One year later, NTSB looks to determine cause of DC midair collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac River Alexandra Skores, Pete Muntean, CNNJanuary 27, 2026 at 11:05 PM 3 US Navy recovery teams lift the back wing section of an American Airlines plane from the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, on February 4, 2025.
- - One year later, NTSB looks to determine cause of DC midair collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac River
Alexandra Skores, Pete Muntean, CNNJanuary 27, 2026 at 11:05 PM
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US Navy recovery teams lift the back wing section of an American Airlines plane from the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, on February 4, 2025. - Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
Two days shy of the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that killed 67 people near the nation's capital, the National Transportation Safety Board is presenting its findings in the investigation and new visual simulations of the view of the pilots of each aircraft to determine the probable cause of the midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet.
The January 29, 2025, collision was the deadliest commercial aviation accident in the United States in more than 20 years.
The NTSB's board members acknowledged at the outset it would be an especially difficult day for families, many of whom filled the agency's main boardroom, with others watching from an overflow annex.
Several family members left the boardroom during presentation by Investigator-in-Charge Brice Banning, which included some of the most emotionally difficult material shown so far, including never-before-seen animations created by investigators.
"This has been an incredibly difficult year for our agency and our investigators, first responders to this accident, and the aviation community as a whole, as we mourn the loss of 67 lives nearly one year ago from an accident in a tragedy that never, ever should have happened," said NTSB board member Michael Graham.
Sixty-four passengers and crew members were killed on the plane, in addition to three soldiers on the helicopter.
The incident heightened public attention on the safety of air travel in 2025—a year punctuated by the dramatic crash of a Delta Air Lines regional jet on landing in Toronto and a fatal UPS cargo plane that crashed on takeoff from Louisville in a dramatic fireball. Trump Administration officials announced changes to helicopter routes around Washington within weeks of the January 29 crash and later promised a multi-billion-dollar overhaul to an aging air traffic control system.
Tuesday, the NTSB plans to discuss the issues that may have led to the crash and recommendations to prevent similar incidents.
"There will be some times where individual errors may be noted throughout the course of the day in relation to this accident," Graham continued. "To make it crystal clear, any individual shortcomings were set up for failure by the systems around them. We are not here today to place blame on any individual or any organization, but we are here to ensure those systems that failed to protect 67 people on January 29, 2025 never fail again."
A year-long investigation
Since the collision on that fateful night, aviation and federal officials have taken a closer look at the safety among several airports in the country with helicopter traffic similar to that around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
"You will see today that we left no stone unturned," said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy in opening remarks. "We asked the hard, uncomfortable questions that ruffled feathers and we got to the truth."
Tuesday, investigators showed recreated flight paths using Microsoft Flight Simulator, modeling what the pilots of American Eagle Flight 5342 and the Army Black Hawk helicopter would have been able to see through the cockpit windshield.
The helicopter pilots' visual, while wearing night vision goggles, showed the bright lights of Washington in view, with the American regional flight in the background.
One animation shown focuses on the right-seat cockpit view of the commercial jet, where First Officer Sam Lilley was seated—the position investigators say had the best potential view of the helicopter's route, even though Capt. Jonathan Campos was flying the aircraft at the time.
The animation included gray "masked" areas, representing parts of the aircraft structure that blocked the pilots' view outside the cockpit.
Investigators said the visuals underscore how difficult it would have been for the airline pilots to avoid the collision, citing cockpit blind spots, ground lighting along the Potomac River, and flight 5342's left turn to line up with the airport's runway 33 with the helicopter approaching from the right.
An presentation also included video from near the end of the airport's runway 33 with the lights of the aircraft colliding with each other.
Over the summer, the NTSB heard more than 32 hours of testimony over three days, probing virtually every detail of what could have led to the midair collision. There were more than 10 hours of testimony on each of the first two days of the hearing.
The Army, the FAA and PSA Airlines, the American Airlines subsidiary that operated the flight, were among the parties represented during the hearing.
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy presides over day three of an NTSB investigative hearing on the midair collision of an Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, at NTSB headquarters in Washington, DC, on August 1, 2025. - Kent Nishimura/Reuters/File
Key points of discussion included the Army's reluctance to use anti-collision technology known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, and why the FAA allowed military helicopter pilots to fly without the technology.
"ADS-B out" transmits radio signals with GPS location, altitude, ground speed and other data once per second, independent of air traffic control. However, on January 29, the Black Hawk was flying following an FAA memorandum that allowed it to be turned off.
ADS-B is a focus of the ROTOR Act, which was cosponsored by a bipartisan group of senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the highest-ranking members of the Senate's Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The legislation passed the Senate in December and is awaiting approval in the House.
The hearing also prompted an admission from the FAA that the air traffic control tower failed to warn the regional jet pilots of helicopter traffic in the immediate area.
At Tuesday's board meeting, the NTSB said the local control and helicopter control positions were combined, and the local controller was communicating with six airplanes and five helicopters at the time. While the NTSB said this practice was "commonplace," policy had seen shifts over the years at DCA's tower.
Transcripts of the cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control audio released in the NTSB investigation docket revealed what was said inside the aircraft in the moments before the crash.
"No safety alerts" were given, Nick Fuller, the acting FAA deputy chief operating officer of operations, testified in August.
"Should the local controller have let the PSA crew know that there was a helicopter there?" Homendy asked.
"Yes," Fuller acknowledged.
The tower did warn the helicopter pilots about the approaching regional jet and the soldiers said they would avoid it, transcripts of the cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control audio revealed.
"There is a tendency in the immediate aftermath of any investigation or any accident that we investigate to question human error, the actions or inactions of individuals," Homendy said Tuesday. "However, human error in complex systems like our modern aviation system and the National Airspace System isn't a cause. It's a consequence."
The NTSB also presented major "discrepancies" in the altitude readouts on board the helicopter that could have led the crew to believe they were flying lower over the Potomac than they actually were.
The route at the time of the collision allowed the Black Hawk to fly as close as 75 feet below planes descending to land on runway 33 at Reagan National Airport, according to the NTSB. With allowable errors in the helicopter's altimeters and other equipment, as well as Army rules expecting aviators to hold their altitude within 100 feet, the aircraft can end up being much closer.
Government admits failures of Army pilots
A few legal revelations have been unveiled in the weeks leading up to the board meeting, which could create longer term impact on the Army and other agencies involved.
Court documents filed in December by the Department of Justice as part of a civil lawsuit brought last year by the family of a passenger on flight 5342 show the US government admitting failures by the Black Hawk pilots and a controller in the Reagan National Airport tower.
The federal government lawyers say the Black Hawk crew's decisions were a "cause-in-fact and a proximate cause of the accident and the death."
A crane removes airplane wreckage from the Potomac River, where American Airlines flight 5342 collided with a US Army military helicopter, near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on February 3, 2025. - Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images/File
The US government also admits in the suit an air traffic controller in the tower "did not comply" with an FAA order governing air traffic control procedure, but argues the controllers around the DC-area airport can't be held liable because they weren't the cause of the crash.
The commercial airlines named in the suit are still fighting for it to be dismissed by the court. They have not made the same admissions the federal government did.
Final report is expected soon
The NTSB meeting is expected to last all day Tuesday. Many parties in the room, from the investigation and several family members of victims, are in Washington to hear the NTSB's determination.
In March, the NTSB issued urgent recommendations that helicopter traffic be banned from a four-mile stretch over the Potomac when flights are landing at Reagan National. The Department of Transportation later agreed to adopt these recommendations.
The NTSB is expected to publish its final report and recommendations on the incident in the coming weeks.
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Published: January 27, 2026 at 08:54PM on Source: RED MAG
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