WASHINGTON — After a yearlong investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed multiple systemwide failures for the midair collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people.
"Deep, underlying systemic failures — system flaws — aligned to create the conditions that led to the devastating tragedy," said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy in her opening remarks.
Investigators laid out their findings in a meeting at the NTSB's headquarters, compiling a long list of factors that likely contributed to the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in decades.
The board did not identify a single cause for the collision on Jan. 29, 2025. Instead, investigators placed the blame on multiple overlapping problems — including the location of a helicopter route in some of the nation's most congested airspace, along with critical equipment failures and human errors.
Investigators identified an instrument failure in the Army helicopter, which likely made the pilots think they were flying 100 feet lower than they were. The NTSB report also described a chaotic situation in the air traffic control tower and incomplete communications between the local controller and the helicopter pilots.
But the chair of the NTSB reserved her harshest criticism for regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration.
"It's one failure after another," Homendy told reporters during a break. The FAA had collected reports of more than 80 serious close calls in recent years between helicopters and passenger aircraft, Homendy says, but the NTSB was the first to draw attention to those conflicts.
"The data was there. The data was in their own systems," Homendy said.
The FAA was also supposed to evaluate helicopter routes every year to ensure that they are still safe, according to Homendy, but she said the agency produced no evidence that it had done so recently.
Investigators say air traffic controllers at the local tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport had repeatedly raised concerns to the FAA about a lack of adequate separation between helicopter traffic along the Potomac River and the approach to Runway 33, where American Airlines Flight 5342 was attempting to land. But the FAA did not act on those concerns, according to the NTSB.
"What that means is 75 feet, at best, separating a helicopter and civilian aircraft. Nowhere in the airspace is that OK," Homendy said. "This shouldn't have existed."
NTSB investigators say a single controller was managing local air and helicopter traffic on the night of the collision. That controller should have issued a safety alert in the moments before the helicopter and regional jet approached each other, the NTSB said. The board also found that the supervisor on duty should have separated the helicopter and landing responsibilities after the controller complained about being overwhelmed earlier in the shift.
But investigators say the problems with air traffic control at the airport began long before the actions of that single controller.
The NTSB investigation found that air traffic controllers at DCA relied heavily on "visual separation," counting on helicopter pilots to see approaching aircraft landing at the airport and avoid them.
On the night of the collision, the Army Black Hawk helicopter was on a training mission using night-vision goggles. The air traffic controller on duty asked the helicopter pilots to pass behind the approaching American Airlines jet. The helicopter's instructor pilot indicated that they saw the plane and requested "visual separation," which the controller approved.
But the NTSB's analysis concluded that the helicopter pilots likely never saw the approaching plane before the collision.
An NTSB simulation of the helicopter's perspective shows that the pilots had limited visibility through the night-vision goggles. Investigators believe the helicopter pilots mistakenly thought the American Airlines jet was one of several other planes lining up to land on Runway 1, and did not have an accurate understanding of its flight path.
The NTSB members voted to approve nearly 50 new recommendations, including several about the advanced technology known as ADS-B, which can transmit an aircraft's location.
The Army helicopter was equipped with an ADS-B transponder, the NTSB said, although it was not working on the night of the collision. But the NTSB also found that a working ADS-B transponder would not have prevented the crash, since the passenger jet was only equipped to send ADS-B signals out, not to receive them.
The NTSB recommended that any aircraft operating in airspace where it's currently required to use ADS-B out technology should also be required to use ADS-B in.
Board members found that communications between the air traffic control tower and the helicopter were hindered by technical difficulties.
Less than two minutes before the collision, the airport control tower issued a call to the crew of the Black Hawk helicopter that the plane was "at 1,200 feet circling to runway 33." But the NTSB believes the word "circling" was inaudible, possibly contributing to the pilots' confusion.
In a statement to NPR, the FAA said it "values and appreciates the NTSB's expertise and input." The agency went on to say, "We have worked side-by-side with the NTSB throughout this accident investigation and acted immediately to implement urgent safety recommendations it issued in March 2025. We will carefully consider the additional recommendations the NTSB made today."
The NTSB's final report, stretching to more than 500 pages, is expected in a few weeks.
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