Washington Military and Air Traffic Controller Hotline Inactive for Over Three Years

A communication hotline between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., has been out of service for over three years and may have played a part in a recent close call. This incident occurred shortly after the Army restarted helicopter operations in the region for the first time since the fatal midair collision in January involving a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, noted Sen. Ted Cruz during a hearing on Wednesday.

Frank McIntosh, the Federal Aviation Administration’s official overseeing air traffic controllers, acknowledged that the agency was unaware of the hotline’s malfunction since March 2022 until the latest near miss occurred. Although civilian controllers retained communication capabilities with military personnel via landlines, the FAA insists that the hotline be repaired before resuming helicopter activities around Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Defense department representatives did not immediately provide responses regarding the recent near miss and the measures being implemented to ensure safe helicopter flights in the vicinity. Following the hearing, the FAA did not immediately clarify how the hotline was intended to function.

“The developments at DCA (Reagan airport) in its airspace are extremely concerning,” Cruz said. “This committee remains laser focused on monitoring a safe return to operations at DCA and making sure all users in the airspace are operating responsibly.”

The Army suspended all helicopter flights around Reagan airport after the latest near miss, but McIntosh said the FAA was close to ordering the Army to stop flying because of the safety concerns before it did so voluntarily.

“We did have discussions if that was an option that we wanted to pursue,” McIntosh told the Senate Commerce Committee at the hearing.

January’s crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people — making it the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001. The National Transportation Safety Board has said there were an alarming 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the crash that should have prompted action.

Since the crash, the FAA has tried to ensure that military helicopters never share the same airspace as planes, but controllers had to order two planes to abort their landings on May 1 because of an Army helicopter circling near the Pentagon.

In addition to that incident, a commercial flight taking off from Reagan airport had to take evasive action after coming within a few hundred feet of four military jets heading to a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery. McIntosh blamed that incident on a miscommunication between FAA air traffic controllers at a regional facility and the tower at Reagan that he said had been addressed.