The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board called out Hollywood Burbank Airport as having a concerning risk of a midair collision and urged federal regulators to take action.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, speaking at a board meeting in Washington, said commercial airlines had warned of the risk of aircraft colliding at Burbank Airport. The airport is a busy Class C, or medium-sized, airport with short runways and a tight airspace. It is among “hotspots” with a high volume of mixed helicopter and airplane traffic, according to the FAA.
“Burbank is one where commercial airlines have called me to say the next midair is going to be at Burbank, and nobody at [the Federal Aviation Administration] is paying attention to us,” Homendy said.
She added that “whether it is involving helicopters or not, people are raising red flags, and why aren’t people listening? The FAA has to ensure safety. That is their job.”
Homendy spoke just before the first anniversary of a catastrophic crash that claimed 67 lives outside Washington, D.C. The agency revealed findings into the crash of an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter. As Homendy laid out what she called a series of institutional failures by the FAA before the January 2025 crash, she pointed to concerns about the mixing of commercial airplane and helicopter traffic, noting that there are extensive data pointing to the danger of such a midair collision.
A representative at Hollywood Burbank Airport referred all questions and comments to the FAA.
An FAA spokesperson responded that the agency, which is responsible for the safety of the nation’s airspace, “acted immediately to improve safety” following last year’s collision outside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
“In February 2025, we began using innovative AI tools to identify similar hotspots with high volumes of mixed helicopter and airplane traffic and implement appropriate mitigations,” the statement read.
The agency added that Van Nuys and Hollywood Burbank airports were among its focus areas.
“Based [on] our safety analysis, the FAA lowered the Van Nuys traffic pattern by 200 feet during an evaluation in 2025 to see if that would reduce conflicts with aircraft landing at Burbank,” the statement read. “Preliminary data indicated the change resulted in a reduction of Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) alerts for Burbank arrivals and we permanently lowered the Van Nuys traffic pattern effective Jan. 5.”
There have been close calls at Hollywood Burbank before.
In February 2023, a Mesa Airlines plane attempted to land on the same runway from which a SkyWest Airlines flight was taking off, and the planes came within 1,680 feet of each other.
Pilots on the Mesa Airlines flight decided that the separation between their craft and the one taking off was insufficient and initiated a go-around, where a landing is aborted.
“The local controller did not issue a traffic advisory or safety alert, as required, to either of the flight crews immediately after [the Mesa Airlines plane] reported going around, or during the following minutes when both airplanes were in an unsafe proximity to each other,” according to an NTSB investigation report.
The investigation revealed the controller, distracted by a third plane circling the airport, delayed clearing the SkyWest flight for takeoff and failed to monitor the runway and airspace adequately.
The controller then directed the Mesa plane onto a path that risked a collision, triggering cockpit alarms in both planes. The Traffic Collision Avoidance System issued warnings and guided the planes apart.
In addition, the NTSB report stated that a lack of ground and approach tracking equipment at the airport contributed to the incident.
City News Service contributed to this report.
