Deadly plane, helicopter collision renews concerns over airport ‘squeezed’ to its limits

(InvestigateTV) — Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport makes for an easy commute for many of Congress who have long championed adding new, direct flights from their home districts to the nation’s capital — including the route flown by the regional jet involved in Wednesday night’s crash.

The direct route from Wichita, Kansas was just added to the federally limited number of flights into Reagan last year, ahead of lawmakers recently clearing the way for even more flights into the airport.

These additions have been allowed despite warnings from local officials and aviation experts that the airport is already “squeezed” to its limits — and years of reports from pilots and air traffic control personnel of close calls in Reagan airspace.

Close Quarters Can Cause Disaster

Having flown in and out of Reagan or “DCA” countless times, retired commercial pilot Doug Rice knows the challenges of flying into better than most.

“I might fly in and out of there two or three times in a couple of days,” Rice told InvestigateTV. “It can get crowded.”

However, given the airport’s position on the Potomac River and its proximity to a variety of military and other federal facilities, Rice said it isn’t just those utilizing the airport that are utilizing the airspace.

“When Marine One is coming or going, you’ve got three helicopters plus the ships, plus the police helicopters around it,” he said. “So you might have six or eight helicopters all coming up and down the river, all very close formation.”

Rice calls it a “helicopter highway,” with police and military helicopters — such as the one that crashed into the incoming Wichita flight — regularly sharing the sky over the nation’s capital with commercial airliners.

And federally-collected data shows that the potential for those close quarters to result in disaster has long been reported to regulators and discussed by those in the industry.

InvestigateTV found dozens of reports about close calls at DCA have been made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows pilots, air traffic control personnel and others in the aviation space to voluntarily report incidents and safety concerns.

From 2010 to 2024 at least 27 reports were made regarding near midair collisions around the airport — 12 of them indicating a close call with a helicopter.

One report from May 2013 described a very similar situation to what was preliminarily observed Wednesday evening, with a enger aircraft approaching runway 33 in close proximity to a helicopter:

“The Tower then asked the helicopter if he had us in sight. He replied ‘yes’; and the Tower told him to maintain visual separation,” the report reads. “As we began our turn from base to final; the helicopter made what looked like a right turn directly into our flight path.”

According to the report, written by the first officer on the flight, a collision was only narrowly avoided thanks to an evasive maneuver by the captain.

“I’m not sure how close we came to the helicopter since it was on the left side of the aircraft, but I would guess it was only a few hundred feet,” the first officer wrote.

A similar occurrence was reported in 2015.

“Can’t Squeeze Much More Than That in There”

At times, DCA handles as many as one flight each minute.

“You really can’t squeeze much more than that in there,” former FAA Michael Whitaker said in a February 2024 House committee hearing.

With congestion, comes safety concerns — InvestigateTV found the NTSB has conducted three investigations into air traffic-related events at the airport since 2010, including one into a close call in early 2024 when a plane coming in from Virginia was in the direct path of an American Airlines flight to Boston that had been cleared for takeoff. The incoming plane was able to abort landing.

Still, last year many in Congress began fighting to add more flights into the mix, calling established limits on Reagan “archaic,” and the Federal Aviation istration Reauthorization Act included a provision that would add five incoming and outgoing flights to DCA.

During a hearing on the bill, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said more flights into the airport would make things less difficult for several groups of people trying to travel to D.C.

“[The limit] makes it difficult for military personnel serving in places like San Antonio or business people who want to come back and forth or simply families that want to come and visit the nation’s capital. This makes it unnecessarily difficult for each of them,” he said.

However, critics have argued that it’s the of Congress themselves who would benefit from these added flights, helping them more conveniently travel back and forth from their districts to D.C.

Not All Lawmakers Liked the Change

Some lawmakers close to Washington, D.C. have argued against the move.

Last March, senators from Maryland and Virginia wrote to their colleagues on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee calling DCA “overburdened” and citing “high-profile incidents and near misses” as the reason why more flights should not be added.

After the two planes almost collided last spring, Sen. Tim Kaine, who was a co-author of the letter referenced above, took his plea to social media.

He tweeted that the incident underscored DCA was at its capacity. He also reiterated that jamming in more flights would be “a threat to public safety.”

Ultimately, the bill ed, with the FAA asserting more flights could be safely managed.

The five new direct routes approved by Congress and announced in October include San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas.

Further Reaction after Wednesday’s Crash

For Kaine and others, Wednesday’s incident only reinforces their previous concerns.

“I’ve been very, very concerned about this complex airspace, commercial, military — and the way that the security demands of being the nation’s capital puts some significant restrictions on it,” Kaine said. “I am really worried about that. And I’ve been praying there wouldn’t have been, there wouldn’t be something like last night but kind of dreading in my heart that there would be.”

Former NTSB Board Member John Goglia said he and others in the industry are closely watching the ripples of Wednesday’s crash — and hoping there might now be an appetite for change.

“Sometimes politics looks very narrowly at a subject. And in this case, Washington National needs a broad view.”

The ripples began with dozens of flight diversions rerouting engers from New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Seattle and more.

While the diversions were important immediate responses in the moment, Goglia believes solving other issues will be much harder.

“The problem is trying to get them from under the table to the top of the table. And maybe this accident will now provide the momentum to take this whole airspace issue in and around D.C. and put it on top of the table because we’ve been putting Band-Aids on it for 40 years.”

President Trump took questions from the White House on Thursday including on the number of flights in and out of the DCA.

“I think we need very smart people running the flights and doing it,” Trump answered. “You know the ones that aren’t good, well, they’ll either do one of two things. They’ll have too many coming in and they can’t handle it, or they’ll have the people waiting up in the air, which everyone’s been caught in that situation and circling the airports for an hour. That’s no good either.”

National investigative reporters Brendan Keefe and Stephen Stock as well as Associate Producer Charlie Roth contributed research for this report.

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