A Plane Crash, Warning Signs and an Investigation

Speaker 1 Wednesday started as a pretty normal day at Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation.

Speaker 2 You know, that day there'd been probably about 700 flights that takeoffs and landings from Reagan National.

Speaker 1 That's our colleague Ben Katz. He covers aviation.

Speaker 2 And then suddenly flight 5342 got a call from air traffic controllers asking if they would, instead of coming into the primary runway at Reagan National instead take runway 33.217 plus 2526 runway 33.

Speaker 3 Yeah we can do 33436342.

Speaker 1 Flight 5342 was arriving from Wichita, Kansas, and had 64 people on board.

Speaker 2 And less than a minute later, there was a sudden alert inside the air traffic control tower.

Speaker 1 The alert said the Wichita flight was at risk of colliding with a military helicopter. Air traffic control alerted the helicopter's crew to the plane.

Speaker 2 The helicopter crew acknowledged that they were aware of the aircraft, and then 15 or so seconds later, the two aircraft collided.

Speaker 2 67 people have died. The search and rescue teams are still trying to recover all of the bodies.

Speaker 1 How unusual is a tragedy of this scale?

Speaker 2 In the United States, very.

Speaker 2 We haven't seen an air disaster kind of of this scale in the United States for 15 years.

Speaker 2 But the scale of the fatalities in this incident on Wednesday evening makes it the deadliest aviation disaster since November 2001.

Speaker 1 So you cover the airline industry. Did this accident, did this tragedy surprise you?

Speaker 2 It's a really interesting question. I think the scale of it has surprised me.
The fact that there was a collision,

Speaker 2 less so.

Speaker 1 Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson.
It's Friday, January 31st.

Speaker 1 Coming up on the show, the warning signs leading up to this week's deadly crash.

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Speaker 1 Reagan National Airport sits directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 On a clear night, like it was on Wednesday, you can see the glowing white dome of the U.S.

Speaker 1 Capitol building and the floodlights on the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial during takeoff and landing.

Speaker 1 What makes this airport and this airspace unique?

Speaker 2 So it's unique in multiple ways.

Speaker 2 You know, if you had to compare it to a hub airport, say in Chicago, which deals with big scheduled passenger planes that are kind of traveling in, the schedules are, you know, known well in advance.

Speaker 2 There's a lot more kind of ad hoc activity at Reagan National.

Speaker 2 We're dealing with, you know, a lot of passengers, but also a lot of VIPs, a lot of government officials, a lot of politicians, a lot of military personnel. So it's really quite a busy airport.

Speaker 2 It's also really close to a military base. And

Speaker 2 because of that, the congestion around the airport has been kind of a major topical issue that has concerned a lot of people.

Speaker 1 Why even are there helicopters that are flying along this route where planes are coming in to land and take off?

Speaker 2 It's a really interesting question. And I think kind of as the reporting kind of goes out, we're starting to learn a little bit more about this.

Speaker 2 But essentially, there is a taxi surface that is effectively run by the military.

Speaker 2 These kind of aircrafts like the Black Hawk, the Sikorsky H-60 that was involved in this collision, is typically used to ferry, you know, VIP guests to, you know, to and around DC, government officials, generals.

Speaker 2 In the case of an emergency, if there were ever an attack on DC or towards the president, you know, the president may be escorted or evacuated via helicopter, you know, throughout or through these pathways.

Speaker 2 So there are very legitimate reasons for why these helicopters are operating there.

Speaker 2 Our understanding at the moment, although this could still evolve, is that the helicopter involved in Wednesday's collision was doing a training exercise training to run those paths.

Speaker 1 Has the DC airspace always been this congestion and this crowded or has it been getting worse?

Speaker 2 It's definitely been getting worse. You know, what we've seen is a lot of politicians, Senate leaders, you know, who are running to DC and back.

Speaker 2 You know, a lot of government officials have been pushing for their states to be kind of represented, you know, so to speak, in the flight paths to and from Reagan National.

Speaker 2 So there's often a lot of kind of tussling over who gets the direct flight from Reagan National.

Speaker 1 Just in the past few years, the Senate authorized an increase in flights at Reagan National Airport by as many as 10 per day.

Speaker 1 Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas said yesterday that he had successfully lobbied American Airlines to use one of its existing slots to fly a direct route to Wichita, the same route that had the crash on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 When he pushed for it, he said connecting Wichita to DC with a direct flight would help local companies get federal work.

Speaker 2 Reagan National itself was built really to handle about 15 million passengers a year. In 2023, it handled 25 million.

Speaker 2 So you can already see just by the footfall, you know, how much more this airport is handling, just in terms of people and aircraft.

Speaker 1 The agency charged with overseeing DC's increasingly crowded airspace is the Federal Aviation Administration.

Speaker 2 The FAA has a huge mandate, right? It's managing airspace, it's managing air traffic controllers, but it's also managing, regulating Boeing and aircraft manufacturing, the engine makers.

Speaker 2 You know, the FAA is also constantly under a microscopic lens, right? I mean, the whole world looks to the FAA for guidance.

Speaker 1 But in recent years, the FAA has been under pressure. It's faced criticism for its oversight of Boeing.
It's seen a lot of turnover in its top leadership.

Speaker 1 And it's struggled to fully staff air traffic control operations, or ATC, around the country.

Speaker 1 The FAA has acknowledged the staffing shortages and has worked for years to address it. The agency also says it slows down traffic to maintain safety when there aren't enough controllers.

Speaker 2 So air traffic controllers, kind of one of the biggest hits here is that that they're difficult to train.

Speaker 2 It takes time at least a year to, you know, really come to grips with the technology that you use to be an air traffic controller, to understand the radar systems.

Speaker 2 You know, it's a very in-depth, very professionalized job and career. Obviously, you know, the U.S.
has been dealing with labor shortages kind of across the board.

Speaker 2 But then you add to this, you know, the long turnaround times and just getting someone new and putting them in an air traffic control tower.

Speaker 2 There's also, you know, the industry has also been battling with this loss of experience, right? During the pandemic, we saw a lot of people leave the industry.

Speaker 2 So, you know, it's one thing to be qualified to be an air traffic controller, and it's another thing to have been doing it for 40 years.

Speaker 2 If you're brand new to the job and you're surrounded by other people who are brand new to the job, you may also be, you know, tired or exhausted because your shifts are longer than they should be, or you haven't had a break in a long time.

Speaker 2 You know, the stresses of that can really affect you and your ability to properly manage airspace.

Speaker 1 At the same time, the FAA has been struggling to staff air traffic control, there's been an uptick in close calls.

Speaker 2 We've definitely been keeping track of that increase.

Speaker 2 You know, cases where big aircraft have nearly collided, whether that's on approach towards an airport, whether that's an aircraft that's been landing while another has been taking off.

Speaker 1 In 2023, a study commissioned by the FAA found mounting risks to safety and efficiency in U.S. air traffic.
At the time, the agency said it had taken several actions to end serious close calls.

Speaker 1 Near misses have taken place all over the country, including in DC.

Speaker 1 Last spring, a pilot flying into Washington, Reagan reported coming dangerously close to a military helicopter when coming in to land.

Speaker 1 In a report of that incident, the pilot wrote that there needed to be better separation between plane and helicopter traffic.

Speaker 1 And then, just a day before Wednesday's crash, a jet that was minutes away from landing aborted to avoid a helicopter in its way.

Speaker 2 For pilots, this airport is scary. It's a very difficult airport to land at.
The congestion is very hard.

Speaker 2 At night time, especially, there's low visibility because of the lights of the city that kind of interfere with what pilots can see.

Speaker 2 The activity of military aircraft around the area, as well as the proximity to, you know, helicopters, both commercial

Speaker 2 freight and military, you know, it makes it an incredibly complex and congested area to fly into. So this really is kind of the melting pot for where it can potentially go all wrong.

Speaker 1 And then on Wednesday, it did.

Speaker 1 What we know about the cause of the crash

Speaker 1 after the break.

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Speaker 1 67 people are presumed dead from Wednesday's crash. Among the dead is a group of young figure figure skaters, their coaches and their family members.

Speaker 1 They were returning from a training camp for up-and-coming athletes in Wichita, Kansas.

Speaker 1 At a press conference outside Boston, where a number of the skaters were based, skating legend Nancy Kerrigan fought through tears to honor the people who died.

Speaker 7 But I just, I feel for

Speaker 7 the athletes, the skaters, their families, but anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters,

Speaker 7 because it's just such a tragic event. And

Speaker 1 in Wichita, a memorial was set up at the airport.

Speaker 8 As you can see, some flowers and notes. And earlier this morning, we did see a woman come by and she left this note on the table.

Speaker 8 It offers up some prayers for the families who are affected and praying for the light of God to shine upon them. Now, she didn't want to speak.

Speaker 1 What do we know at this point about why this crash might have happened?

Speaker 2 We know that the aircraft was rerouted to land at a different runway, and that happened, you know, only less than a minute maybe before the collision happened.

Speaker 2 There's a question mark as to whether the air traffic controller noticed that there was a helicopter that would have crossed paths with this aircraft.

Speaker 2 And then about 20 seconds before the collision happened, the air traffic controller got an alert on their own system saying that a collision was kind of imminent. They contacted the military aircraft.

Speaker 2 They said, do you have this CRJ700 aircraft in your sight? The helicopter crew acknowledged it. They said that they did have the aircraft in sight and that they would take their own avoidance action.

Speaker 2 The helicopter then proceeded to climb in altitude, reaching kind of first 250 feet, then about 300, and then possibly even going a little bit further. And that's when it collided.

Speaker 1 Helicopters aren't supposed to fly more than 200 feet above the ground along this part of the Potomac River. But when the collision happened, it was flying at over 300 feet.

Speaker 2 So there really is a big question mark as to why the helicopter in its final moments rose to the altitude that the regional jet was coming down to and what led to that collision at that point.

Speaker 2 You know, maybe the helicopter crew didn't have great visibility. Maybe they didn't identify the right aircraft.

Speaker 2 You know, they were flying towards the city, so there were lights in the background that may have disguised the aircraft.

Speaker 2 But a lot of the investigation, a lot of the questions are really narrowing into those final few seconds before the collision as to what that helicopter was doing kind of outside of its mandated flight level.

Speaker 1 Starting today, The FAA temporarily restricted helicopter traffic over Reagan National Airport.

Speaker 1 What's next in the investigation?

Speaker 2 The NTSB, they're the investigating authority that are looking into the crash. They've said that they'll release a preliminary report within 30 days.
So we're waiting for that.

Speaker 2 Whether they'll take the full 30 days or we'll get something sooner, we're not quite sure. Obviously, there's a lot of pressure to get things out.
as quickly as possible.

Speaker 2 But the investigators are very cautious.

Speaker 2 Typically in an aviation investigation, they are very careful to kind of avoid political interference, you know, make sure that they really drill down to, you know, the factual details of what happened.

Speaker 1 The FAA regarded staffing at the tower as adequate at the time of the accident, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Speaker 1 During a press conference yesterday, President Trump suggested diversity, equity, and inclusion policies were to blame for the accident.

Speaker 9 As they put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.

Speaker 9 Then another

Speaker 9 article, the Federal Aviation Administration, this was before I

Speaker 9 got to office, recently, second term.

Speaker 9 The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities.

Speaker 1 And what do aviation experts think of that? assertion.

Speaker 2 It's an unusual comment,

Speaker 2 not necessarily even for the meaning behind the comment and what President Trump was trying to imply, but simply by virtue of the fact that a president was commenting on the possible cause or triggers behind an aviation accident.

Speaker 2 This is something where we need to be able to drill into the facts. You need to be able to really assess what happened without kind of a narrative being forced onto it.

Speaker 1 At a press conference yesterday, NTSB officials were asked about Trump's comments.

Speaker 10 As part of any investigation, we look at the human, the machine, and the environment. So we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident.

Speaker 10 Again, we will look at the aircraft, we will look at the helicopter, we will look at the environment in which they were operating in.

Speaker 10 That is part of, that is standard in any part of our investigation. I'll turn it back.

Speaker 1 How should airline passengers feel? I mean,

Speaker 1 would you be comfortable flying into Reagan National Airport after this?

Speaker 2 You know, one of the difficult parts about being an aviation reporter is being able to talk about these kind of safety issues without kind of encouraging or, you know, inspiring panic.

Speaker 2 That is aligned to thread because we want to be able to draw attention to issues that are genuine safety issues and concerns. I think there are questions about how DC's airspace is managed.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure, I mean, they will be reviewed and they will be kind of interrogated. I suspect that some changes will be made.

Speaker 2 But the bottom line is that aviation safety is still at an incredibly high standard.

Speaker 2 What happened on Wednesday night was an absolute tragedy, and as we've said, you know, it's a tragedy that just hasn't happened in the U.S. for at least 15 years.

Speaker 1 That's all for today. Friday, January 31st.
The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 Additional reporting in this episode by Vera Bergen-Gruen, Jack Gillam, Gordon Lubold, Allison Sider, and Andrew Tangle.

Speaker 1 The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphreys, Sophie Codner, Jessica Mendoza, Matt Kwong, Kate Leinbaugh, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alessandra Rizzo, Alan Rodriguez-Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jivika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zemis, and me, Ryan Knutson, with help from Trina Menino.

Speaker 1 Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapock, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley.

Speaker 1 Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Bobby Lorde, Nathan Singapock, Griffin Tanner, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis and Kate Gallagher.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening. See you Monday.