Air traffic controllers in Washington and the pilots of Trump’s helicopter met to discuss communication issues one week before a jet and the chopper were allowed to take off at the same time, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.
Marine One, with President Donald Trump aboard, flies past the Washington Monument on Aug. 4. Alex Brandon / AP
The sides met to discuss the failures in communications and agreed to an alternative for such occasions — but that method was also unsuccessful on the day of the incident at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the NTSB’s preliminary report shows.
Having both in the air at the same time seemed to violate safety procedures put in place after last year’s midair collision near the busy airport, which killed 67 people, but officials stressed Trump was never in danger. The Defense Department also has a long-standing agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide controllers with a three-minute warning before the president’s helicopter takes off that predates last year’s crash.
The FAA decided after an airliner collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter Jan. 29, 2025, that all takeoffs and landings at the airport, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, would be halted any time a helicopter passed by on a conflicting route. The airspace near the White House and the airport is heavily congested with military and commercial aircraft.
The FAA has acknowledged that the helicopter and the airliner briefly got too close before they started to move away from each other. The airplane quickly climbed above the helicopter after Marine One’s pilots saw it and paused until it safely left the area.
