The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned that it has launched an investigation after two close to-crashes occurred at Reagan Washington National Airport on Thursday.
The company mentioned air traffic controllers had instructed two flights to abort landings at Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) on Thursday after sighting a U.S. army helicopter flying towards the Pentagon close to their airspace. FAA’s Chris Senn mentioned through electronic mail obtained by POLITICO that the Black Hawk Army helicopter “took a scenic route around the Pentagon versus proceeding directly from the west to the heliport” on Thursday, which led air traffic controllers to instruct the 2 planes to go-round, a comparatively customary apply within the busy airspace.
A comparable occasion occured on the identical airport back in February much less than a month after tragedy struck the captiol-area airport on Jan. 29 after a business American Airlines jet crashed mid-air into an U.S. Army Black Hawk chopper, killing all 67 passengers.
The two flights included Delta Air Lines Flight 1671 aboard an Airbus A319 from Orlando and Republic Airways Flight 5825 on an Embraer 170 from Boston, which was performing a go-round at 2:30 p.m. for a close to by army air transport helicopter.
There had been 5 crew members and 97 passengers on the Delta flight, the airline mentioned, including that it plans to “cooperate” with the FAA within the investigation as “nothing is more important at Delta than the safety of our customers and people.”
Similarly, a group representing a number of U.S. carriers together with American Airlines referred to as on the FAA in March to drastically scale back helicopter traffic round DCA in gentle of current occasions.
There have been 85 recorded occasions of narrowly averted crashes between helicopters and planes since 2021, in accordance to the National Transportation Safety Board.
It additionally comes as cuts have been made to the FAA and air traffic controllers by the Trump administration amid efforts to overhaul DEI.
