The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report Tuesday on its investigation into the horrific crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport (DCA) in January. In conjunction with that report the NTSB issued a second report “urg[ing] the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take immediate action on the safety recommendations … concerning the potential for midair collisions” between helicopters and passenger planes on taking off or landing at DCA.
According to the Aviation Investigation Report (emphasis added):
“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.”
Because of that, the NTSB detailed two urgent recommendations to the FAA:
Prohibit operations on helicopter Route 4 between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge when runways 15 and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals, respectively, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. (A-25-1) (Urgent)
Designate an alternative helicopter route that can be used to facilitate travel between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge when that segment of Route 4 is closed. (A-25-2) (Urgent)
Investigators listening to cockpit voice recorders on both the American Airlines jet and the UH-60 helicopter noted that there were multiple times in which portions of what the air traffic controllers told the UH-60 pilots didn’t appear to have been heard in the cockpit, and that on at least one occasion the UH-60 pilot and the instructor pilot gave air traffic control two different altitude readings (one said they were at 300 feet, the other said they were at 400 feet).
At 2043:48, PAT25 was about 1.1 nm west of the Key Bridge. According to the helicopter’s CVR, the pilot indicated that they were at 300 ft. The IP indicated they were at 400 ft. Neither pilot made a comment discussing an altitude discrepancy.
Almost two minutes later, the UH-60 was still at 300 feet, and the instructor pilot (IP) told the pilot to descend to 200 feet.
“At 2045:30, PAT25 passed over the Memorial Bridge. CVR data revealed that the IP told the pilot that they were at 300 ft and needed to descend. The pilot said that they would descend to 200 ft.”
However, the report found that the UH-60 was at 278 feet at the time of impact, 2047:59, almost two and a half minutes later, and that the pitch had been steady at 0.5 degrees nose up for the prior five seconds.
The preliminary report also found that a conflict alert was audible in both cockpits in the background of an ATC radio transmission, and that an automated advisory from the airplane’s TCAS system was received by the American Airlines crew.
At 2047:39, or 20 seconds before impact, a radio transmission from the tower was audible on both CVRs asking the PAT25 crew if the CRJ was in sight. A conflict alert was audible in the background of the ATC radio transmission.
At 2047:40, the crew of flight 5342 received an automated traffic advisory from the airplane’s traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) system stating, “Traffic, Traffic.” At this time, the aircraft were about 0.95 nm apart, as shown in Figure 3.
According to Motley Rice aviation attorney and former Inspector General of the U.S. DOT, Mary Schiavo:
“This NTSB action is highly unusual. The release of an emergency recommendation requesting the FAA take immediate action, before the completion of the NTSB investigation is rare. They cited 15,214 helicopter/commercial airplane close calls between 2021 and 2024, labeled the helicopter route an intolerable risk to aviation and demanded an immediate permanent closure.
“In half of the close calls the helicopter was above its altitude restriction; two-thirds of these events were at night. The NTSB noted that it found this data on data bases readily available to the FAA and which the FAA should have been reviewing for safety trend analysis, but apparently was not. The NTSB noted that the conflict alert in the ATC tower was clearly audible at 20 seconds before the collision.”
Schiavo also stated in her opinion “the FAA ATC was required to alert the commercial flight and take action to resolve the conflict.”
