The collision of American Airlines flight 5342 and an Army helicopter is the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. in 23 years. But there were warning signs. WSJ's Benjamin Katz reports on recent safety concerns about D.C.'s increasingly busy airspace and explains where the investigation goes next. Further Listening: -Your Flight Delay Is Probably New York's Fault Further Reading: -How a Plane and a Helicopter Collided in a Crowded Airspace Around Reagan Airport -Washington’s Jam-Packed Airspace Has Prompted Warnings for Years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened during the tragic collision at Reagan National Airport?
Wednesday started as a pretty normal day at Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation.
You know, that day there'd been probably about 700 flights, that's takeoffs and landings from Reagan National.
That's our colleague Ben Katz. He covers aviation.
Chapter 2: How did air traffic control respond to the collision threat?
And then suddenly flight 5342 got a call from air traffic controllers asking if they would, instead of coming into the primary runway at Reagan National, instead take runway 33.
Flight 5342 was arriving from Wichita, Kansas, and had 64 people on board.
And less than a minute later, there was a sudden alert inside the air traffic control tower.
The alert said the Wichita flight was at risk of colliding with a military helicopter. Air traffic control alerted the helicopter's crew to the plane.
The helicopter crew acknowledged that they were aware of the aircraft, and then 15 or so seconds later, the two aircraft collided. 67 people have died. The search and rescue teams are still trying to recover all of the bodies.
How unusual is a tragedy of this scale?
In the United States, very. We haven't seen an air disaster kind of of this scale in the United States for 15 years. But the scale of the fatalities in this incident on Wednesday evening makes it the deadliest aviation disaster since November 2001.
So you cover the airline industry. Did this accident, did this tragedy surprise you?
It's a really interesting question. I think the scale of it has surprised me. The fact that there was a collision, less so.
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Chapter 3: Why is Reagan National Airport's airspace unique and crowded?
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Reagan National Airport sits directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. On a clear night, like it was on Wednesday, you can see the glowing white dome of the U.S. Capitol building and the floodlights on the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial during takeoff and landing. What makes this airport and this airspace unique?
So it's unique in multiple ways. You know, if you had to compare it to a hub airport, say in Chicago, which deals with big scheduled passenger planes that are kind of traveling in, the schedules are, you know, known well in advance. There's a lot more kind of ad hoc activity happening.
Chapter 4: Why are helicopters operating in busy airspace around D.C.?
At Reagan National, we're dealing with, you know, a lot of passengers, but also a lot of VIPs, a lot of government officials, a lot of politicians, a lot of military personnel. So it's really quite a busy airport. It's also really close to a military base. And because of that, the congestion around the airport has been kind of a major topical issue that has concerned a lot of people.
Why even are there helicopters that are flying along this route where planes are coming in to land and take off?
It's a really interesting question. And I think kind of as the reporting kind of goes out, we're starting to learn a little bit more about this. But essentially, there is a taxi surface that is effectively run by the military. These kind of aircrafts like the Black Hawk, the Sikorsky H-60 that was involved in this collision,
It's typically used to ferry, you know, VIP guests to, you know, to and around DC, government officials, generals. In the case of an emergency, if there were ever an attack on DC or towards the president, you know, the president may be escorted or evacuated via helicopter, you know, throughout or through these pathways.
So there are very legitimate reasons for why these helicopters are operating there. Our understanding at the moment, although, you know, this could still evolve, is that The helicopter involved in Wednesday's collision was doing a training exercise, training to run those paths.
Has the DC airspace always been this congested and this crowded, or has it been getting worse?
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Chapter 5: How has the congestion in D.C. airspace evolved over the years?
It's definitely been getting worse. You know, what we've seen is a lot of politicians, Senate leaders, you know, who are running to D.C. and back, you know, a lot of government officials have been pushing for their states to be kind of represented, you know, so to speak, in the flight paths to and from Reagan Nationals.
So there's often a lot of kind of tussling over who gets the direct flight from Reagan National.
Just in the past few years, the Senate authorized an increase in flights at Reagan National Airport by as many as 10 per day. Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas said yesterday that he had successfully lobbied American Airlines to use one of its existing slots to fly a direct route to Wichita, the same route that had the crash on Wednesday. When he pushed for it, he said connecting Wichita to D.C.
with a direct flight would help local companies get federal work.
Reagan National itself was built really to handle about 15 million passengers a year. In 2023, it handled 25 million. So you can already see just by the footfall, you know, how much more this airport is handling just in terms of people and aircraft.
The agency charged with overseeing DC's increasingly crowded airspace is the Federal Aviation Administration.
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Chapter 6: What challenges is the FAA facing with air traffic control?
The FAA has a huge mandate, right? It's managing airspace, it's managing air traffic controllers, but it's also managing, regulating Boeing and aircraft manufacturing, the engine makers. You know, the FAA is also constantly under a microscopic lens, right? I mean, the whole world looks to the FAA for guidance.
But in recent years, the FAA has been under pressure. It's faced criticism for its oversight of Boeing. It's seen a lot of turnover in its top leadership. And it's struggled to fully staff air traffic control operations, or ATC, around the country. The FAA has acknowledged the staffing shortages and has worked for years to address it.
The agency also says it slows down traffic to maintain safety when there aren't enough controllers.
So air traffic controllers, kind of one of the biggest hits here is that they're difficult to train. It takes time, at least a year, to really come to grips with the technology that you use to be an air traffic controller, to understand the radar systems. It's a very in-depth, very professionalized job and career. Obviously, the U.S. has been dealing with labor shortages kind of across the board.
But then you add to this the the long turnaround times in just getting someone new and putting them in an air traffic control tower. The industry has also been battling with this loss of experience. During the pandemic, we saw a lot of people leave the industry. It's one thing to be qualified to be an air traffic controller and it's another thing to have been doing it for 40 years.
If you're brand new to the job and you're surrounded by other people who are brand new to the job, you may also be tired or exhausted because your shifts are longer than they should be or you haven't had a break in a long time. You know, the stresses of that can really affect you and your ability to properly manage airspace.
At the same time the FAA has been struggling to staff air traffic control, there's been an uptick in close calls.
We've definitely been keeping track of that increase. You know, cases where big aircraft have nearly collided, whether that's on approach towards an airport, whether that's an aircraft that's been landing while another has been taking off.
In 2023, a study commissioned by the FAA found mounting risks to safety and efficiency in U.S. air traffic. At the time, the agency said it had taken several actions to end serious close calls. Near misses have taken place all over the country, including in D.C., Last spring, a pilot flying into Washington Reagan reported coming dangerously close to a military helicopter when coming in to land.
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