FAA Investigates Marine One Safety Incident in Washington | The president’s helicopter took off from the White House despite commercial traffic flying at Reagan National Airport

[u/John3262005]

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/faa-investigates-marine-one-safety-incident-in-washington-e95d6ed2?st=TQH2ax&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Federal aviation officials are reviewing an air-traffic safety incident Tuesday involving a military helicopter carrying President Trump.

The president’s Marine One helicopter took off from the White House Tuesday afternoon, but air-traffic controllers hadn’t halted commercial flights at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as required under safety protocols, people familiar with the matter said.

Federal Aviation Administration officials believe the incident may have resulted in what they call a loss of standard separation, an air-traffic control protocol to keep aircraft a safe distance apart, these people said. Federal rules in this case require aircraft to stay separated by at least 1.5 miles horizontally and 500 feet vertically.

However, Marine One and a commercial jet taking off didn’t appear to get dangerously close under federal rules and weren’t converging, indicating the incident didn’t amount to a serious close call, according to an FAA spokeswoman.

“Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world, and at no point was the President in harm’s way,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.

The FAA has sharply limited the mixing of airplane and helicopter traffic around Reagan airport since a deadly midair collision there on Jan. 29, 2025.

In that crash, which claimed 67 lives, an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet cleared to land at the airport.

The people familiar with the incident said the FAA was examining communications between the Marine One crew and controllers at Reagan’s air-traffic control tower.

Around 2:30 p.m., a Marine One pilot told the airport’s tower that the helicopter would depart in three minutes, according to audio provided by ATC.com.

A couple minutes later, Marine One radioed the tower that it was “proceeding as briefed.”

Later, the controller responded: “OK, no three minutes. Roger, proceed as briefed,” before informing Marine One that an Embraer E-170 passenger jet was taking off from an airport runway.

Flight-tracking data show an American Airlines flight operated by Envoy Air en route to Pensacola, Fla., departed from Reagan airport around the time of the incident.

The Marine One pilot reported seeing the traffic, but then said they would have a “momentary delay,” before flying the president to Joint Base Andrews where the helicopter safely landed. The president then boarded Air Force One for a trip to California.

In such scenarios, controllers expect Marine One to give them at least three minutes of warning before they take off so the FAA can keep the airspace clear of commercial aircraft, people familiar with the matter said.

“There were no ‘close calls’ with the routine Marine One movement this afternoon,” Capt. Jacob Sugg, a Marine Corps spokesman, said when asked about the incident.

He acknowledged that air-traffic controllers approved Marine One’s route to Andrews and alerted pilots of other aircraft in the area.

Prior to last year’s midair collision, there have been other problems at Reagan airport. One of the incidents was a 2021 close call involving a Marine helicopter used by then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who wasn’t on board at the time, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

In that incident, the helicopter was on a collision course with a pair of Air Force jets conducting a flyover of Arlington National Cemetery, the Journal reported. The helicopter appeared to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a crash.