By Alison Sider and Andrew Tangel

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended permanent restrictions on helicopters flying near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport while certain runways are in use, following a deadly crash in January.

The safety board issued the recommendations Tuesday along with its preliminary report into the Jan. 29 midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, which took 67 lives.

"We remain concerned about the significant potential for a future midair collision at DCA," NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said, referring to Reagan airport.

The NTSB, which is investigating the accident, urged the Federal Aviation Administration to disallow helicopter traffic at Reagan along a certain route while Runway 15/33 is in use. That runway was the destination of the American plane when the Army helicopter crashed into it, sending both aircraft into the Potomac River.

The NTSB also urged the FAA to find another route for helicopters when that runway is in use.

The details

Under the current route design, a helicopter operating over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac at its maximum altitude would have just 75 feet of vertical separation from an airplane approaching Runway 33, Homendy said. That distance decreases if the helicopter is operating farther from the shoreline.

That situation poses an "intolerable risk to aviation safety" and increases the chance of a midair collision, Homendy said.

The FAA has temporarily imposed restrictions on helicopters near the airport. Senior agency officials would like to make restrictions permanent, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Federal officials have said the restrictions on helicopters would be revisited after the NTSB's report is released.

The risk

The NTSB found that aircrafts' proximity to helicopters triggered at least one collision warning a month at Reagan from 2011 through 2024. In over half these instances, the helicopter may have been flying higher than allowed, according to the NTSB's analysis.

"The data we have pulled is from a voluntary safety reporting system that FAA could have used anytime" to identify the trend, Homendy said during Tuesday's press conference. "That didn't occur."

"The data also raises serious questions as to how such a route was allowed to continue when alarm bells were literally going off," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in response to the NTSB's findings.

The FAA and the U.S. Army didn't immediately comment.

The January crash occurred in an area where helicopters aren't allowed to fly higher than 200 feet. The last radio altitude reading from the regional jet showed it was at 313 feet, according to the preliminary report. Data from the helicopter's flight data recorder showed it was at 278 feet at the time of the collision.

The background

The Jan. 29 crash was the deadliest U.S. plane crash in more than two decades.

Accident investigators have been scrutinizing the actions of the pilots, air-traffic controllers, technology and design of the airspace. The NTSB, which investigates the causes of accidents and makes recommendations, is expected to issue a final report with the accident's probable cause and contributing factors in coming months.

Then it will be up to the FAA to determine how best to implement the recommendations.

Airline executives said travelers were unsettled by the crash, which was followed by another accident a few weeks later when a Delta regional jet crash-landed and flipped over in Toronto.

While nobody was killed in the Delta crash, the accidents contributed to a general unease about air safety that depressed bookings during the first quarter, airlines said.

"There's a whole generation of people traveling these days that didn't realize these things could happen. And they can," Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian said Tuesday at an investor conference.

Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 11, 2025 15:53 ET (19:53 GMT)

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