After a year of recovery efforts, investigations and hearings, the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday revisited the investigation’s findings about last January’s midair collision near Washington, D.C., between a U.S. Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet. Thursday marked the crash’s first anniversary, which occurred when the two aircraft fell into the Potomac River after a series of exchanges between air traffic control and the helicopter crew and after the passenger jet triggered a collision avoidance alert.
According to the timeline laid out by the investigation’s findings, American Airlines Flight 5342 began an initial descent into Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29 at about 8:15 p.m. By 8:43 p.m., a controller asked the plane’s pilots to switch landing runways, from Runway 1 to Runway 33, while an Army Black Hawk helicopter designated by air traffic control as PAT25 flew south over the river. The skies were described as clear as the helicopter approached the airport.
Investigators said cockpit voice recorder audio captured the helicopter pilot saying the aircraft was at 300 feet (91 meters) while an instructor pilot said it was at 400 feet (122 meters), and the discrepancy was not explained as the helicopter continued to descend. The timeline describes that the helicopter route’s allowed altitude decreased as the aircraft neared the airport, capping at 200 feet (61 meters). At 8:46 p.m., the controller told the Black Hawk crew that a passenger jet referred to as the CRJ was at 1,200 feet (365 meters) and circling to Runway 33.
As the exchange continued, the helicopter pilots said they saw the jet and requested to maintain visual separation—flying closer than if they had not seen the other aircraft—and controllers approved that request. About 20 seconds before impact, the controller asked PAT25 whether it had the CRJ in sight, while a conflict alarm sounded, and then again told the helicopter to pass behind the CRJ. The NTSB said the helicopter’s recorder indicates the pilots may never have heard that instruction.
A second later, the plane’s crew received a collision avoidance alert telling them “Traffic! Traffic!” The timeline says that a few seconds afterward, a crew member on the helicopter responded that the aircraft “is in sight” and again requested “visual separation.” Investigators said that after the plane descended past a last recorded altitude of 313 feet (95 meters), the pilots pulled up sharply in an evasive maneuver one second before impact, followed by commotion on the tower audio, a flash in the sky and both aircraft falling into the river.
In the immediate aftermath, search crews went to the Potomac River for survivors. By the morning of Jan. 30, President Donald Trump told reporters there were no survivors. By midday, the bodies of the three soldiers in the helicopter had been recovered, and downriver near the Potomac, Dean Naujoks, who patrols the river for the Waterkeeper Alliance, found pages from the flight manual, a piece of the plane’s cabin wall and dozens of sugar packets with the American Airlines logo. That evening, the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders were sent to the NTSB lab, and by Jan. 31 officials announced the helicopter’s black box had been recovered and that investigators were reviewing flight data and the actions of the military pilot and air traffic control.
As the recovery progressed day by day, officials said by Feb. 4 that crews had raised several large pieces of the jetliner in choppy conditions and that all 67 victims had been recovered, after earlier announcements that remains of 41 people had been found by Jan. 31 and that remains of 55 victims had been recovered by Feb. 2. The timeline also describes that salvage crews began work on lifting wreckage from the river, that NTSB investigators examined wreckage at a secure hangar and that memorials began, including remembrance of a flight attendant in North Carolina.
The investigation’s focus then widened to whether the warning signs before the collision were adequately addressed. On March 11, investigators recommended banning some helicopter flights near Reagan National Airport, describing the setup as posing “an intolerable risk,” and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy adopted those recommendations, with Duffy saying helicopters would no longer have to “thread the needle” under landing planes. The FAA was also reported to use artificial intelligence to analyze airport data for similar dangers elsewhere, and Duffy said the FAA should have recognized the hazards at Reagan earlier.
The timeline further describes that on March 27, the acting head of the FAA told Congress the agency had to do a better job addressing safety risks, as NTSB leadership and members of Congress questioned why the FAA had not addressed an alarming number of close calls near Reagan prior to the crash. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy later scolded the FAA during subsequent questioning, saying, “Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?” and “Fix it. Do better.”
As part of the changes that followed the collision, the FAA made permanent rule updates it imposed after the crash. The timeline says the rules prohibit helicopters and planes from sharing the same airspace around Reagan National Airport, prohibit air traffic controllers from relying on visual separation, and require all military aircraft to broadcast their locations. In addition, FAA actions were described beyond Reagan: a federal review prompted by the collision revealed dangerous flying conditions at the Las Vegas airport and led the FAA to impose new restrictions on helicopter flights around Harry Reid International Airport, with the agency saying those changes cut Las Vegas collision alert numbers by 30%.
Later in the year, the NTSB questioned FAA, Army and airline officials over three days in late July into early August, including questions about a faulty altimeter and that pilots’ night vision goggles made spotting the plane harder. The timeline also says that it became clear controllers had warned the FAA years earlier about dangers of helicopters in the crowded airspace around the nation’s capital, and that the NTSB held a hearing around two days before the first anniversary of the crash to determine what led to the accident.
The NTSB’s discussion on Tuesday came with a detailed record of the day of the crash and with subsequent safety actions that were described as designed to prevent similar conflicts around Reagan National Airport. In a statement in the timeline, the FAA said it had reduced hourly plane arrivals at Reagan from 36 to 30 and increased staff, and said it would “diligently consider any additional recommendations” from the NTSB.