FAA restricts helicopter flights near Washington airport in response to crash

Federal authorities restricted helicopter flights near Washington, DC's Reagan Washington National Airport indefinitely on Friday, two days after a midair collision between a passenger jet trying to land there and a military helicopter killed 67 people.

The Federal Aviation Administration took action to take away the threat of another collision as crews worked to pull the wreckage of America's deadliest air disaster in two decades from the Potomac River.

An FAA official told Reuters that the agency was barring most helicopters from parts of two routes near the airport and only allowing police and medical helicopters to be in the area between the airport and nearby bridges.

The crash has cast a harsh spotlight on questions about air safety and a shortage of tower controllers at the heavily congested airport.

Air space is typically crowded around the Washington area, home to three commercial airports and multiple military bases. The Potomac corridor in particular is busy with airliners and helicopters.

Fresh from recovering the so-called black boxes from the American Airlines plane that crashed after colliding with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday evening, divers aim to salvage the aircraft and find additional components on Friday, Washington's fire department said. Authorities have not pinpointed a reason for the collision.

The FAA is about 3,000 controllers behind staffing targets. The agency said in 2023 that it had 10,700 certified controllers, about the same as a year earlier.

One controller rather than two was handling local plane and helicopter traffic on Wednesday at the airport, a situation deemed "not normal" but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy vowed to reform the FAA.

"I am in the process of developing an initial plan to fix the @FAANews. I hope to put it out very shortly," Duffy said on X on Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board is studying the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ700 aeroplane, which carried 60 passengers and four crew members, all of whom perished in the crash. The three members of the helicopter crew also died.

The military said the maximum altitude for the route the helicopter was taking was 200 feet (61 meters) but it may have been flying higher. The collision occurred at an altitude of around 300 feet, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

President Donald Trump weighed in on Friday by saying that the helicopter involved in the crash was flying too high.

"The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200-foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???" Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, questioned the safety of military and commercial flights separated by as little as 350 feet (107 m) vertically and horizontally. She also urged the government to reconsider allowing so many helicopter flights next to such a busy airport.

Radio communications showed that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter about the approaching jet and ordered it to change course.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience. The Bombardier jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary.

Seven U.S. pilots told Reuters that the landing at Reagan Airport was unique due to congested space along with an inability to communicate directly with military aircraft, which operate on different radio frequencies. The airport also has shorter runways.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter was flown by a "fairly experienced crew" of three soldiers who were wearing night-vision goggles on an annual training flight. Officials said they were grounding other flights from the Army unit involved in the crash and would reevaluate training exercises in the region.

The crash victims included people from Russia, China, Germany and the Philippines, as well as young figure skaters and people from Kansas, the state from which the passenger flight took off.

Trump suggested without evidence on Thursday that diversity efforts championed by Democrats could have played a role. Trump, a Republican, has sought to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion programs since coming into office on Jan. 20.

His comments drew criticism from Democrats and activists.

“How can he make these brash statements when an investigation is barely underway?" said Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network civil rights group. "It doesn’t matter if these were DEI hires or Ivy League hires. What matters is the families who are grieving, who do not want to see this moment politicized by a president bent on peeling back DEI policies."