One year later, NTSB looks to determine cause of DC midair collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac River

(CNN) — 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 will meet 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 the last 16 years.

64 passengers and crew members were killed on the plane, in addition to three soldiers on the helicopter.

The incident heightened national attention on aviation safety in 2025, with many people questioning whether flying was safe. Aviation officials made strides to change military helicopter flight path rules around Washington, DC, and later promised a new air traffic control system would be implemented during the current presidential administration to support aviation safety.

On Tuesday, the NTSB will discuss the issues that may have led to the crash and recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future.

A year-long investigation

Since the collision on that fateful night, aviation and federal officials have taken a hard look at the safety among several airports in the country with helicopter traffic similar to that around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Over the summer, the NTSB heard 32 hours of testimony over three days, probing virtually every detail of what could have led to the midair collision. There were over ten 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 as American Eagle 5342, were among the parties represented during the hearing.

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 which 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 Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. 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.

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?” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy asked.

“Yes,” Fuller acknowledged.

The tower did warn the pilots of the Black Hawk helicopter 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.

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 River 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 killed 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.”

The US government also admits in the suit that 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 on Tuesday, with many parties in the room from the investigation and several family members of victims coming to Washington, DC to hear the NTSB’s determination.

The NTSB is expected to publish its final report and recommendations on the incident in the coming weeks.

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