Recovery equipment on the Potomac River after the collision.
A collection of “systemic failures in airspace design, safety oversight, and risk management” are among the probable causes of the Jan. 29, 2025, midair collision of a passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
Among those systemic failures was the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) placement of a helicopter route that nearly intersected the approach path to Runway 33, the agency’s failure to regularly evaluate that helicopter route and others, and its “failure to act on recommendations to mitigate the risk of a midair collision” near the airport, the NTSB said Jan. 27 after a 10-hour hearing to discuss the accident and its causes.
Also among the probable causes were the air traffic system’s “overreliance on visual separation … …
