Late evening on January 29, an American Eagle
flight, operated by PSA Airlines, and a United States Army (USA) helicopter collided east of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
(DCA), claiming the lives of 67 people: 64 onboard the Mitsubishi CRJ700 and three onboard the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
The crash happened in one of the most congested airspaces in the US, with restricted areas making the management of the airspace around Reagan National airport even more difficult for air traffic controllers (ATC), as well as pilots flying into the area.
Mid-air collision
The accident, involving the PSA Airlines
– operating on behalf of American Eagle – CRJ700 and the UH-60 Black Hawk, happened at around 20:48 local time (UTC -5) when the latter collided with the former to the east of runway 33/15, where the regional jet, registered as N709PS, was cleared to land.
According to 
American Airlines
, 64 people, including 60 passengers and four crew members, were onboard the CRJ700
that was operating American Airlines Flight 5342
. Per Muriel Bowser, the mayor of the District of Columbia, there were three people onboard the UH-60.
PSA Airlines is a subsidiary of American Airlines Group
, the holding company of American Airlines, and other regional subsidiaries, such as Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines. Three other regional airlines operate on behalf of American Airlines/American Eagle via capacity purchase agreements (CPA).
Nevertheless, ATC audio revealed that the controller working at Washington-National’s tower first asked the flight crew of the Black Hawk whether they had the CRJ in sight and then instructed the helicopter to “pass behind the CRJ.”
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
The accident occurred following several near-misses at US airports throughout 2023 and 2024, including two at Washington-National in April 2024 and May 2024.
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Raising the risks of an accident
In May 2024, just weeks before the second near-miss at Washington-National in less than 30 days, Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, spoke on the Senate floor and warned that if any more flights are added to the airport, it could raise the risks of an accident.
In a statement, the Coalition to Protect America’s Regional Airports (CPARA) said that Kaine brought attention to the very real risks to passenger safety posed by adding flights to Washington-National.
“Senator Kaine is clear that adding more flights to the already congested airspace over DCA and the airport’s busiest in the nation runway ‘will raise the risk of an accident.”
According to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the airport has a “narrow, restricted corridor for take-offs and landings,” and pilots rate Washington-National “among the nation’s most challenging.”
Photo: Douglas Litchfield | Shutterstock
“Because of the short length of its runways, over 90 percent of DCA’s flights use its main runway, making it the busiest runway in America with over 800 daily takeoffs and landings, which is a takeoff or landing every minute during most of the day.”
Data from the aviation analytics company Cirium’s Diio Mi airline planning tool showed that in January, airlines added 34 more weekly flights, an increase of 1.2% year-on-year (YoY). The MWAA warned that according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s ( FAA
) estimates, “adding just 25 round-trip flights to DCA would add to delays by more than 30 percent.”
An FAA special awareness training document read that regulations stipulate that pilots who fly under visual flight rules (VFR) within a 60 nautical mile (111.1 kilometers) radius of the Washington DC VOR/DME must undergo special training.
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ATC shortcomings
In December 2024, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report, providing a damning conclusion: 51 out of 138 of the FAA’s systems were unsustainable, with 17 of those systems being especially concerning to the GAO.
The GAO initiated the assessment of the FAA’s ATC systems following the system-wide shutdown in January 2023, when the agency’s Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) system experienced a failure.
“Until FAA takes urgent action to reduce the time frames to replace critical and at-risk ATC systems, it will continue to rely on a large percentage of unsustainable systems to perform critical functions for safe air travel. This reliance occurs at a time when air traffic is expected to increase each year.”
Photo: Kit Leong | Shutterstock
However, the regulator told the GAO that as of December 2024, they did not have any updates on its actions to address its recommendations, promising to provide one in March 2025. The FAA still does not have an Administrator or Deputy Administrator following the inauguration of Donald Trump, the President of the US, and Sean Duffy, who was sworn in as the Secretary of Transportation on January 28.
Duffy, who promised to support maximum hiring targets for ATCs, had already signed his first memorandums during the first two days of his tenure. Instead of tackling real issues affecting the National Airspace System (NAS), Duffy followed Trump’s agenda, targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and sustainability policies within the DOT.
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