- Aviation experts have warned about the risk of a passenger aircraft collision for years.
- Experts cite air traffic controller shortages and airspace congestion as safety risks.
- The crash ends an over decadelong streak of no complete-loss US airline accidents since 2009.
Pilots and aviation workers have sounded alarm bells for years on the risks of midair collisions. Those fears became a reality on Wednesday when an American Airlines flight collided with a helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC.
Brian Alexander, a military helicopter pilot and a partner at aviation accident firm Kreindler & Kreindler, told Business Insider that a shortage of air traffic controllers and increasing airspace congestion have impacted safety.
“Our whole air traffic control system has been blinking red, screaming at us that we’ve we’ve got it overloaded,” he said. “The intense inadequacy of the staffing and the overwork of the controllers is palpable.”
He said the US should invest in more airport technology to help controllers and pilots.
Aviation expert Anthony Brickhouse also cited increased flight congestion as a significant safety risk at airports nationwide. He said he isn’t surprised a crash happened.
“We’ve had so many close calls with runway incursions and commercial flights almost colliding, and when something repeats over and over again, we call that a trend,” he said. “We’ve been trending in this direction for two or three years now, and unfortunately, tonight, it happened.”
He added air traffic control actions and aircraft communications will be a significant focus of the investigation.
Washington National is among the busiest and most restricted airspaces in the US. A US pilot formerly told BI that flying in the area is like “threading a needle.”
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who successfully landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009 with no fatalities, told the New York Times on Wednesday that the DC airport has dated technology.
“It hasn’t changed much since then,” he said, referring to the airport’s construction in the 1930s. “Of course, we’ve added technology to it. But a lot of the technology is old.”
Despite the incident, experts say flying is still incredibly safe, with thousands of planes taking off and landing safely every day.
During a press conference on Thursday, President Donald Trump said he would not hesitate to fly and that a collision had taken many years to happen.
“Flying is very safe,” he added. “We have the safest flying anywhere in the world, and we’ll keep it that way.”
The US has been battling near-misses for years
Wednesday’s collision between a regional jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter, comes after a string of near-misses in recent years, including close calls in New York City and Austin in 2023.
These near-misses prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to create a safety review committee to examine their causes and recommend solutions. In November 2023, the committee recommended increased staffing, added funding to enable continued FAA safety oversight, and investing in airport technology.
Near misses didn’t stop. Several planes got too close for comfort at Washington National in the spring of 2024, followed by another near-miss in Nashville in September, all spurring investigations.
Brickhouse said that, given the last few years of close class, not enough changes have been made to prevent planes from colliding.
“If you continually have near misses and changes aren’t made, eventually you will have a tragedy,” he said. “For years, I’ve been saying to everyone who will listen that the next major accident will be something in the airport area involving a collision.”
In October, the FAA launched an audit into runway incursion risks at the US’ busiest airports to identify “potential gaps in procedures, equipment, and processes” and recommend safety actions. The audit was expected to be completed in early 2025.
The audit came shortly after the FAA said in September that it had exceeded its controller hiring goal for the 2024 fiscal year but was still short about 3,000 personnel.
The concept of “blood priority” is likely to emerge in the aftermath of Wednesday’s crash. In aviation safety, this means that needed changes will not be implemented until after a major accident and deaths occur — despite US safety officials pushing to be a more proactive industry than a reactive one.
“We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents, and not accidents,” Sullenberger said.
First complete loss crash of a US airliner since 2009
Wednesday’s tragedy is the first time a US airline has experienced a fatal, total loss of aircraft since 2009 when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed into a house in Buffalo. The 49 people on board and one person on the ground died.
A pilot’s incorrect response to the plane’s stall warning was eventually blamed for the crash, with fatigue cited as a contributing factor.
“After a 15-year unprecedented run of zero United States air carrier crashes, that streak has ended with this tragic crash, and the safety clock begins again a new run,” aviation safety analyst and former pilot Kathleen Bangs told BI.
Another crash in 2013 on US soil resulted in fatalities when South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines crashed during landing in San Francisco.
The American crash marks the third fatal accident globally since December. An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer plane crashed midflight on Christmas Day, likely caused by Russian air defense. 38 people died, but 29 survived.
A few days later, a Boeing 737 operated by South Korean carrier Jeju Airlines crashed during landing, killing 179 people, but two lived. The investigation is still ongoing.
Officials say it’s unlikely none of the 67 people involved in Wednesday’s American flight crash survived.
