By David Shepardson
(Reuters) -A U.S. agency said on Friday it is opening an investigation into the government’s management of airspace around Reagan Washington National Airport after a January 29 collision between an American Airlines regional jet and Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
The U.S. Transportation Department Office of Inspector General is auditing the Federal Aviation Administration’s management of airspace and its allowance of exemptions of the use of a key safety system by some military aircraft known as ADS-B.
The FAA has faced criticism from lawmakers, the National Transportation Safety Board and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for failing to act on reports of near-miss incidents before the collision in January.
“Every sign was there that there was a safety risk, and the tower was telling you,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said last week during a three-day hearing into the collision. “You transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA, in the tower, was saying there was a problem… . Fix it. Do better.”
The FAA declined immediate comment.
The crash, which occurred just southeast of the airport over the Potomac River, was the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.
In May, the FAA barred the Army from helicopter flights around the Pentagon after a May 1 close call that forced two civilian planes to abort landings. The FAA this week said the helicopter flights remained on hold even after the agency disclosed it had signed a new agreement with the Army on July 1.
The NTSB disclosed in March that since 2021 there were 15,200 air separation incidents near Reagan Washington National Airport between commercial airplanes and helicopters, including 85 close-call events.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell praised the audit, saying it “will demand answers about why the FAA ignored more than 15,000 dangerous helicopter incidents and allowed military aircraft to fly without critical safety equipment in DCA’s congested airspace.” DCA is the airport code for Reagan Washington National Airport.
Cantwell called on the Army’s inspector general “to step up and launch” its own audit.
Last month, Senator Ted Cruz and several other Republican senators unveiled legislation to require the use of ADS-B, an advanced aircraft-tracking technology, by military helicopters near civilian planes and the use of ADS-B for all civilian aircraft. The helicopter involved in the accident in January was not using ADS-B at the time of the collision.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Paul Simao)
