Reagan Airport air traffic controller ‘overwhelmed’ moments before midair collision

The air traffic controller managing flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport reported to a supervisor he was “overwhelmed” minutes before an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet, federal investigators reported Tuesday. 

The National Transportation Safety Board heard about “inadequate” conditions in the Reagan tower that were “set up for failure” the night of the Jan. 29, 2025, collision.

The crash killed 64 passengers and crew members aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 and three crew members aboard the Black Hawk.

According to NTSB investigators, the air traffic controller was managing 12 aircraft, including five helicopters, in the 90 seconds leading up to the crash. In a post-accident interview, the controller told investigators that about 10 minutes before the collision, he alerted the supervisor in the tower “that he felt a little overwhelmed,” but his supervisor did not take action to reduce his workload.

When interviewed following the crash, the supervisor recalled only one helicopter in the area, not five.

“I was a little bit surprised by that,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said. “How is that not complacency?”

The focus on the overburdened D.C. air traffic control tower’s role in the crash is among several factors the NTSB is scrutinizing in the crash.

The board is expected to hand down multiple recommendations later Tuesday to shore up air traffic control safety measures, among other changes. 

The NTSB’s  71 findings point to a multitude of factors at the FAA, the U.S. Army and Reagan air traffic controllers that contributed to the accident.

The NTSB faulted the FAA for many missteps ahead of the crash, in addition to failing to review the frequency of flight arrivals at the airport. Despite near-miss incidents, the FAA failed to act on a recommendation issued more than a decade ago to move helicopter traffic away from the airport.

“We found that multiple safety data sources … showed evidence of mid-air collision risk between airplanes and helicopters near DCA years before the accident, but existing systems did not recognize or mitigate the risk,” an investigator said.  

Ms. Homendy said the crash was “100% preventable,” but the FAA did not act on warnings from air traffic controllers who reported safety risks with the helicopter route used by the Black Hawk on the night of the crash that intersected with the airport’s runway 33, where flight 5342 was directed to land.

“We should be angry because for years no one listened,” Ms. Homendy said. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy last week permanently banned the use of the route taken by the Black Hawk when it collided with the airliner. He also implemented other restrictions aimed at pushing helicopter traffic away from the airport.

The Army helicopter crew has been largely blamed for the crash. It was flying 78 feet higher than its approved altitude when it hit the jet, and investigators found the chopper’s altimeter was inaccurately reporting it was flying below 200 feet. 

The helicopter’s actual altitude at the time of the collision was 278 feet. Investigators said the Army was aware of the altimeter accuracy problems with the Black Hawk, but the pilots were not told about the discrepancy. 

The helicopter’s actions, combined with an overwhelmed air traffic controller, were a recipe for disaster, investigators found.

At the time of the crash, Reagan Airport, which controls the busiest runway in the nation, was handling 36 arrivals per hour. The supervisor had given permission to Warrenton, Virginia-based air traffic controllers to send incoming flights to Reagan at reduced spacing, which increased congestion further and the stress on the lone controller managing the airspace ahead of the collision. 

Reduced spacing between aircraft, NTSB air traffic investigator Brian Soper said, “makes it much more difficult to get departures out in between those arrivals.” 

At the time of the crash, the air traffic control tower at Reagan had enough staff to separately monitor helicopters and incoming jets, but assigned both tasks to a single controller. 

The controller’s assistant, who was supposed to be surveilling the airspace and monitoring for conflicts and alerts, was instead “writing down information on helicopters” at the time of the crash.

In the months before the crash, Warrenton air traffic controllers formally requested a reduction in the rate of arriving aircraft at Reagan Airport, citing spacing and congestion concerns that made it “difficult to keep up” with the influx of planes, Mr. Soper said.

The Federal Aviation Administration, Mr. Soper said, “ultimately did nothing in response to that.” 

Investigators said they found no evidence that the FAA has ever conducted a required annual review of arrival rates at Reagan, even though the airport’s passenger jet traffic has increased significantly over the past two decades, making it harder for air traffic controllers to juggle arriving and departing aircraft.

“It increases all of their workload and increases risk,” Mr. Soper said. 

The airport also poses unique challenges for air traffic controllers, thanks to regular helicopter traffic that the D.C. tower has to manage. 

Despite those stresses, Reagan air traffic controllers are paid less than those at other busy air traffic control towers, which Mr. Soper said hurts staffing.

“They cannot attract the experience or get the talent into that facility that is needed to run a very complex air traffic control operation,” he said.

On the night of the crash, the overwhelmed air traffic controller skipped critical safety steps, the NTSB investigators said, and did not warn the passenger jet about the location of the Black Hawk.

The NTSB presentation centered on the actions of the Army helicopter crew members, who investigators said did not have the correct passenger jet in their sights and may have been looking at another aircraft when warned by the air traffic controller of Flight 5342. 

The air traffic controller, despite warnings on his screen in the tower, did not provide the correct safety alert to the helicopter about its proximity to Flight 5342,  an investigator said. 

A conflict alert alarm had been activated in the air traffic control tower showing the Black Hawk and Flight 5342 getting too close, but in the course of the evening, it was one of nearly a half dozen such alerts in the crowded Reagan airspace. The air traffic controller told the helicopter to “pass behind” the jet, but did not issue a formal alert that the two aircraft were getting too close. 

Mr. Soper said the air traffic control tower’s continually increased workload, combined with a habit of leaving a single air traffic controller to manage both helicopter traffic and passenger jets, “led to the ability for a lot of deficiencies to occur.”

Investigators said the operations manager at Reagan’s air traffic control told them after the crash, “We’re operating on that borderline of safety, regularly.”