A National Transportation Safety Board review of the mid-air collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jetliner in January 2025 found that the Federal Aviation Administration was plagued with systemic safety issues before the crash that killed 67 people.
“The Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Organization had many opportunities to identify the risk of midair collisions between airplanes and helicopters at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. However, their data analysis, safety assurance, and risk assessment procedures failed to recognize and mitigate that risk,” the board shared its findings.
The investigation suggests that the helicopter’s flight path was dangerously close to the path taken by conventional aircraft. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the FAA was supposed to conduct an annual review of the safety of helicopter runways, but the board could not find evidence of that review taking place.
The NTSB also notified the FAA of 15,214 near misses, 85 of which were critical. Investigators said at a hearing Tuesday that a review of the near-miss is being conducted on a case-by-case basis.
“The details were in their plans,” Homendy told reporters. “This was 100% avoidable.
There was no good safety culture at the FAA’s operating arm, the Air Traffic Organization, NTSB investigators said, as some employees reported facing retaliation for raising safety issues.
Although safety concerns have been raised about air collisions at the DC airport, investigators say, the Air Traffic Organization has failed to respond to these concerns. Tower staff also assembled their helicopter task force to “repeatedly” raise concerns and deliver recommendations, Homendy said.
At the hearing, Homendy also said there were “concerns about the FAA’s overreliance on AI,” but stopped short of making any connection between the incident and the use of AI.
“They have to be careful about using AI to find trends, making sure it doesn’t dilute other reports,” Homendy said. According to NTSB chief data scientist Loren Groff, the FAA has been using AI to sift through a large number of inspection reports.
“There really needs to be a human understanding of what all these things mean together,” Groff said.
The chairman also pointed out that the FAA has not learned from its mistakes.
“Commercial airlines have called me and said the next mid-air is going to be in Burbank, and no one at the FAA is paying attention,” Homendy said.
Investigators say the FAA still doesn’t have a set definition of what constitutes a near miss.
In addition to the FAA’s inadequate safety measures, the Army’s aviation safety system was also riddled with failures, the report said. The military failed to provide adequate resources for aviation safety management in the operation of the DC helicopter and did not have a good safety culture, according to the investigators.
The issue of near-calls in aviation is something the NTSB has been sounding the alarm for years. Back in 2023, Homendy told a US Senate panel that near-miss incidents are on the rise, and it’s a sign of a struggling aviation system.
“We cannot wait until a fatal accident forces action,” Homendy said at the time.
What happened on Jan. 29?
On January 29, 2025, over the Potomac River in Washington DC, an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines regional flight from Wichita, Kansas, as it was about to arrive at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington DC. This incident has been considered as the worst plane crash in the world since 2001.
The tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport handled both helicopter and airplane traffic simultaneously. The tower was understaffed at the time, but the Board found that there were still enough workers to split the control positions. The decision rested with the operations manager, who had been on the job for a long time and the investigators believe that “the lack of mandatory help times for air traffic control personnel” could have led to poor performance.
“Keeping helicopter control and local control points together continuously on the night of the accident increased the local controller’s workload and negatively impacted his performance and situational awareness,” the report found.
Controllers notified the helicopter of an approaching passenger plane, but failed to alert the helicopter crew. The pilots could not see the helicopter coming, and the plane had no collision avoidance systems that could have warned the pilots of the danger posed by the helicopter.
When warned, the helicopter crew said they had eyes on the incoming plane, but they may have mistaken it for another plane, because the controller did not specify the route or distance.
The helicopter was flying about 100 meters above its maximum altitude, and the crew may have seen an incorrect altitude reading. According to the NTSB’s findings, the FAA and the Army failed to identify “inconsistencies” between the error tolerances of the barometric altimeters on the helicopters and the helicopter’s runway, meaning the helicopters were “frequently” flying higher than they should and could cross runways.
“It is possible that incorrect settings may exist in some aircraft in use throughout the Department of the Army’s armed services,” the board concluded.
