Braxton Taylor
Federal crash investigators have said a helicopter route used by an Army Black Hawk for training when it crashed midair with a passenger aircraft over Washington, D.C., in late January, killing all aboard, poses a major aviation risk and called for immediate changes.
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the path the three-person Army Black Hawk crew was on, called Route 4, offered only 75 feet of separation from an airplane approaching runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, known as DCA — the same approach that American Eagle Flight 5342 was on prior to the deadly crash that killed the soldiers and all aboard the airplane.
“We’ve determined that the existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on Route 4 and aircraft landing on runway 33 are insufficient and pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a midair collision at DCA,” Homendy said.
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A preliminary report on the crash issued Tuesday said the NTSB is recommending that helicopter Route 4 between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge on the Potomac River should be closed for operations when runways 15 and 33 at DCA are in use. Additionally, crash investigators called on the Federal Aviation Administration to create an alternate route when that path is shut down.
The NTSB’s report showed that there have been numerous close calls between helicopters and planes at DCA in recent years. Between October 2021 and December 2024 alone, there were “15,214 occurrences between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than 1 [nautical mile] and vertical separation of less than 400 ft,” the report on preliminary findings showed.
More alarmingly, the report said there were 85 instances of close calls that involved “a lateral separation less than 1,500 feet and vertical separation less than 200 feet.”
Between 2011 and 2014, a traffic collision avoidance system resolution advisory — a warning used to prevent midair collisions — was triggered once a month due to the proximity of a helicopter, according to the findings. In half of those instances, a helicopter may have been above the altitude flight restriction, and two-thirds of the advisories happened at night.
Video of the collision showing a fireball over the Potomac began circulating online and on major TV networks throughout the world. The crash between the plane and the Black Hawk helicopter marked the first major U.S. commercial aircraft crash in nearly 16 years.
The revelation of the close proximity between helicopters on Route 4 and planes landing on DCA’s runway 33 also underscores a key revelation made known during last month’s NTSB press conference: The Army crew’s altimeter may have been malfunctioning.
“We still have a lot of work to do in this area as the Black Hawk’s combined cockpit voice and flight data recorder does not record date information, time information or helicopter position information,” Homendy said. “As I mentioned in the last press conference, there is inconsistency in the data, which led us to declare the pressure altitude parameter on the Black Hawk as invalid.”
Capt. Rebecca Lobach, 28, of Durham, North Carolina; Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Staff Sgt. Ryan O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, were all killed when the Black Hawk crashed with American Eagle Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ, which had 64 aboard.
American Airlines in a statement Tuesday praised the NTSB’s findings and recommendations.
“We continue to mourn the lives lost in the tragic accident involving Flight 5342,” American Airlines said in a statement. “We’re grateful for the National Transportation Safety Board’s urgent safety recommendations to restrict helicopter traffic near DCA and for its thorough investigation.”
The Black Hawk helicopter was from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The crew was on a training qualification flight.
Both Lobach and Eaves were “current and qualified” when it came to flying the Black Hawk, the preliminary report said. Eaves had accumulated about 968 total hours of flight experience, and Lobach had about 450 flight hours, according to details in the report. O’Hara, who was the crew chief, had about 1,149 total flight hours.
The large number of flight hours the crew had, as well as the new information on prior close calls with helicopters at DCA, is seemingly at odds with claims by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump immediately following the crash that somehow diversity, equity and inclusion policies were connected to the incident.
Conspiracy theories began spreading immediately after the crash, fueled by those comments. That led some to misidentify one of the pilots and even discouraged Lobach’s family from immediately releasing her name to the public amid the misinformation, Military.com previously reported.
Previously, there were several other factors revealed about the Army Black Hawk helicopter’s flight, including that the crew members were likely wearing night vision goggles.
Sean Payne, the branch chief of the NTSB’s vehicle recorder division, also told reporters last month that it’s not clear what the Black Hawk’s internal gauges read prior to the crash and that investigators were reaching out to the Army as well as Sikorsky Aircraft and Collins Aviation, the companies that build and manufacture parts for the helicopter.
“We are working to determine if this bad data for pressure altitude only affected the [flight data record], or if it was more pervasive throughout the helicopter’s other systems. We will have an answer to what altitude the pilots saw in their gauges as they were flying,” Payne said last month.
A portion of a transmission from the air traffic control flight tower directing the Black Hawk to pass behind the CRJ may not have been heard by the crew just 17 seconds before the crash, Military.com previously reported.
Homendy said the 75-foot clearance between helicopters on that route and planes approaching runway 33 is too close and changes should have been made prior to the crash.
“It does make me angry, but it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones,” Homendy said. “It shouldn’t take a tragedy like this to occur. Unfortunately, one did, and so we are calling on action.”
Related: Investigators Say Black Hawk Altitude Gauges May Have Been Inaccurate Prior to Deadly DC Airplane Collision
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