NTSB urges ban on some helicopter flights at Washington airport where 67 people died in midair crash

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal investigators looking into the cause of the January collision between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people recommended a ban on some helicopter flights Tuesday, saying the current setup “poses an intolerable risk.”

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy laid out frightening statistics about near misses to underscore the danger that has existed for years near Ronald Reagan National Airport and expressed anger that it took a midair collision for it to come to light.

In just over three years, she said, there were 85 close calls when a few feet (meters) in the wrong direction could have resulted in the same kind of accident that happened Jan. 29 when the military helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet over the Potomac River as the plane was approaching the airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he'll adopt the NTSB's recommendations for the route where the midair collision occurred. He noted there will be some modifications in the guidelines to be released Wednesday, including allowing presidential flights and lifesaving missions.

Helicopters no longer will be “threading the needle” flying under landing planes, he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration also will use artificial intelligence to analyze data from every airport to make sure there aren’t similar dangers elsewhere, he said, adding that there are other airports with cross-traffic.

Homendy and Duffy both said the hazards at Reagan airport should have been recognized earlier by the FAA.

“The data was there. It wasn’t effectively analyzed to see we had this risk,” Duffy said.

The NTSB determined that the existing separation distance between planes and helicopters at Reagan airport is “insufficient and poses an intolerable risk to aviation safety,” Homendy said.

She said she was devastated for families that are grieving because they lost loved ones. Among the victims were 28 members of the figure skating community.

“It shouldn’t take tragedy to require immediate action,” she said.

Members of several families who lost loved ones said in a statement that the NTSB’s preliminary report showed this was not an isolated incident.

“It also reinforces what we, as the families of the victims, already suspected: serious, systemic failures in air travel safety cost our loved ones their lives and continues to threaten public safety,” the statement said.

Aviation lawyer Robert Clifford, who represents at least six families, said the airline had a responsibility to address known problems.

“Those charged in transportation with the highest duty of care can’t run yellow lights, and they’ve been running flashing red lights for years, it sounds like, and it’s just pathetic,” he said.

Under current practice helicopters and planes can be as close as 75 feet (23 meters) apart from each other during landing, Homendy said. Investigators have identified 15,000 instances of planes getting alerts about helicopters being in close proximity between October 2021 and December 2024, she said.

Investigators determined that planes got serious alerts to take evasive action because they were too close to a helicopter at least once a month between October 2011 and December 2024, Homendy said. In over half those instances, the helicopter may have been above its established altitude restriction for the route.

Safety advocate Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General of the U.S. Transportation Department, called it a “shocking dereliction of duty” for the FAA to have failed to act on data the NTSB gathered in just a few weeks since the crash. She noted that the FAA had pledged to warn pilots about places with higher collision risk.

“They were going to really be proactive to warn pilots about these hotspots. I mean, this is beyond a hotspot,” Schiavo said. “This is absolutely radioactive, to have 15,214 close proximity events in three years, it’s unbelievable.”

Following the midair collision, the FAA took steps to restrict helicopter flights around the airport to ensure that planes and helicopters are no longer sharing the same airspace. Now flights are put on hold temporarily when helicopters need to pass by.

The NTSB’s proposal would close a vital route for law enforcement, Coast Guard patrols and government operations flights at times, but only when the runways in question are in use, and they account for only about 5% of flights at Reagan.

Homendy said the NTSB is recommending that the FAA find a “permanent solution” for alternate routes farther away for helicopter traffic.

Investigators have said the helicopter may have had inaccurate altitude readings in the moments before the crash, and the crew may not have heard key instructions from air traffic controllers. The radio altitude of the helicopter was 278 feet (85 meters), which would put it above its 200-foot (61-meter) limit for the location.

The helicopter pilots may have also missed part of another communication, when the tower said the jet was turning toward a different runway, Homendy said last month. And the crew was wearing night-vision goggles that would have limited their peripheral vision.

The Black Hawk crew was made up of an instructor pilot with 968 hours of flight experience, a pilot with about 450 and a crew chief with nearly 1,150. Army officials have said the crew was familiar with the crowded skies around Washington.

The NTSB in its ongoing investigation will look at the amount of traffic at Reagan and the staffing in the control tower to determine if either of those factors played a role. It will take more than a year to get the final NTSB report.

Aviation safety expert John Cox said he piloted in and out of Reagan in all different kinds of planes since the late 1970s and sometimes received collision alerts about helicopters, but it was usually easy to see that they were going to pass behind him.

“That’s just something that occurred going in and out of there, and it worked successfully for decades,” said Cox, who is CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Multiple things had to go wrong for this collision to happen, he added.

Within just a month’s time earlier this year, there were four major aviation disasters in North America, most recently in mid-February when a Delta flight flipped and landed on its roof at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, injuring 21 people.

Those accidents and close calls left some worried about the safety of flying, though fatal crashes are rare and U.S. airlines' track record is remarkably sound.

President Donald Trump blamed the midair collision on what he called an “obsolete” air traffic control system and promised to replace it. He also faulted the helicopter for flying too high.

Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls at airports.

Doug Lane, whose wife Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son Spencer, died in the crash, said Tuesday he hopes the way the near-misses are reported gets a closer look and that NTSB recommendations will be implemented.

“If we’re going to invest in an organization like this, it needs to be outfitted with state of the art technology and given staffing at a level that’s going to set them up for success,” Lane said.

Duffy said Tuesday that he will present an expensive plan to Congress within the next few weeks to overhaul the system with new technology. He hopes to complete it within four years.

Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio; Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

FILE - A piece of wreckage is lifted from the water onto a salvage vessel near the site in the Potomac River of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Feb. 4, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, file)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issuing their preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In front of a graphic of a recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the NTSB preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In front of a graphic of a recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference following up on the issuance of the NTSB preliminary report on the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Department of Transportation in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Investigator in charge Brice Banning listens as National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, leaves after speaking about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, leaves after speaking about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, accompanied by investigator in charge Brice Banning, left, speaks about the recent mid-air collision of an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at a news conference in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top national security officials for President Donald Trump, including his defense secretary, texted plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, the magazine reported in a story posted online Monday. The National Security Council said the text chain “appears to be authentic.”

Trump initially told reporters he was not aware that the highly sensitive information had been shared, 2 1/2 hours after it was reported. He later appeared to joke about the breach.

The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported.

It was not immediately clear if the specifics of the military operation were classified, but they often are and at the least are kept secure to protect service members and operational security. The U.S. has conducted airstrikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.

Just two hours after Goldberg received the details of the attack on March 15, the U.S. began launching a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.

The National Security Council said in a statement that it was looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain in the Signal group chat. In addition to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, it included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence.

Goldberg said he received the Signal invitation from Mike Waltz, Trump's national security adviser, who was also in the group chat.

Hegseth in his first comments on the matter attacked Goldberg as “deceitful” and a “discredited so-called journalist” while alluding to previous critical reporting of Trump from the publication. He did not shed light on why Signal was being used to discuss the sensitive operation or how Goldberg ended up on the message chain.

“Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said in an exchange with reporters after landing in Hawaii on Monday as he began his first trip to the Indo-Pacific as defense secretary.

Trump on Tuesday in a brief interview with NBC News' Garrett Haake downplayed the incident as “the only glitch in two months" of his administration "and it turned out not to be a serious one.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday said in post on X that no war plans were discussed and that “No classified material was sent to the thread.”

Leavitt said on Monday the president still has the “utmost confidence” in Waltz and the national security team. Trump told NBC News on Tuesday that Waltz "has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”

Earlier Monday, Trump told reporters: “I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time.” He added that The Atlantic was “not much of a magazine.”

By early evening, the president jokingly brushed it aside. He amplified a social media posting from Elon Musk spotlighting a conservative satirical news site article with the cutting headline: “4D Chess: Genius Trump Leaks War Plans to ‘The Atlantic’ Where No One Will Ever See Them."

Government officials have used Signal for organizational correspondence, but it is not classified and can be hacked. Privacy and tech experts say the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging and voice call app is more secure than conventional texting.

Leavitt said the White House counsel’s office has provided guidance to Trump’s top officials on a number platforms to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.

The sharing of sensitive information comes as Hegseth's office has just announced a crackdown on leaks of sensitive information, including the potential use of polygraphs on defense personnel to determine how reporters have received information.

Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why the defense secretary posted operational plans on an unclassified app.

The administration's handling of the highly sensitive information was swiftly condemned by Democratic lawmakers. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for a full investigation.

“This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a floor speech Monday afternoon.

“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement.

He said American lives are “on the line. The carelessness shown by Trump’s Cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.”

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he was “horrified” by the reports.

Himes said if a lower-ranking official “did what is described here, they would likely lose their clearance and be subject to criminal investigation. The American people deserve answers,” which he said he planned to get at Wednesday’s previously scheduled committee hearing.

Some Republicans also expressed concerns.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Monday, “We’re very concerned about it and we’ll be looking into it on a bipartisan basis.”

Reed said he would be speaking with Wicker about what the committee will do to “follow up” on the Signal leak. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wants to learn more about what happened.

“Obviously, we got to to run it to the ground, figure out what went on there,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson offered a notably forgiving posture.

“I think it would be a terrible mistake for there to be adverse consequences on any of the people that were involved in that call," Johnson said. "They were trying to do a good job, the mission was accomplished with precision."

The handling of national defense information is strictly governed by law under the century-old Espionage Act, including provisions that make it a crime to remove such information from its “proper place of custody” even through an act of gross negligence.

The Justice Department in 2015 and 2016 investigated whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke the law by communicating about classified information with her aides on a private email server she set up, though the FBI ultimately recommended against charges and none were brought.

In the Biden administration, some officials were given permission to download Signal on their White House-issued phones, but were instructed to use the app sparingly, according to a former national security official who served in the Democratic administration.

The official, who requested anonymity to speak about methods used to share sensitive information, said Signal was most commonly used to communicate what they internally referred to as “tippers” to notify someone when they were away from the office or traveling overseas that they should check their “high side” inbox for a classified message.

The app was sometimes also used by officials during the Biden administration to communicate about scheduling of sensitive meetings or classified phone calls when they were outside the office, the official said.

The use of Signal became more prevalent during the last year of the Biden administration after federal law enforcement officials warned that China and Iran were hacking the White House as well as officials in the first Trump administration, according to the official.

The official was unaware of top Biden administration officials — such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan — using Signal to discuss sensitive plans as the Trump administration officials did.

Signal’s encryption protocol is open source, meaning that it’s freely available for anyone to inspect, use or modify. The encryption protocol is also used by another popular chat service, social media company Meta’s WhatsApp platform.

Some of the toughest criticism targeted Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel weekend host. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, said on social media that Hegseth, “the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat.”

In the chain of messages, Vance questioned whether Americans would understand the importance of strikes that came with the risk of “a moderate to severe spike in oil prices” and if the timing of the operation might be a “mistake.”

“I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself,” Vance argued. “But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

Vance also made the case that Europe would benefit much more than the U.S. by the action aimed at decimating the Houthis and securing Red Sea shipping lanes.

“If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance said in a back-and-forth with Hegseth.

“I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth replied. He added, “I think we should go.”

The vice president’s communications director, William Martin, released a statement downplaying the debate. He said Vance “unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy.”

Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

AP writers Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed reporting.

Houthi supporters participate in a funeral procession for Osama Al-rumeitha, a Houthi officer, who was reportedly killed in a recent U.S. airstrike, in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

Locals inspect the site reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes overnight in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video provided by the U.S. Navy shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (U.S. Navy via AP)

FILE - Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, smiles while participating in a Q&A session with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., in Washington, Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles attend a meeting with President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, from left, President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi attend a cabinet meeting in the White House, Monday, March 24, 2025, in Washington. (Pool via AP)

FILE - White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz listens to a question from a reporter in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)

Vice President JD Vance, in foreground at right, speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Monday, March 24, 2025. (Pool via AP)

Locals inspect the site reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes overnight in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth does a television interview outside the White House, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)