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The F.A.A. restricted helicopter routes nearby in the aftermath of the Wednesday collision. For some officials, the concerns about clogged airspace were a long time coming.
- Jan. 31, 2025Updated 7:48 p.m. ET
The flight path that an Army Black Hawk helicopter took before its fatal collision with an American Airlines regional jet, long a concern to aviation officials, was closed to most helicopters after the deadliest aviation accident in the United States in nearly a quarter of a century.
The Federal Aviation Administration restricted two commonly used helicopter routes that run north and south along Washington’s Potomac River, both of which were traveled by the Black Hawk that smashed into the jet on Wednesday night, to all but the most essential flights.
On Friday, Sean Duffy, the new U.S. transportation secretary, who oversees the F.A.A., touted the closures as a critical new safety measure. “The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system, and today’s action is a significant step towards restoring that trust,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Duffy is not the first federal official to view the heavily traveled helicopter routes around Ronald Reagan National Airport as a problem.
F.A.A. air-traffic overseers have for years viewed the clogged airways around Reagan, which attracts a high number of military and official government flights because of its location as well as a busy flow of commercial ones, as a point of concern — so much so that they issued a warning in a 2023 memo assessing the impact of adding new flight routes to the airport.
Some legislators have worried, too. Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, warned last year about the prospect of people asking lawmakers to comment after a tragedy and saying, “You were warned and you voted for it anyway.”
