Two commercial flights aborted landings at Reagan National Airport in the week before Wednesday’s deadly collision between an American Airlines jet and Army helicopter that killed 67 people, raising questions about military flight patterns near the busy airfield.
Republic Airways Flight 4514 diverted Tuesday night after receiving an emergency collision alert about helicopter traffic below, according to air traffic control recordings obtained by The Washington Post. The plane made a sharp westward turn before safely landing at 8:16 p.m.
“We had an RA with a helicopter traffic below us,” a female voice from Flight 4514’s cockpit reported to the tower. “RA” indicates an automated emergency alert warning of potential collision with nearby aircraft.
A Charlotte flight also aborted its approach on January 23 due to helicopter proximity. “They had to circle back around because there was a helicopter in the flight path,” passenger Richard Hart told The Washington Post. “At the time I found it odd… Now I find it disturbingly tragic.”
The fatal crash occurred in a designated helicopter corridor that intersects with the southeastern approach to Runway 33, where American Eagle Flight 5342 attempted to land Wednesday night. According to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report, approximately 88,000 helicopter flights operated within 30 miles of the airport between 2017-2019.
An internal FAA report revealed staffing in the control tower was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic” when the crash occurred. The controller managing helicopters was simultaneously directing landing and departing planes – duties typically split between two people.
However, a source familiar with tower operations told Fox News Digital that combining controller positions is standard procedure during breaks and shift changes.
“Supervisors have the ability to combine roles, which was the case on Wednesday night,” the source said, speaking anonymously to discuss internal procedures.
Audio recordings captured the tower asking the Black Hawk pilot if he could see the approaching airliner. “Do you have the CRJ in sight?” the controller asked. The helicopter pilot confirmed visual contact and requested “visual separation” moments before the collision.
Jim Brauchle, a former Air Force navigator now representing aviation disaster victims, explained the challenges of nighttime visibility. “Having flown at night, having tried to look and see traffic, I think most people would say, ‘Oh, how hard is it to miss an airliner,’ right? You should be able to see that. But it’s a lot more difficult than people would expect,” he told Fox News Digital.
“What I’ve heard from the audio is that they called out to [air traffic control]. The helicopter said that he had the aircraft in sight,” Brauchle said. “My guess is, and again, I’m just speculating, is they saw something that they thought was the airplane, whether it be a tower light, maybe it was another aircraft that was taking off.”
The FAA and other federal agencies continue investigating the cause of the collision.
Some of the victims aboard the flight from the figure skating community:
– Spencer Lane
– Jinna Han
– Eddie Zhou
– Everly Livingston
– Lydia Livingston
– Franco Aparicio
– Sean Kay
– Angela Yang
– Vadim Naumov
– Evgenia Shishkova
– Inna Volyanskaya pic.twitter.com/6ATg8QosdL— Stephanie Myers (@_StephanieMyers) January 30, 2025