Air traffic controllers will use radar, not just visual checks, to ensure that helicopters maintain a safe distance from arriving and departing airplanes in the wake of last year’s fatal midair collision near Washington, D.C., federal officials announced Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said recent near-misses show that previous guidelines for pilots to maintain visual separation between helicopters and airplanes have failed to provide adequate protection around busy airports.
Under the new guidelines, air traffic controllers must use radar to keep helicopters and airplanes apart by specific lateral or vertical distances. The new requirement applies to more than 150 of the nation’s busiest airports, extending a restriction already put in place at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
“Today, we are proactively mitigating risks before they affect the traveling public,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a news release. “Following the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), we looked at similar operations across the national airspace. We identified an overreliance on pilot ‘see and avoid’ operations that contribute to safety events involving helicopters and airplanes.”
Officials also specifically mentioned a Feb. 27 near-miss in which a police helicopter had to turn to avoid an American Airlines flight that was landing at San Antonio International Airport in Texas. A similar close call happened on March 2, when a helicopter had to turn away from a small aircraft that had been cleared to arrive at California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport, officials said.
The January 2025 collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 people, making it the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001. Among other factors contributing to the crash, investigators said controllers in the Reagan tower overly relied on asking pilots to spot aircraft and maintain visual separation.
The night of the crash, the controller approved the Black Hawk’s request to do that twice. However, investigators say the helicopter pilots likely never spotted the American Airlines plane as the jet circled to land on the little-used secondary runway.
Many of the people who died were young figure skaters and their parents and coaches who had just attended a development camp in Wichita, Kansas, after the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were held there.
Photo: The air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is seen, Feb. 1, 2025, in Arlington, Va., near the wreckage of a mid-air collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet in the Potomac River. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
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