Close helicopter routes and Army crew’s perception of the wrong aircraft determine why a regional jet and helicopter collided
By Alexandra Skores, Pete Muntean, CNN
Washington, DC (CNN) — Nearly one year after the midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Washington, DC, the National Transportation Safety Board sharply criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for designing dangerous helicopter routes and failing to analyze years of near-collision data in the area.
The January 29, 2025, collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was the deadliest commercial aviation accident in the United States in more than 20 years.
“We should be angry, because for years, no one listened,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “This was preventable. This was 100% preventable.”
The hourslong meeting to determine the probable cause of the crash marked the final public chapter in what Homendy described as one of the most complex investigations in the agency’s history. NTSB investigators presented more than 70 findings, though they cautioned some may be amended — or additional findings added — before the roughly 500-page final report is released in the coming weeks.
Investigators also proposed 48 safety recommendations, 32 of them directed at the FAA, and all of which may be revised before the final report is issued.
The findings describe a chain of errors, including a task-saturated air traffic controller in the National Airport control tower, a systemwide reliance on pilot-applied “visual separation” and limitations in what the Army Black Hawk helicopter crew could see from the cockpit. Investigators said the helicopter pilots were looking at a different aircraft when they believed they had American Eagle Flight 5342 in sight, which they attributed to “expectation bias.”
While the NTSB said the control tower was adequately staffed and that staffing levels alone did not cause the crash — even though helicopter and local control positions were combined — a controller told investigators they felt “overwhelmed” at the time.
Investigators also warned that relying on pilots to visually separate aircraft introduced “unacceptable risk” in the congested airspace around the airport, known as DCA.
The NTSB’s board members acknowledged at the outset it would be an especially difficult day for families, many of whom filled the agency’s main boardroom, with others watching from an overflow annex.
A new revelation in Tuesday’s board meeting regarded where the plane and helicopter collided. According to the NTSB, the helicopter contacted the left wing of the airplane with its main rotor. The helicopter was approaching from the right and the airplane was in a left turn, meaning the left wing was low. That means the two aircraft just clipped each other.
Several family members left the boardroom during the presentation by Investigator-in-Charge Brice Banning, which included some of the most emotionally difficult material shown so far, including never-before-seen animations created by investigators.
“This has been an incredibly difficult year for our agency and our investigators, first responders to this accident, and the aviation community as a whole, as we mourn the loss of 67 lives nearly one year ago from an accident in a tragedy that never, ever should have happened,” said NTSB board member Michael Graham.
Sixty-four passengers and crew members were killed on the plane, in addition to three soldiers on the helicopter.
The incident heightened public attention on the safety of air travel in 2025 — a year punctuated by the dramatic crash of a Delta Air Lines regional jet on landing in Toronto and the fatal crash of a UPS cargo plane on takeoff from Louisville, Kentucky, in a dramatic fireball. Trump administration officials announced changes to helicopter routes around Washington within weeks of the January 29 crash and later promised a multibillion-dollar overhaul to an aging air traffic control system.
On Tuesday, the NTSB discussed the issues that may have led to the crash and recommendations to prevent similar incidents.
“There will be some times where individual errors may be noted throughout the course of the day in relation to this accident,” Graham continued. “To make it crystal clear, any individual shortcomings were set up for failure by the systems around them. We are not here today to place blame on any individual or any organization, but we are here to ensure those systems that failed to protect 67 people on January 29, 2025, never fail again.”
A yearlong investigation
Since the collision on that night, aviation and federal officials have taken a closer look at the safety among several airports in the country with helicopter traffic similar to that around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
“You will see today that we left no stone unturned,” Homendy said in opening remarks. “We asked the hard, uncomfortable questions that ruffled feathers and we got to the truth.”
Investigators showed recreated flight paths Tuesday using Microsoft Flight Simulator, modeling what the pilots of American Eagle Flight 5342 and the Army helicopter would have been able to see through the cockpit windshield.
The helicopter pilots’ visual, while wearing night vision goggles, showed the bright lights of Washington in view, with the American regional flight in the background.
One animation focused on the right-seat cockpit view of the commercial jet, where First Officer Sam Lilley was seated — the position investigators say had the best potential view of the helicopter’s route, even though Capt. Jonathan Campos was flying the aircraft at the time. The view from Lilley’s seat shows how the helicopter blended into city lights, making it nearly impossible to see.
The animation included gray “masked” areas, representing parts of the aircraft structure that blocked the pilots’ view outside the cockpit.
Investigators said the visuals underscore how difficult it would have been for the airline pilots to avoid the collision, citing cockpit blind spots, ground lighting along the Potomac, and Flight 5342’s left turn to line up with the airport’s runway 33 with the helicopter approaching from the right.
Another presentation also included video from near the end of runway 33 showing the lights of the two aircraft colliding.
Over the summer, the NTSB heard more than 32 hours of testimony over three days, probing virtually every detail of what could have led to the midair collision. There were more than 10 hours of testimony on each of the first two days of the hearing.
The Army, the FAA and PSA Airlines, the American Airlines subsidiary that operated the flight, were among the parties represented during the hearing.
The pilots and DCA control tower
Key points of discussion included the Army’s reluctance to use anti-collision technology known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, and why the FAA allowed military helicopter pilots to fly without the technology.
“ADS-B Out” transmits radio signals with GPS location, altitude, ground speed and other data once per second, independent of air traffic control. However, on January 29, the Black Hawk was flying following an FAA memorandum that allowed it to be turned off.
CNN asked Homendy whether ADS-B would have been a factor in preventing the crash.
“They would have (seen the helicopter) with ADS-B In (and) gotten an alert at 59 seconds before the collision and been able to take measures to avert it. For the helicopter crew, they had 48 seconds. They didn’t even know — it is clear from the (cockpit voice recorder) they didn’t even know it was on the left,” Homendy said.
All aircraft, not just commercial airlines, should be equipped with this technology, she said. ADS-B In receives information about aircraft that are in the airspace. However, there is no FAA mandate for aircraft to have ADS-B In, and Homendy said the jet wasn’t equipped with it.
ADS-B is also a focus of the ROTOR Act, which was cosponsored by a bipartisan group of senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the highest-ranking members of the Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The legislation passed the Senate in December and is awaiting approval in the House.
The hearing also prompted an admission from the FAA that the air traffic control tower failed to warn the regional jet pilots of helicopter traffic in the immediate area.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, the NTSB said the local control and helicopter control positions were combined, and the local controller was communicating with six airplanes and five helicopters at the time. While the NTSB said this practice was “commonplace,” policy had seen shifts over the years at DCA’s tower.
Transcripts of the cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control audio released in the NTSB investigation docket revealed what was said inside the aircraft in the moments before the crash.
“No safety alerts” were given, Nick Fuller, the acting FAA deputy chief operating officer of operations, testified in August.
“Should the local controller have let the PSA crew know that there was a helicopter there?” Homendy asked.
“Yes,” Fuller acknowledged.
The tower did warn the helicopter pilots about the approaching regional jet and the soldiers said they would avoid it, transcripts of the cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control audio revealed.
However, findings on the radio communications between the controller and the helicopter pilots noted there was a partial block in transmission of the controller’s communications, which the controller was not aware of that night.
“PAT 25” was the call sign the helicopter was using that night and the plane was a CRJ-700.
“The local controller directed the helicopter crew ‘PAT 2-5 pass behind the CRJ,’ said William Bramble, national resource specialist in human performance at the NTSB. “However, the crew was unable to hear the words ‘2-5 pass behind the’ due to a partially blocked audio transmission. As a result, the message the helicopter crew received was ‘PAT CRJ.’ The instructor pilot responded that the crew had an aircraft in sight and requested visual separation.”
“There is a tendency in the immediate aftermath of any investigation or any accident that we investigate to question human error, the actions or inactions of individuals,” Homendy said Tuesday. “However, human error in complex systems like our modern aviation system and the National Airspace System isn’t a cause. It’s a consequence.”
The NTSB also presented major “discrepancies” in the altitude readouts on board the helicopter that could have led the crew members to believe they were flying lower over the Potomac than they actually were.
The route at the time of the collision allowed the Black Hawk to fly as close as 75 feet below planes descending to land on runway 33, according to the NTSB. With allowable errors in the helicopter’s altimeters and other equipment, as well as Army rules expecting aviators to hold their altitude within 100 feet, the aircraft can end up being much closer.
FAA data uncovered by the NTSB found that about half of all helicopters flying near DCA exceeded altitude limits at least once while operating on the helicopter route involved in the crash.
Those figures highlight systemic risks in the airspace around DCA, not just the circumstances of this single accident, the NTSB said.
Homendy told reporters during a break the FAA should have known there was a problem.
“The data was in their own systems,” Homendy said. “It was the NTSB working with them to determine that there were 15,214 close-proximity events, 85 of which were serious over a number of years. That’s just the data. Why collect data if you’re not going to analyze it?”
Investigators reviewed FAA data showing an average of 18 close calls per year between helicopters and airplanes operating near DCA.
Homendy added she is concerned there are other hotspots, pointing out Hollywood Burbank Airport in California. She said commercial airlines have called her to say they believe the “next” midair collision will be at that airport.
The FAA said in a statement it enacted a number of safety measures at DCA following the crash, including reducing the hourly arrival rate at the airport and increasing tower staffing.
“Since (Transportation) Secretary (Sean) Duffy took office, he and the FAA have taken decisive steps to correct past failures, strengthen accountability, and modernize the NAS,” the statement says.
Homendy wrapped Tuesday’s meeting, after 10 hours of deliberation and discussion, with an apology to the families in attendance.
“I don’t want to be here years from now looking at other families that had to suffer such devastating loss,” Homendy said. “We are so sorry. Action, frankly, should occur before people die.”
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