The decision comes after the National Transportation Safety Board issued an urgent recommendation to limit helicopter operations near the D.C. airport.
Aircraft landing at Reagan National Airport (Photo: Shutterstock | Ceri Breeze)
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) gave an urgent recommendation Tuesday for the Federal Aviation Administration to limit helicopter operations near the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
The decision comes after January’s midair collision between a PSA Airlines CRJ-700 jet and U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River.
According to an NTSB news release, the federal agency recommended the FAA permanently prohibit helicopter operations near the DCA Airport while runways 15 and 33 were being used for arrivals or departures.
In its 10-page urgent recommendation report, the NTSB called the allowance of these aviation activities “an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chance of a midair collision.”
The NTSB explained that helicopters flying on the Route 4 helicopter corridor at the highest authorized altitude of 200 feet could have only about 75 feet of vertical separation from an airplane on landing approach to Runway 33.
“[T]he lack of separation was insufficient and said vertical separation could potentially be even less than 75 feet depending on the helicopter’s lateral distance from the Potomac River shoreline or if an approaching airplane was below the designated visual glidepath to Runway 33,” the NTSB release stated.
Investigators examine wreckage from the CRJ-700. (Photo: NTSB)
The NTSB also published its 20-page preliminary report regarding the accident on Tuesday.
The report recounted the timeline of PSA Airlines flight 5342 prior to the collision. It also reviews the experience of the pilots who were flying the aircraft.
According to the report, both the captain and first officer piloting flight 5342 held transport pilot certificates with type ratings for the CL-65 – which includes the CRJ-200, CRJ-700, and CRJ-900 airplanes.
The captain had accumulated about 3,950 hours of flight experience, of which around 3,024 hours were in the CRJ-700.
The first officer had 2,469 total hours of flight experience, of which about 966 hours were in the CRJ-700.
The flight crew of the Black Hawk helicopter – flying under callsign PAT25 – consisted of an instructor pilot, pilot, and a crew chief. According to information provided to NTSB by the U.S. Army, both pilots were current and qualified in the accident helicopter.
“The [instructor pilot] held the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 2 and had accumulated about 968 total hours of flight experience, of which about 300 hours were in the accident helicopter make and model,” the NTSB report stated. “The pilot held the rank of Captain and had accumulated about 450 total hours of flight experience, of which about 326 hours were in the accident helicopter make and model. The crew chief held the rank of Staff Sargeant and had accumulated about 1,149 total flight hours, all of which was in UH-60 helicopters.”
The NTSB’s investigation into the cause of the incident is still ongoing.
“[Analysis] comes later in our investigation,” said NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homandy during a press conference on Tuesday. “Right now, we are still in the fact-finding phase of this investigation. I often say that the easiest and quickest part of the investigation is determining what happened. The part that takes longer is the ‘how’ and ‘why.’”
Following the NTSB report, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy reportedly said the helicopter ban near the DCA airport will continue per NTSB’s safety recommendation.
“How did the FAA not know that this was a hotspot,” he said, according to an X post by CNN Aviation Reporter Pete Muntean on Tuesday afternoon.
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) issued an emailed statement responding to the NTSB’s preliminary report findings and call for prohibiting helicopter travel near the airport.
ALPA President Jason Ambrosi said the union was grateful to the NTSB for its report, and ALPA will continue efforts to help advance aviation safety.
“ALPA pledges our full support to the continued investigation and to work with government and industry stakeholders to implement the NTSB safety recommendations, including the ones issued by the Board today,” Ambrosi said in the emailed statement. “We will continue to work diligently to advance aviation safety and honor the legacies of those lost by ensuring such tragedies are never repeated.”
“We continue to strongly support the Federal Aviation Administration’s decisive action to restrict helicopter operations near Washington National Airport and support the NTSB’s safety recommendation to continue this restriction,” he continued. “While our pilots are the most highly trained in the world and fully capable of navigating complex airspace, removing this risk factor represents a significant safety improvement.”
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