Federal investigators probing January’s fatal air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport have called for restrictions on military helicopters to make the area safer for commercial passengers.

In a preliminary report Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board urged the Federal Aviation Administration to “prohibit operations” and identify alternative routes for helicopters flying between Hains Point and the Wilson Bridge when passenger jets are landing or taking off at runways 15 and 33.

The Jan. 29 nighttime collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet killed 67 people as the plane began its descent over the Potomac River to land.

According to the NTSB report, the crash likely occurred about 300 feet above the ground as the jet descended and the helicopter strayed well above its 200-foot limit as its pilots conducted an annual test flight.

Investigators said the proposed changes should help resolve a longstanding problem of helicopters flying too close to commercial jets as they land at Reagan.

“Review of information gathered from voluntary safety reporting programs along with FAA data regarding encounters between helicopters and commercial aircraft near DCA from 2011 through 2024 indicated that a vast majority of the reported events occurred on approach to landing,” the report said.

An NTSB review of 944,179 commercial arrivals and departures at DCA between October 2021 and December 2024 found 15,214 near-collisions between commercial airplanes and helicopters that had less than 400 feet of vertical separation between them.

Of them, 85 recorded events involved a lateral separation of less than 1,500 feet and vertical separation of less than 200 feet.

“In over half of these instances, the helicopter may have been above the route altitude restriction,” the report said. “Two-thirds of the events occurred at night.”

• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.