Close calls at Washington DC airport raise questions about why changes weren’t made before crash
When Congress pushed ahead last year with adding 10 new daily flights to Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration had data showing an unnerving number of near misses in the already-crowded skies — something lawmakers apparently did not know. The FAA, which manages the nation’s airspace and oversees aviation safety, had data on dozens of incidents that experts said documented a safety concern. That data didn’t prompt any action before January’s deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jetliner and a military helicopter that killed 67 people. “Why someone was not paying attention to those numbers and those events are questions yet to be answered,” said James Hall, a former National Transportation Safety Board chair during the Clinton administration. “What not to do is to ignore that many incidents.” Data collected by the FAA shows close calls were far more frequent than travelers and outside aviation experts knew at Reagan National, which was built to handle 15m passengers a year, not the 25m traveling through it annually. Now, safety experts and family members who lost loved ones in the Jan. 29 crash are asking why action wasn’t taken earlier. The NTSB said airplane pilots were alerted to take evasive action to avoid hitting helicopters at least once a month from 2011 through 2024, citing data compiled by the FAA, and that there were 85 near misses when aircraft were within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other during recent years. “How does that happen in this day and age and somebody doesn’t do something about it?” asked Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, died in the crash. Pilots have long worried about the congested and complex airspace around Reagan National, near the heart of the capital, where flights must maneuver around military aircraft and restricted areas. It was no secret there had been previous close calls, but the numbers found by the NTSB were alarming.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2025-03-14/general/close-calls-at-washington-dc-airport-raise-questions-about-why-changes-weren2019t-made-before-crash
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
Close calls at Washington DC airport raise questions about why changes weren’t made before crash
When Congress pushed ahead last year with adding 10 new daily flights to Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration had data showing an unnerving number of near misses in the already-crowded skies — something lawmakers apparently did not know. The FAA, which manages the nation’s airspace and oversees aviation safety, had data on dozens of incidents that experts said documented a safety concern. That data didn’t prompt any action before January’s deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jetliner and a military helicopter that killed 67 people. “Why someone was not paying attention to those numbers and those events are questions yet to be answered,” said James Hall, a former National Transportation Safety Board chair during the Clinton administration. “What not to do is to ignore that many incidents.” Data collected by the FAA shows close calls were far more frequent than travelers and outside aviation experts knew at Reagan National, which was built to handle 15m passengers a year, not the 25m traveling through it annually. Now, safety experts and family members who lost loved ones in the Jan. 29 crash are asking why action wasn’t taken earlier. The NTSB said airplane pilots were alerted to take evasive action to avoid hitting helicopters at least once a month from 2011 through 2024, citing data compiled by the FAA, and that there were 85 near misses when aircraft were within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other during recent years. “How does that happen in this day and age and somebody doesn’t do something about it?” asked Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, died in the crash. Pilots have long worried about the congested and complex airspace around Reagan National, near the heart of the capital, where flights must maneuver around military aircraft and restricted areas. It was no secret there had been previous close calls, but the numbers found by the NTSB were alarming.<br/>
