D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton asked the Department of Defense on Tuesday to end all non-essential VIP helicopter flights in the region to make Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport safer.
Ms. Norton, the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress, asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a letter to “permanently cease transporting VIPs in the National Capital Region by helicopter, with exceptions for the president, vice president and in national emergencies.”
“The convenience of government officials should not take precedence over aviation safety and the quiet enjoyment of residents of the NCR,” Ms. Norton, a Democrat, wrote, including a reference to the 67 lives lost in a Jan. 29 collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines Flight 5342 near Reagan.
Lawmakers, Cabinet officials and other dignitaries have long taken military helicopter flights to meetings in the metropolitan area.
“As with all Congressional correspondence, the Department responds directly to the author,” a Defense Department spokesperson said in an email to The Washington Times.
Ms. Norton’s letter comes as recent safety changes have threatened to increase interruptions at one of the nation’s busiest airports.
The Federal Aviation Administration limited helicopter traffic along the Potomac River after the fatal collision, which drew national attention to years of near-misses at the busy airstrip located near the nation’s capital.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation confirmed that the Black Hawk lost sight of the airliner while flying 78 feet above its 200-foot ceiling. The FAA subsequently abolished its rule that pilots rely on their eyes to maintain a safe distance from other aircraft.
The new separation rule requires air traffic controllers and pilots to use radar to keep planes 500 feet below or above other aircraft and maintain 1.5 miles of lateral space between them.
The new rules do not affect Marine One helicopter flights involving the president and the vice president.
It remains unclear whether the changes have increased commercial flight disruptions due to other VIP helicopter flights, as Ms. Norton implied.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one commercial pilot with 36 years of experience flying out of Reagan for a major airline said the radar separation guidelines could slow down commercial airlines during military helicopter movements “for a minute or two,” reversing the old practice of aircraft flying simultaneously.
“If you’re in a car and everyone has to be 100 yards from each other going down the highway, it’s going to cause a bigger traffic jam than if everyone is riding bumper to bumper,” the pilot said. “But right now the burden is being placed more on the helicopters than on commercial airlines to restrict their activity.”
The FAA did not respond on Tuesday to an email seeking information about flight interruptions since the policy change.
According to the airline tracking website FlightAware, there were 830 arrivals and departures at Reagan on the day of the accident, up from 817 on Jan. 29 last year but below the 840 flights recorded on the same day in 2023.
Since then, the tally of daily flights has fallen below the past two years, cratering at 694 on Feb. 17 and hitting 814 on Monday, when 177 were delayed and 20 were canceled. Overall, flight volume at Reagan was down 10% from 2023 over the seven days ending Monday.
Nevertheless, some travelers have complained on social media in recent weeks about an apparent uptick in flight delays and cancellations.
In a late-night post on X on Feb. 20, Florida attorney Sarah Fishel said her JetBlue flight to Palm Beach International Airport had been “delayed for 6 hours” and that she waited on the plane for an hour to know why.
“Zero reason provided for the delay,” Ms. Fishel said. “Now we are deplaning. Air travel is ridiculous these days.”
The Washington Post reported Monday that the new radar guidelines have caused dozens of flights to circle in holding patterns or divert to other regional airports. It cited two recent Marine One flights by President Trump as examples and referred to an internal American Airlines memo instructing pilots to carry more fuel for possible holding pattern delays at Reagan.
According to the anonymous pilot, any flights diverted or delayed because of Marine One are unrelated to the new FAA regulations, which he said are more likely to affect VIP flights involving lawmakers and cabinet officials.
“Some people blame Trump because there’s no shame and they’re insane,” the pilot said. “But there’s nothing different about planes being grounded when Trump flies than what happened under Biden or Clinton.”
The NTSB, which investigates aviation accidents, referred questions about the impact of the new safety regulations to the FAA.
NTSB spokesperson Peter C. Knudson said the agency will have more to say about last month’s accident in a preliminary report due “in the coming weeks.”
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority referred questions to the FAA and the airline industry.
“Safety is always our top priority, and we appreciate the FAA’s efforts to ensure that aviation remains the safest mode of transportation while working to determine a long-term solution to minimize operational disruptions related to essential helicopter movements,” Airlines for America, a trade group representing major U.S. air carriers, said in a statement.
Steve Polzin, an Arizona State University professor researching mass transportation, said the radar separation guidelines could make flying — already the safest way of traveling, statistically speaking — even safer.
“It may make folks feel safer and it shows action, which can be comforting,” Mr. Polzin said. “The tradeoffs are the inconvenience and subsequent personal and business costs of delays. With time, they may tweak the policies as they learn more.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.