60 Minutes obtains documents showing close calls one day before D.C. midair collision
In a Nutshell
**60 Minutes** reveals documents showing two near mid-air collisions between passenger jets and Army helicopters at Reagan National Airport (DCA) just one day before the fatal 2023 crash of American Airlines **Flight 5342** into a Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac, killing 67, amid 85 reported close calls from 2021-2024. Air traffic controllers had warned the FAA for years about DCA's overloaded airspace, non-parallel runways, risky "squeeze play" operations, and poor helicopter routes allowing just 75 feet of separation, exacerbated by night vision goggles limiting pilots' visibility. The NTSB cited systemic failures, issued 50 recommendations including banning visual separation, and urged Congress and the FAA to act on surveillance tech before another disaster, as post-crash incidents persist.
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It was a week of chaos at airports across the country. Gridlock in Washington left TSA workers without pay, triggering 4-hour security lines in some of the nation's busiest airports. Last Sunday, a commercial jet crashed into a fire truck while landing on a runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport. Dozens were injured and two pilots were killed. Authorities are investigating, but the air traffic controller on duty said they were dealing with an earlier emergency and soon after the accident said, "I messed up." It is a chilling reminder of just how thin our aviation system is stretched. Last year, American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River near DC, the deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
Tonight, you will hear from an air traffic controller who was inside the tower the day of that collision. She tells why controllers at Washington's busiest airport have been warning of danger for years. It is a story of a system pushed to the breaking point and the shattered families left to pick up the pieces. In southern Maryland, seven widows whose husbands were on Flight 5342 agreed to share their story together for the first time. The men, all work buddies, met up with friends in Kansas for a week of duck hunting. The women shared photos of the excitement their husbands felt leading up to the trip.
Alex got home from work and he was like, "Before you say anything, it's already paid for." So I was like, "When do you leave?" Like there was no asking any more questions. He was so excited to go. Like it literally looked like Christmas morning in his face.
Kayla Huffman's husband, Alex, posed with the crew and their trophies. Bridget Johnson was married to Steve for 19 years. Kylie Pitcher's husband, Jesse, owned a plumbing company. Ashley Stoville's husband, Mikey, was a steam fitter. So was Charlie, Heather McDaniel's husband.
I met Charlie on the softball field, and he basically from that day always said, you know, I knew I was going to marry that girl. because you were that good of a softball player.
Well, that too. Yes. I gave him a run for his money.
When the hunting and fun was over, the men headed to the airport. Sarah Boyd's husband, John, checked in from the plane.
John had texted me when he first boarded and said, "Bourbon in hand." And right before they landed, he said, "About to land this bird."
Jill Clagg was tucked into bed with her young daughters, waiting for her husband, Tommy, when the phone rang. She slid out of the bed not to wake them up and turned on the TV and saw the explosion.
Fire command. The accident happened in the river.
Families raced to the airport as divers searched the icy Potomac. By morning they were told the rescue mission was over.
I literally screamed, "What am I going to do?" It got to the point where like his friends were calling me at like 5:00 in the morning and they were like, "Is he okay? Is he okay?" I said, "No, he's dead. He's gone." And it's no longer a rescue. It's a recovery, which means there's no survivors. None.
As the wreckage was pulled from the river, federal investigators began a year-long forensic autopsy of the collision. Video shows the American Airlines jet, seen here on the right of your screen, pulled up just before it and the Army helicopter collided.
There were obvious cracks in the system. There were obvious holes.
Emily Hanoka says she saw those holes during her time as an air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Her shift in the control tower ended a few hours before the fatal crash. She is speaking for the first time about the stress conditions that she believes set the stage for tragedy.
You had frontline controllers ringing that bell for years and years saying this is not safe. This cannot continue. Please change this. And that didn't happen.
For more than a decade, air traffic controllers warned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the tempo of passenger jets and beehive of Army, police, and hospital helicopters near DCA was a recipe for disaster. The NTSB confirms between 2021 and 2024, 85 near mid-air collisions between helicopters and commercial aircraft at DCA were reported to the FAA. 60 Minutes has obtained documents that reveal just one day before last year's fatal crash, two separate passenger jets had to take sudden action to avoid colliding with Army helicopters. The warning signs were all there. Controllers formed local safety councils. And every time that a controller made these safety reports, another controller was compiling data to back up the recommendation. Many recommendations were made and they never went too far.
DCA is unique. It's owned by the federal government and the number of daily flights is ultimately determined by Congress. Since 2000, lawmakers added at least 50 flights to the already congested airport and approved another 10 in 2024.
Some hours are overloaded to the point where it's over the capacity that the airport can handle. Was there pressure to get more planes in and out?
Yeah. There was definitely a pressure. If you do not move planes, you will gridlock the airport.
DCA moves 25 million passengers a year, 10 million more than its intended capacity. Its location near the heart of DC makes it popular, but also problematic. Restricted airspace near the airport shields the White House, the US Capitol, and other government buildings, funneling planes and helicopters into the same narrow corridor over the Potomac.
Hanoka showed on her map of the airspace why the tarmac is just as tricky. There are only three short runways at DCA and none are parallel. If a plane's coming in, because these runways intersect, everything is connected.
Everything is connected. There is no independent operation at DCA.
DCA's main runway, runway 1, is the busiest in the country with over 800 flights a day, roughly one every minute. To make it work, Hanoka says air traffic controllers often relied on what they called a squeeze play.
A squeeze play is when everything is dependent on an aircraft rolling, an aircraft slowing, and you know, it's going to be a very close operation.
So, they're really just one's going up and one's going in at the same time. And that is a really common operation.
Two airplanes on one runway within seconds of each other.
Is that normal at other airports?
No. New controllers come in. They've transferred from other facilities and they'll look at the operation and say absolutely not. And they'll withdraw from training. When I was there it was about 50%.
50%.
About half of the people that walked in the building to train would say absolutely not. A year after the crash, nearly one-third of the controller positions in the DCA tower are unfilled.
It was surprising walking into that work environment how close aircraft were. It's just kind of accepted there.
Yeah, this is what has to happen in order to make this airspace work. And it did work. It worked until it didn't.
In January, the NTSB determined the mid-air collision of Flight 5342 and the Blackhawk helicopter was preventable. In its 388-page report, investigators didn't identify a single cause of the accident. Rather, they called out systemic failures, including ignored warning signs about risks and a helicopter route that was designed so poorly that in some parts of the sky, it allowed for just 75 ft of vertical separation between helicopters and passenger jets.
I flew these routes hundreds of times.
During his 20 years in the army, Tim Lily flew Blackhawk helicopters, often down the Potomac River near DCA. The night of the crash, investigators say the Blackhawk crew was relying on what's called visual separation. Literally just looking out the window to avoid nearby passenger jets.
To apply visual separation, the pilot has to positively identify the other aircraft and say, "That's the plane you're talking about. That's the plane." And he has to maintain constant surveillance on that aircraft, which is impossible under these conditions.
Impossible, he says, because the crew was likely wearing night vision goggles, which Lily says limit what a pilot can see.
Help people out with this at home because I think we've all watched enough movies where you see somebody put on night vision goggles and they can see everything. But that's not the case, especially under these conditions. When you have a lot of bright lights you do in, you know, Washington DC area, everything gets washed out through the goggles.
Career one, Washington national 2 ner ner zero. The NTSB built this simulation to show what those Blackhawk pilots saw, or rather what they couldn't see. That green circle indicates the pilot's view wearing night vision goggles. That purple circle is the American Airlines jet they were supposed to be looking out for. You can see how it's hard to distinguish between an airliner and ground lights. Night vision goggles also limit peripheral vision. So the crew on a training mission didn't see Flight 5342 until it was too late.
The proper way to fly that is constantly scanning, always moving your head side to side because your field of view is limited with goggles.
But why is that kind of training happening in this airspace where it's so busy?
The military would say this is where our mission is. This is where we need to train. And to some degree, I agree with that. But those training environments, they should be nowhere near commercial airliners.
Tim Lily is now advocating for changes to make the sky safer. His son Sam shared his love of aviation and in the cruelest twist of fate was the first officer on American Airlines Flight 5342, one of the 67 killed in the crash.
And I never thought to warn him about the helicopters because I just didn't realize how far the safety margins had slipped since I had flown those routes.
This was a system that failed the people on the aircraft on the helicopter in the air traffic control tower.
Jennifer Homendy is the chairwoman of the NTSB. After a year-long investigation, the agency suggested 50 safety recommendations to prevent similar accidents.
If everybody knows those close calls are dangerous, then why didn't anybody step in and say, "We have to lighten the load here."
The air traffic control tower the entire time was saying, "We have a real safety problem here." And nobody was listening. It was like somebody was asleep at the switch or didn't want to act. It is a bureaucratic nightmare.
Immediately after the accident, the FAA moved some helicopter routes away from DCA and ended the use of visual separation. Earlier this month, it expanded that ban to busy airports across the country. In a statement to 60 Minutes, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he's helped secure more than $12 billion to aggressively overhaul our air traffic control system. But the problems at DCA continue since the crash, 60 Minutes has learned at least four times aircraft and helicopters have gotten too close, triggering safety reports.
It is unconscionable that we are having to be here right now.
Some of the families of Flight 5342 are now fixtures on Capitol Hill, advocating for aircraft surveillance technology that might have saved their loved ones. Jennifer Homendy says if the FAA and lawmakers don't move quickly on safety legislation, they are clearing the path for another disaster.
I imagine most of them fly in and out of DCA.
They do. So, what would you say if they were listening? I'd say, why do we always have to wait until people die to take action?
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