Senators grill aviation leaders over 15,000 close calls at DC airport before deadly collision

Senators on Thursday grilled several aviation leaders during a hearing concerning the January midair collision between an America Airlines commercial jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter that resulted in the deaths of 67 people.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation, cited a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board in his opening statements, noting that the agency’s investigation found thousands of close-call incidents near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport over a three-year period.

'Specifically, even since the crash, certain safety measures that could have been simply implemented still have not been.'

“Sixty-seven lives that were lost on January 29 were taken prematurely in an accident that by all indications should have been avoided,” Moran stated.

He called the statistics in the NTSB’s preliminary report “alarming.”

“In a 13-year period, not a single month went by without at least one ‘close call’ between a helicopter and a commercial jet operating at DCA,” Moran continued. “Between October ’21 and December ’24, there were 85 incidents where the lateral separation between a commercial jet and helicopter was less than 1,500 feet and the vertical separation was less than 200 feet.”

The NTSB’s report stated that during the same period, of the 944,179 operations, 15,214 were considered “near midair collision events” between commercial planes and helicopters. The report defined those close calls as instances where two aircraft were “less than 1 [nautical mile],” or roughly 6,000 feet, of lateral separation and “less than 400 ft” of vertical separation.

The NTSB also found that “a helicopter operating over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River would have about 75 ft of vertical separation from an airplane approaching runway 33, and this distance decreases if the helicopter is operated farther from the shoreline.”

Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the NTSB, told senators, “There’s virtually no margin of error.”

Chris Rocheleau, the Federal Aviation Administration’s acting administrator, was pressed about how the agency failed to address the safety concerns.

“How did we get to this point?” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked Rocheleau. “It’s like it’s a series of errors here.”

“What office said this is a safe pathway in agreement when the NTSB is telling us today it never really was safe? It was an intolerable risk,” she stated.

Rocheleau explained that the airspace was redesigned several times in the past.

“When you talk about how did we get there, I think we’re going to learn more of that through the investigation,” he replied.

Rocheleau stated that the FAA’s air traffic system requires “modernization as soon as possible.”

“I can assure to the flying public: to fly is safe. We have the safest, most complex system in the world, and it is safe to fly. I would also say the air traffic system is in dire need of upgrade,” he said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned Brigadier General Matthew Braman, the U.S. Army aviation director, about a controversial policy that allows flights to operate with the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, a key safety system, turned off.

“I find that shocking and deeply unacceptable. And I want to encourage the Army right now to revisit that policy and to revisit that policy today,” Cruz told Braman. “I can tell you, if the Army chooses not to, I have a high level of confidence that Congress will pass legislation mandating that you revisit the policy.”

Family members of the victims also attended the Senate hearing.

Dailey Crafton, the brother of 40-year-old Casey, a husband and father of three who died in the collision, told the Daily Caller that he was “surprised” by the safety lapses.

“Specifically, even since the crash, certain safety measures that could have been simply implemented still have not been. Accountability is still not being taken by parties who should be held responsible,” he said.

Tracy Brammeier, a partner at Clifford Law Offices, which is representing the families, stated, “The failure to share details about near-midair collisions, or to perform trend analysis on the history of such incidents, or otherwise take action to address the high number of occurrences is completely unacceptable.”

“All entities who failed to take action must be held accountable to the victims’ families and to the flying public,” Brammeier added.

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