FAA probes potential safety violation involving president's Marine One

The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that it was investigating a safety incident related to President Donald Trump's Marine One helicopter, which took off before airport operations could be paused at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

FAA officials said that the incident was not a close-call and no aircraft were in immediate danger, but it marked a breach in safety procedures, which calls for air traffic controllers to pause all commercial aircraft activity at the airport when Marine One takes off. But that didn't happen in this instance.

Air Traffic Control is usually given at least three minutes' notice before Marine One departs to halt ​traffic from the D.C. airport, according to Reuters.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the incident took place at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, when Marine One took off from the White House lawn with the president on board. The White House said the president was not in danger.

“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,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told the WSJ.

Two sources told Reuters the ⁠FAA is planning to convene a Safety Review Team to look into the incident. The sources said FAA rules require aircraft to remain separated by at least ​1.5 miles horizontally and 500 feet vertically around airports. No violation of that occurred. 

"The FAA is investigating a safety incident involving Marine One but it didn’t appear to be a dangerous close call and the aircraft weren’t apparently converging," the FAA said.

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