FAA Wants to Ban Helicopters Near Washington Airport After Crash

Most helicopters would be banned from flying near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport under a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration interim rule released Thursday, a week before the anniversary of a midair collision that killed 67 people.

The FAA rule would only allow helicopters and certain “powered-lift” aircraft conducting essential operations for medical, law enforcement and national security purposes — including carrying the president or vice president — to use the airspace.

The so-called “interim final rule” makes permanent the restrictions imposed after an accident involving a US Army helicopter and American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet. It follows a recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board, which raised concerns about the number of close calls near the airport serving the nation’s capital.

“These revisions are necessary to mitigate the potential for midair collisions,” the agency said in the rule.

The regulation comes ahead of a Jan. 27 NTSB board meeting to determine the probable cause of the January 2025 accident. American Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas — with 60 passengers and four crew on board — hit a Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter carrying three military personnel while approaching the runway.

The aircraft plunged into the Potomac River nearby.

There are typically a number of factors leading to such a tragedy. The NTSB identified more than 15,000 incidents between October 2021 and December 2024 in which commercial planes and helicopters came within unsafe distances of each other.

Investigators have also said the Black Hawk helicopter was equipped with technology to broadcast its location but wasn’t transmitting that data at the time of the accident.

Top photo: Emergency crews respond to the crash site near the Potomac River after a passenger jet collided with a helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. A PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided in midair with a military helicopter Sikorsky H-60 while on approach to Runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport around 9 p.m. local time.