FAA denied request to reduce flight arrivals at DC airport months before mid-air collision: Report

The Federal Aviation Administration allegedly rejected requests from air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport to decrease the number of flights traveling into the airport, months before a deadly collision took place, the Washington Times reported Friday. 

The revelation comes just days before the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to vote on the final report of last year's collision between an American Airlines flight and a military helicopter, which killed everyone on board.

The final report is expected to include dozens of new safety recommendations, but it is not clear if decreasing the number of arrivals at the airport every hour is among them. The air traffic controllers asked the FAA to decrease the number of arrivals on the airport's main runway from 36 to 32 incoming flights per hour, according to an internal FAA memo made public by the NTSB, the outlet reported. 

The team of air traffic controllers, who worked at the Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control in Warrenton, Virginia, made the request in May 2023. The team cited several safety factors in the request, including an inability to meter arriving aircraft to maintain the required four miles of spacing between them.

An FAA official, who is now retired but was serving as the FAA’s Washington district general manager, declined to move the request up the chain of command for supposedly political reasons, air traffic controllers told the Washington Times.

NTSB board members are expected to vote on the final report of the probable cause of the collision on Tuesday.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.