FAA adopts NTSB DCA recommendations in wake of fatal crash
March 18, 2025
In the wake of January’s fatal collision between a PSA Airlines regional jet and a US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter close to Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA), the FAA is to adopt a number of urgent safety measures proposed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) last week.
The NTSB recommendations came in the wake of an incident which claimed 67 lives, with an initial investigation concluding that existing helicopter transiting permissions and inadequate vertical separation distances (a maximum of 75ft) posed “an intolerable risk to aviation safety”.
Announced on 14 March, the FAA will now be “permanently restricting non-essential helicopter operations around DCA and eliminating helicopter and fixed-wing traffic,” with a pre-existing transit corridor (Route 4) to be permanently closed between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge. As recommended by the NTSB, alternative helicopter routes will now be recommended.
The NTSB had recommended Route 4 operations be prohibited when DCA runways 15 and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals respectively, although acknowledged that with 15/33 only accounting for 5% of departures and 4% arrivals, its closure would “likely be infrequent”. Over and above initial recommendations, the FAA has now decreed that the simultaneous use of runways 15/33 and 4/22 will also be prohibited when helicopters conducting urgent missions are operating near DCA.
With the NTSB also acknowledging that closure of the route could invariably “still negatively impact public safety helicopter operations,” the FAA has clarified that what it terms “essential” helicopters performing an “urgent mission” will still be granted clearance. Lifesaving medical, priority law enforcement or Presidential transport missions will now be kept as-yet-unspecified “specific distances from away from airplanes,” explained the NTSB.
Finally, the use of visual separation to certain Coast Guard, Marine and Park Police helicopters will be limited to outside of the restricted airspace. This builds on an NTSB evaluation of voluntary safety reporting data from 2011 to 2024, indicating that two-thirds of potential airprox encounters occurred at night.
“The era of threading the needle between commercial and military traffic is over,” commented US transportation secretary Sean Duffy. The FAA, meanwhile, is continuing its analysis of airports that have high volumes of mixed traffic, including eight cities with chartered helicopter routes and offshore helicopter operations.
