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Normalization of Deviance
The NTSB safety recommendation on the DCA Crash is going to be a test for the FAA
mister mix
March 13, 2025
The preliminary NTSB report on the mid-air collision between the PSA Airlines (operating as American Airlines) CRJ-700 and the Blackhawk Helicopter is out. The NTSB also made an urgent safety recommendation. First, this is a real problem:
Review of information gathered from voluntary safety reporting programs along with FAA data regarding encounters between helicopters and commercial aircraft near DCA from 2011 through 2024 indicated that a vast majority of the reported events occurred on approach to landing. Initial analysis found that at least one TCAS resolution advisory (RA) was triggered per month due to proximity to a helicopter. In over half of these instances, the helicopter may have been above the route altitude restriction. Two-thirds of the events occurred at night.
A review of commercial operations (instrument flight rules departures or arrivals) at DCA between October 2021 and December 2024 indicated a total of 944,179 operations. During that time, there were 15,214 occurrences between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than 1 nm and vertical separation of less than 400 ft. There were 85 recorded events that involved a lateral separation less than 1,500 ft and vertical separation less than 200 ft.
The data indicated that, between 2018 and 2024, runway 1 accounted for about 57% of arrivals, runway 19 accounted for about 38% of arrivals, runway 33 accounted for about 4% of arrivals, and runway 15 accounted for less than 1 percent of arrivals at DCA. Runway 15 accounted for about 5% of departures from DCA
So 1.6% of all helicopter/airplane encounters (15,214/944,179) were really close. 85 of them were what can only be called near misses. Here’s how tight the clearance between the approach to runway 33 and the helicopter route are — that’s the runway where the PSA jet was planning to land before the collision. 75 ft is within the margin of error for a barometric altimeter.
Since runway 33 is rarely used, the NTSB made an urgent safety recommendation. No more helicopter traffic on Route 4 when runway 33 is being used for arrivals or runway 15 is used for departures. (Basically, this means to helicopter traffic on Route 4 when airplanes can fly over the Potomac in the direction of Route 4.) The NTSB also recommends that another helicopter route be created for times when Route 4 is closed.
This is a major test for the new DOGEy FAA. Are they going to implement this NTSB recommendation, or are they going to ignore it? Will they normalize deviance here, as they have in so many other parts of the government?
(Juan Browne has a good, short video on the NTSB report on his Blancolirio YouTube channel.)
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