FAA Bars ‘Nonessential’ Helicopters at Reagan Airport, Deploys AI for More Analysis

The regulator on Friday said it will eliminate traffic between helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft and permanently ban all “nonessential” helicopter operations at KDCA. Urgent helicopter missions—such as those carrying life-saving medical equipment, “priority” law enforcement, or the president—will still be permitted. But the FAA will keep rotorcraft “specific distances away from airplanes” and bar the simultaneous use of runways 15/33 and 4/22 when they enter KDCA airspace. The former was the passenger jet’s intended landing site.

The FAA is also eliminating the airport’s helicopter Route 4 between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge, where the Black Hawk was flying at about 300 feet as the collision occurred. The NTSB in an urgent recommendation suggested this portion of the route—which the FAA restricted shortly after the accident—should be closed when runway 15/33 is in use for commercial traffic. Per investigators, helicopters traveling on Route 4 often have less than 75 feet of vertical separation between aircraft on approach to runway 33.

Sean Duffy, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, announced that the FAA would be taking the measures in remarks on Tuesday, but the regulator provided confirmation Friday.

“We remain concerned about the significant potential for a future midair collision at DCA, which is why we are recommending a permanent solution today,” Jennifer Homendy, NTSB chair, said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

Duffy on Tuesday said officials are developing an alternative to the closed section of Route 4 and that the FAA would issue Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) providing new guidance.

Per the NTSB’s preliminary report on the January accident—which killed all 67 people aboard a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and Bombardier CRJ700 passenger jet—there were more than 15,000 cases at Reagan Airport between October 2021 and December 2024 where rotorcraft and commercial planes came within 400 feet of one another. Of those, 85 were “close calls” or “near misses” with less than 200 feet of vertical separation.

As of February, the airport’s control tower had 25 certified controllers, about 89 percent of the FAA’s staffing target. Per reports, one controller was managing both helicopter and airplane traffic on the night of the crash.

The measures at Reagan Airport could portend future changes for other airfields with heavy mixed traffic. The FAA on Friday said it is analyzing airports in the eight cities where it oversees chartered helicopter routes—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Detroit, and the Baltimore-Washington area—as well as the Gulf Coast, including offshore operations. It said it will produce corrective action plans to combat any safety concerns.

As part of that effort, the agency said it is using machine learning and language modeling technology to “scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk.” Duffy elaborated on these “AI tools” in his remarks this week, explaining that they are designed to “sift through the data” and find “hotspots” for potential collisions.

“If there’s another ‘DCA-esque’ situation out there, our AI tools will help us identify those and take corrective actions, preemptively as opposed to retroactively,” Duffy said.

FLYING has asked the FAA for more information about the use of artificial intelligence systems.

Like this story? We think you'll also like the Future of FLYING newsletter sent every Thursday afternoon. Sign up now.