Staffing rules at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will be overhauled to avoid a possible repeat of the January 29 disaster in which a passenger plane and an Army helicopter collided, killing 67 people.
That night, a single air traffic controller was simultaneously monitoring both helicopter and plane traffic.
It mirrors a similar staffing situation during a near-miss at the airport in 2021, when controllers left their posts early that day, an investigation later revealed.
On the night of the January crash, the helicopter and airplane responsibilities were combined and assigned to one person an hour earlier than normal, per Federal Aviation Administration rules, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Just 20 minutes later, an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter crashed into each other over the Potomac River, killing all on board both aircraft.
A near-miss resembling the tragedy also happened in 2021. It involved Air Force jets, a Marine helicopter typically used to transport the vice president and a commercial plane.
The FAA launched a probe into the airport’s tower staffing at the time, later determining that there was only one air traffic controller managing helicopters the departures and the arrivals of planes.
The 2021 investigation revealed that some controllers were paid for full shifts even when they weren’t working – a practice commonly known in the industry as an ‘early shove.’
Early shoves are considered an informal benefit, permitting controllers to leave when air traffic slows.
Staffing rules at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will be overhauled to avoid a possible repeat of the January 29 disaster in which a passenger plane and an Army helicopter collided
The changes come a little over a month after an an American Airlines jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter crashed into each other over the Potomac River, killing 67 people
Following this January’s crash, FAA officials finally tightened the rules for controllers at Reagan, including mandating that a stand-alone employee monitor helicopter traffic and not be given additional responsibilities on top of that.
An FAA spokesperson told the Journal that deviating from this new policy now requires a higher-level approval from the tower’s facility manager.
At one point, only senior facility managers at Reagan had that authority.
But the FAA later allowed lower-ranking employees to decide if the helicopter monitoring position to be combined early, as long as they considered factors like traffic levels, weather and VIP departures or arrivals.
Senior FAA officials are now telling air-traffic facility managers that employees must work all the hours they are scheduled for.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is overseeing the investigation into the January 29 crash, is looking into why there wasn’t a stand-alone controller guiding helicopter traffic that night.
‘Certainly, it’s an extra set of eyes, but for this one we have to see: Would it have made a difference?’ NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy recently said in an interview. ‘That’s something we will be looking at as part of our investigation.’
The NTSB is expected to release its preliminary report on the deadly crash this month.
Pictured: The wreckage of the American Airlines plane, which was carrying 64 people on board at the time of the crash
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is overseeing the investigation into the January 29 crash, is looking into why there wasn’t a stand-alone controller guiding helicopter traffic that night
During the 2021 incident, a pair of Air Force jets came uncomfortably close to a Marine helicopter over Arlington National Cemetery, the Journal reported.
The tower was supposed to hold departures until the jets passed, but an American Airlines plane was mistakenly allowed to take off.
The helicopter, which wasn’t carrying Vice President Kamala Harris at the time, wasn’t alerted to the commercial plane’s presence and appeared to take evasive measures to dodge either the plane or the military jets, according to FAA documents.
Controllers had left early that day, so the tower’s helicopter and plane monitoring duties were combined earlier than normal.
‘That was our bad, sorry about that,’ a tower controller told an air-traffic official after the American jet became airborne, according to the documents.
About 20 controllers and supervisors faced disciplinary action following the 2021 near-miss.
DailyMail.com approached the FAA for comment.
