The Federal Aviation Administration will adopt two emergency recommendations issued by the Federal Safety Commission to reduce and reroute helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., after passenger jets and Army helicopters killed 67 people on Jan. 29.
U.S. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, announced changes to the press conference on Tuesday. The recommendations included limiting the busy helicopter route that Army Blackhawk used along the Potomac River on the night it collided with an American Airlines regional jet.
Duffy also said he spoke with the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses about carving out alternative routes for military operations around the restricted airspace of the National Airport. Duffy said there are several exemptions for medical emergency, law enforcement, and for travel for the president and vice president.
“We are in a situation where the helicopter is passing needles so that it can fly in the same airspace as the landing aircraft,” he said.
The announcement comes hours after the National Transportation Safety Board created the recommendations. This was based in part on a review of data in recent years where thousands of instances of planes and helicopters have been found in close proximity to each other near airports.
Board chair Jennifer Homunty said at a press conference that the NTSB discovered between 2011 and 2024 that emergency plane warnings were triggered at least once a month, instructing pilots to take emergency action to avoid hitting nearby helicopters. Airline pilots are expected to follow alerts known as resolution recommendations rather than other commands that include air traffic control instructions.
In more than half of these instances documented in voluntary safety reports and FAA data, it is possible that the helicopters were above the permitted altitude of the route. Two of three of these threats of conflict took place in the evening.
Investigators have tried to understand why the Black Hawk exceeded its route's maximum height and how it led to the passenger jet route.
In response to data reviews and other findings, the Safety Commission recommended that helicopter traffic be permanently banned along most of the corridor known as Route 4, where the Blackhawk was traveling on the night of the collision, while the FAA was using the airport runway 33.
Runway plane traffic accounts for less than 10% of departures and arrivals, so helicopter closures will be limited, the NTSB said.
We also recommended that the FAA specify an alternative helicopter route if that segment is closed to helicopter traffic.
“We have determined that the existing separation distance between the traffic of helicopters operating on Route 4 and the aircraft landing on Runway 33 is insufficient, poses a risk that aviation safety cannot bear,” Homundi said at a press conference.
Duffy criticized past FAA administrations for failing to identify the safety risks helicopters pose to commercial planes landing at national airports despite helicopters having access to available data worth years of value of available, which highlights the issue.
The NTSB recommendations have stepped up recent calls from the FAA Congress and U.S. airlines, and permanently restricted helicopter traffic around the national airport.
In a statement, a group of families of some of the victims who fell victims said they would promote permanent reforms.
“The NTSB report sheds light on key factors in this event, but reinforces what we are already suspected, as the victims' families are already suspected. The serious failure of air travel continues to cost the lives of our loved ones and threaten public safety,” they said in a statement.
The recommendations were shared along with preliminary reports prepared by NTSB crash operators about their initial discoveries at the event that led to the crash of the plane.
