A year after the Reagan Airport collision, NTSB’s findings raise safety questions

Terry Gerton On January 29th of 2025, there was a fatal collision of an airliner with an army helicopter at Reagan National Airport just outside D.C., and 67 people lost their lives that day. You’re intimately involved in the investigation and resolution of this. As the NTSB and the investigators have laid out what happened in the course of that accident, what did they identify about the conditions that created elevated risk in that flight corridor?

Timothy Loranger Well, what we’ve learned from the FAA’s investigation is very interesting, and it’s also very concerning. And what you have to do is sort of break up this tragedy into a couple of pieces. There’s the part of the puzzle here that is the FAA and air traffic control, and the design of the airport that would allow the corridor for military aircraft to fly through the airspace in close proximity to incoming civilian aircraft. That, in and of itself, created a danger. At the time it was created, it was believed to be necessary, but in the decades since that corridor started to be used around 9/11, there have been many, many near-miss incidents between civilian aircraft coming to the airport and military aircraft. Those should have prompted the FAA to make changes, because it was almost inevitable that someday all of the elements would come together and equal something really horrible like this. And then there’s the portion that is the FAA air traffic control portion, which was that there weren’t enough people manning the radar scope, so to speak, there and really observing the traffic and how it was interacting with itself. So that one person was given, was having to handle too many responsibilities at the time so that there couldn’t have, there wasn’t the attention given to it so that communications could be had with either the Black Hawk helicopter or the incoming civilian aircraft, and that also added to this. And then there’s the military version portion of this, which is, how was the Black Hawk training mission being conducted? Were the pilots appropriately certified, qualified for the training that was happening at the time? And then, what were the goals of that training and what equipment was being used? Because there’s this discussion about how the pilot may have been on night vision goggles, which is generally understood to be a dangerous condition to fly in that airspace because the lights in the city really do interfere with their ability to use that. Those night vision goggles are used in very dark, dark situations. So that created more danger. Plus, there’s the aircraft itself, which, there may have been differences between the altimeter that the pilot had and the co-pilot had, so that there was confusion about what their real altitude was in proximity to the incoming civilian aircraft. And then there’s one last piece that I would talk about in this. That is that the airline, having flown into this airport for many, many years, had experienced these near misses. And instead of demanding to the FAA that something be changed, or simply refusing to fly in because the risk to their passengers was too great, they did not take those steps. And that is, in a nutshell, the major issues that we’re learning through the FAA.

Terry Gerton Any one of those taken alone is a significant issue. All of them taken together obviously created a catastrophic situation. But as you say, all of those were known factors. Why wasn’t action taken sooner to resolve the conflicted airspace?

Timothy Loranger That’s a very good question. And all of those pieces, the question would be, is there one central authority who should have seen all of this together and done something about it? I would argue that the FAA certainly is the government administration that is tasked with making sure that the airspace is safe. And so I think from that perspective, analysis should have been done based on the history of near misses in the past, the fact that there’s a good understanding of what happens when you don’t have appropriate staffing of air traffic control facilities. I mean, all of that information is right there for someone to see, and it was missed. So I think the FAA has the overriding responsibility, but certainly the airlines who have information that shows that there are near misses that happen here, that there’s a danger, they could have done something about it. Now, what is it? Is it profit? It’s probably very lucrative to have rights to land at this airport, and you don’t want to give that up, so I would hope that it isn’t profit over the safety of people that’s being compromised. The FAA, I don’t think that there’s, they have, I don’t know if they have some interest in making sure that airflow into DCA is not interrupted. They don’t want to make drastic changes that could do that. But again, what we’re talking about is inconvenience over the safety of people, and that should be the priority.

Terry Gerton Timothy Loranger is an attorney and senior partner at the national mass distaster law firm of Wisner Baum. Mr. Loranger, the investigation into this event is over. The facts are now all out on the table. You’ve just talked about whether or not the FAA has central responsibility. But what is the process for turning these recommendations now from the NTSB into actual changes, regulatory changes? Other sorts of activities that would prevent a similar accident in the future?

Timothy Loranger It’s a difficult question to answer because the NTSB often makes recommendations based on their investigations into any particular disaster. And that could be general aviation, small aircraft issue, or something really devastating and tragic like this involving a lot of people. But they make recommendations to the FAA. The FAA has the authority to take those recommendations and make changes or not. And so the hope is that the FAA, who has already made some changes, we have to say, the route of the helicopters are they’re not flying through that same airspace anymore. So some changes have been made, but it’s up to them to consider the NTSB’s recommendations and then act upon them. They have the authority to do that. I think the pressure from the families who’ve been involved, who are suffering the loss of their loved ones in this crash, are certainly, through litigation and also their contacts with their congresspeople, putting a lot of pressure on the FAA as they should to make the changes that will keep people safe.

Terry Gerton Speaking of the families, they can often feel like the system moves on once the investigation is over and the reforms maybe enter the bureaucracy, as we might actually hope they would. From your perspective, what does a complete accountability cycle for this event look like? Is it communication with the families? Transparency? Proof of change? How would you want to make sure that the families get closure as the bureaucracy runs its course?

Timothy Loranger I think communication is absolutely critical. I’ve been involved in a number of incidents that are very similar. And what I heard you say is correct, that once the investigation is over and the results of that investigation are released, generally the investigating authority moves on to the next thing that they have to work on. And then the family feels like that’s the end, they don’t really hear from them again. Now, there is litigation, so they can express their loss through that litigation. The litigation puts pressure on, for example, the government in this case, the responsible parties. And so they are still involved in a process that they hope will lead to safety for other families so that they don’t have to suffer this themselves. So they’re still in that process. But at the end of the day, what they want most is to know that they have been heard, that they’ve been taken seriously, that their loss is understood, and that that understanding will be used to protect people so that this doesn’t happen again. And if they can get some of that, then they will have some measure of closure.

Terry Gerton We’ve really just passed the one-year mark. The NTSB just briefed its findings. What will you be watching for in the coming months, hopefully not years, to make sure that this process is playing out the way it should?

Timothy Loranger Well, I’d like to see that the issue is being discussed. That’s the first thing, because sometimes what we get after an investigation like this is silence, but as long as there’s still a discussion ongoing, that means that there is the potential for change. And what I think that we will see, because this is so public and important to the public, that we will see real evidence of changes. And that might be difficult because the government’s very busy with a lot of different things right now, but we believe that they are, and we’re hopeful that they will be giving the appropriate resources to this issue.