Latest news with #WashingtonNationalAirport
Bloomberg
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Pentagon-to-Reagan Airport Hotline Broken Since 2022, FAA Says
A hotline that directly connects the Pentagon to the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport hasn't been operational since March 2022, an US Federal Aviation Administration official said. The revelation emerged during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday, during which lawmakers pressed the FAA about a recent incident in which two commercial flights were forced to abort landings at the airport because of a nearby US Army Black Hawk helicopter traveling to the Pentagon. The event was especially concerning because it came just a few months after a midair collision between a regional passenger jet and Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
Reuters
02-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
FAA investigating after two Washington flights aborted landings due to nearby helicopter
WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - Two flights aborted landings at Reagan Washington National Airport on Thursday because of the presence of a U.S. military helicopter that was headed to the Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The FAA, which is investigating the incident, said Friday air traffic control instructed Delta Air Lines Flight 1671 and Republic Airways Flight 5825 to perform go-arounds due to a priority air transport helicopter. The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Black Hawk Pilots Missed Key Message Before D.C. Plane Collision
Military helicopter pilots on a training flight over Washington, D.C., did not hear air traffic control directions to pass behind a passenger jet heading its way, investigators revealed on Friday. With American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kan., descending to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the control tower warned the Black Hawk pilots to 'pass behind' the looming aircraft seconds before the Jan. 29 midair collision. But according to National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, the words 'pass behind the' were cut from the transmission to the cockpit of the military chopper. She said it wasn't known why communication in the cockpit cut out or why those vital instructions were 'not communicated' to the copter pilots. The mystery is one of the leads NTSB is investigating in its attempt to discover the cause of the crash that killed 67 people when the Mitsubishi Bombardier passenger plane collided with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk above the Potomac River. It was America's worst air crash since November 12, 2001, when 260 people died when a plane smashed into a New York neighborhood. Another five people were killed on the ground. Homendy said investigators were also trying to determine whether there was confusion onboard the helicopter about its altitude around the time of the crash and if the pilots' wearing night-vision goggles had any bearing on their final moments. In a second-by-second description, Homendy said there was an instructor pilot in the chopper carrying out an annual test on his fellow flyer as well as a night-vision exam. They were using routes regularly employed by military craft over the Potomac, but investigators learned that at one point a couple of minutes before the collision, the pilot reported a height of 300 feet while the instructor said it was at 400 feet. 'We don't know why there was that discrepancy,' she said. The radio tower appeared to alert the helicopter that oncoming traffic was 'in sight' and passed on instructions to avoid it. Until the final transmission to the helicopter, both the plane and helicopter pilots could hear instructions from the control tower, but couldn't hear each other's responses. A 'traffic, traffic' alert was passed on to the helicopter pilots with a message to pass behind the jet. It is this message, or at least part of it, that never reached the pilots. Seven seconds before impact, the Black Hawk crew said it had 'traffic in sight.' At that time, the copter was at 278 feet, but the NTSB accepts there may have been 'conflicting information in the data.' They said the altitude the pilots saw in their cockpit may not have been accurate. 'We will be investigating into what the Black Hawk pilots could and could not see,' said Momendy, who said there may be a number of reasons, including a malfunction of the altimeter on board the chopper. 'We are looking at the possibility that there may have been bad data where they saw something different inside the cockpit,' she added. Investigators will also be looking into whether the night goggles used for the visibility study were a factor, she said.
Bloomberg
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Trump to Ask Congress to Upgrade US Air Traffic Control System
President Donald Trump said he would speak to congressional leaders about legislation to create a US air traffic control system following a deadly crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, calling the current technology 'obsolete.' 'We're all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers, brand new, not pieced together,' Trump said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
Boston Globe
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Today in History: February 6, Queen Elizabeth II accedes to throne
In 1862, during the Civil War, Fort Henry in Tennessee fell to Union forces. In 1899, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain was ratified by the US Senate; the treaty ended the Spanish-American War and ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. In 1921, 'The Kid,' Charlie Chaplin's first feature-length film, was released across the United States. Advertisement In 1952, Britain's King George VI, 56, died at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England; he was succeeded as monarch by his 25-year-old eldest daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth II. In 1978, it started snowing around 7 a.m. By the time it ended 32 hours later, the Blizzard of '78 had dumped 27 inches of snow on Boston (and twice that amount on some South Shore towns), forcing hundreds of motorists to abandon their cars on major arteries, destroying 2,000 homes, and claiming the lives of 29 Massachusetts residents. In 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, honoring the former president on his 87th birthday. In 2008, the Bush White House defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it was legal, not torture, and had saved American lives. In 2023, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, toppling thousands of buildings and trapping residents under mounds of rubble; the death toll would eventually surpass 50,000. In 2024, Seiji Ozawa died. The trailblazing conductor and leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 29 seasons was 88.
