 75 ft of vertical separation from an airplane approaching runway 33, and this distance decreases if the helicopter is operated farther from the shoreline,” the report said.
The report said that data from “2011 through 2024 indicated that a vast majority of the reported events occurred on approach to landing.”
“Initial analysis found that at least one traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) resolution advisory was triggered per month due to proximity to a helicopter. In over half of these instances, the helicopter may have been above the route altitude restriction. Two-thirds of the events occurred at night,” the report said.
The report said that between October 2021 and December 2024 “there were 15,214 occurrences between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than 1 [nautical mile] and vertical separation of less than 400 ft. There were 85 recorded events that involved a lateral separation less than 1,500 ft and vertical separation less than 200 ft.,” the report said.
The report’s bottom line was that “existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on Route 4 and aircraft landing on runway 33 are insufficient and pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a midair collision.“
The report noted runways 15 and 33 account for 5 percent of departures and 4 percent of arrivals.
NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said the 75 feet of separation reported was an “intolerable risk to aviation safety,” according to ABC.
“It does make me angry. But it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones,” Homendy said. “It shouldn’t take tragedy like this to occur. Unfortunately, one did, and so we are calling on action, but there clearly were indicators where safety trending could have occurred.”
Families of the collision’s victims said in a statement the NTSB report shows that “serious, systemic failures in air travel safety cost our loved ones their lives and continues to threaten public safety.”
“This was not an isolated incident, but a symptom of broader failures in our aviation safety system,” the statement said. “If the necessary reforms had been implemented sooner, Flight 5342 likely would have landed safely and our family members would be home with us.”
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