One year after Reagan National midair collision, safety concerns remain

One year after a midair collision on Jan. 29, 2025, above Washington, D.C., concerns about safety at Ronald Reagan National Airport persist, according to victims’ families, regulators and people familiar with the control tower. The Federal Aviation Administration has reduced hourly flights into the airport and closed the air route the Army helicopter was using, the agency said, and an F.A.A.

spokeswoman, Hannah Walden, said the agency and the transportation secretary have taken steps to correct failures and modernize the national airspace. The tower now employs 22 of the 30 controllers it is approved for, up from 19 at the time of the collision, and is working with eight trainees, according to F.A.A.

figures. But two people who have spent time in the tower recently said morale remains low, and N.T.S.B. investigators and others described controllers as highly distressed after the crash, including an incident in which one controller punched another and was arrested. Policy fixes have also stalled.

The F.A.A. briefly required the Army to use a cockpit broadcasting system for training flights but that requirement was removed in the annual defense bill. The Senate has passed an aviation safety bill that would restore the requirement and include other measures, but the bill faces opposition in the House; Representative Sam Graves has said he will wait for the N.T.S.B.

Key Topics

Politics, Reagan National Airport, Federal Aviation Administration, Ntsb, Army Black Hawk, Sam Graves