Washington’s Military-Air Traffic Control Hotline Has Been Inoperative for Over Three Years

A communication channel between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., which has been non-operational for over three years, might have led to another close call. This incident occurred shortly after the U.S. Army resumed helicopter operations in the region for the first time since a fatal collision in January involving a passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter, as disclosed by Sen. Ted Cruz during a Wednesday hearing.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control division, Frank McIntosh, acknowledged that the agency was unaware of the hotline’s malfunction since March 2022, only realizing the issue following the recent near miss. He mentioned that civilian air traffic controllers do have alternative ways to communicate with military controllers using landlines. Nonetheless, the FAA is demanding the reparation of the hotline before helicopter activities around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport can restart.

Officials from the Department of Defense did not immediately address questions on Wednesday regarding the recent near miss or the measures being implemented to guarantee the safety of helicopter flights in the vicinity. The FAA also did not promptly respond to further inquiries following the hearing concerning the intended use of the hotline.

“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.

“After the deadly crash near Reagan National Airport, FAA closed the helicopter route involved, but a lack of coordination between FAA and the Department of Defense has continued to put the flying public at risk,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth said.

McIntosh said the helicopter should never have entered the airspace around Reagan airport without permission from an air traffic controller.

“That did not occur,” he said. “My question – and I think the larger question is – is why did that not occur? Without compliance to our procedures and our policies, this is where safety drift starts to happen.”

The NTSB is investigating what happened.

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, which he said had been addressed.