CNN
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In the three years before the deadly collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight near Reagan National Airport, at least two other pilots reported near-misses with helicopters while landing at the airport, a CNN review of federal incident reports found.
On two occasions, passenger planes had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with a helicopter when trying to land at the airport, according to reports filed by pilots. In a third incident, two military helicopters got too close together, an air traffic controller reported.
Those previous scares are sure to gain more attention after the disaster over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, which is presumed to have killed 64 people aboard the plane and three Army servicemembers on a helicopter training flight.
As a search and recovery operation continues in and around the Potomac, authorities are trying to figure out exactly what went wrong in the air above the nation’s capital.
At the time of the collision, one air traffic controller at Reagan was overseeing both helicopters and planes, an air traffic control source told CNN. Though the jobs are typically handled by two people, the source said having one person handle both isn’t uncommon.
Still, a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report found that staffing at the airport’s traffic control tower was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the New York Times reported Thursday. That corresponds with an issue highlighted in one of the previous near-miss reports from 2022, in which a controller said that there wasn’t enough staffing at the airport tower.
Aviation experts say that the Washington region is a uniquely complex airspace to navigate. Flight restrictions enacted after 9/11 block air traffic from going near government buildings, military and government helicopters regularly traverse the area, and flights are constantly taking off and landing at Reagan, which has the busiest runway in the country.
In recent years, proposals to add more flights to the airport have also sparked heated political fights, with some lawmakers previously arguing that the airport was excessively congested and warning about safety impacts.
Now, the deadliest American aviation disaster since 2001 could lead to changes in how planes maneuver at DCA, or potentially broader reforms.
“It’s unbelievable how much we fly without incident,” said former FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. “So when we do have one, it lights up everything.”
The previous near-misses between planes and helicopters at DCA airport were detailed in NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System database, which records incidents reported by aviation personnel. The reports are filed anonymously and don’t identify specific airlines or flights.
In April 2024, a commercial passenger plane pilot wrote that while descending to DCA, the crew received a traffic alert and collision avoidance system alert showing a helicopter “about 300ft below us.” The crew “took evasive action,” according to the report, and then was able to land normally after passing above the helicopter.
“We never received a warning of the traffic from (air traffic control) so we were unaware it was there,” the pilot wrote, suggesting that there should be “better separation for DCA traffic on the river visual to the helicopter traffic that is flying up and down the river.”
In another incident in October 2022, a pilot of a passenger plane reported that while descending at DCA, the plane’s collision avoidance system alerted the crew to nearby “traffic” and directed them to “CLIMB NOW.” The aircraft aborted the landing, circled around, and successfully landed on the second try.
“Upon review of the approach path and other information, we estimate we came within 300 ft. or less of what turned out to be a helicopter lifting off of the hospital,” the pilot wrote.
In both of the incidents, the pilots reported that they were landing at runway 19, which was not the runway that the American Airlines flight was set to land on Wednesday night before the collision. Both planes were listed as operating under “part 121,” a regulatory certificate that generally covers large U.S.-based airlines and regional air carriers.
And in both cases, the pilots reported that they never saw the helicopter they potentially came within a few hundred feet of hitting.
A third incident in the database, reported by an air traffic controller working at DCA, described an “airborne conflict” between two military helicopters near the airport in September 2022, although the exact details are unclear.
The two helicopters got too close to each other at a time when “there isn’t enough staffing to fill all positions in the tower cab,” the controller wrote – referring to the cabin of the air control tower.
Babbitt, the former FAA administrator, said he was not familiar with the specific incidents, but noted helicopters often respond to emergency situations that may in some instances make getting to the scene of an accident more of a priority than air-space regulations. Because helicopters fly at low altitude in the region, they rarely create issues for planes, he said.
It’s unclear whether any policies were changed or air traffic controllers took any actions in response to the previous near-misses.
Because the NASA database only covers incidents reported by aviation personnel, it doesn’t necessarily cover all near-misses, and includes raw reports that have not necessarily been confirmed by an investigation. In addition to the near-misses involving helicopters, the airport has seen several previously reported near-misses between planes while landing or taking off in recent years.
The collision Wednesday night happened in an area that is “one of the busiest aviation operation centers in the country if not the world,” said Brad Bowman, a former Black Hawk pilot and member of the 12th Aviation Battalion, the Army unit involved in the crash.
“It is a concert or orchestra of activity that requires careful communication and cooperation between pilots and Reagan tower,” Bowman told CNN. “Everyone has to be on their game and follow instruction exactly.”
Audio from moments before the disaster captured by LiveATC.net shows that an air traffic controller asked the helicopter pilot if he could see the plane and then directed him to “pass behind” it. The helicopter pilot responded that he had “aircraft in sight.”
The helicopter was on a routine training mission at the time of the collision, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday. “Tragically, last night, a mistake was made,” Hegseth said, adding that the Department of Defense was investigating.
It isn’t unusual for helicopters to be flying above the Potomac near the airport, aviation observers said. Between 2017 and 2019, there was an average of about 80 helicopter flights each day within 30 miles of DCA, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
“It is completely normal for helicopters to be flying in that area,” said Ian Petchenik, a spokesperson for Flightradar24 , a flight-tracking company. “There are helicopter routes in that airspace defined by position and altitude. They operate there on a regular basis.”
Pilots with the 12th Aviation Battalion, which is based out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, frequently fly along the Potomac River and past the airport for various missions, such as shuttling military officers to and from the Pentagon or taking members of Congress to Camp David, Bowman said.
The Army helicopter appeared to be following a defined helicopter flight path above the Potomac, according to an FAA map, although it shifted slightly to the west just before the collision. The map states that “all routes may be altered at pilot’s request or as directed by” air traffic control.
Helicopters following the route are supposed to stay at or below 200 feet in the area where the collision occurred, according to the FAA map. The Army copter was flying at that altitude at its last reading reported to flight tracking services.
A former air traffic controller who worked at DCA years ago, and asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the incident, told CNN that controllers sometimes may have focused less on helicopters because of the altitude restrictions that typically keep them away from flights.
“Generally the way it worked was we’d get a contact from these helicopters and they’d say they’re going to be passing through the airspace,” the former controller said about his time in the control tower. “They’d be told to stay below 200 feet and there really wasn’t much attention paid to them.”
Congress last year approved legislation adding five new round-trip flights to Reagan, over the objections of lawmakers from the region and some advocacy groups who argued that the airport was already too congested and raised safety concerns about the additional traffic.
The measure, which was passed as part of the FAA’s reauthorization in May 2024, came after previous legislative efforts to expand flights at the airport had failed. The fight had divided airlines, with Delta advocating for the proposal, and American, United and Alaska opposing it.
Several lawmakers pointed to near-misses between planes at DCA in March 2023 and April 2024 in opposing the expansion at an airport that has been seeing record numbers of passengers.
The close calls show “why we can’t keep cramming more flights to this airport,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine posted on social media last year. “I’ve been warning about this for years—the system is overwhelmed and it’s a threat to public safety.” Some expansion opponents in the Virginia area also objected because of concerns over increased noise and air traffic from additional flights.
Beyond Washington, experts have been ringing alarms for years about increasing stress on the aviation system and a growing tally of close calls at airports around the country. An FAA report last year found that air traffic control stations nationwide were about 3,000 controllers short of being fully staffed.
“This problem with congested airspace and near-misses has been brewing for several years,” former Transportation Department Inspector General Mary Schiavo told CNN. “It’s near-misses in the air, tremendous numbers of near-misses at the airport and runway incursions.”
Now, the DC collision is a shocking tragedy for an American industry that had prided itself on going a decade and a half without a fatal commercial airline crash.
“From a human perspective, this is something that should never happen and it’s tragic,” said the former DCA air traffic controller. But “from a realistic perspective, with humans controlling the aircraft, controlling the traffic, and dealing in these complex environments,” the controller said, a disaster like the collision over the Potomac is chillingly possible.
CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Natasha Bertrand, Aaron Cooper, Scott Glover, Rob Kuznia, Daniel A. Medina and Pete Muntean contributed reporting.