After crash, questions about air traffic control staffing

The fatal midair collision Wednesday between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter has revived concerns about aviation safety in the country, given that it followed a string of near misses at airports over the last several years.

Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, where the crash happened, had at least two close calls last year. In April, a plane operated by Southwest Airlines nearly crossed the same runway that a JetBlue flight was using to take off. A month later, an American Airlines jet almost crashed with a small airplane.

Those near misses were among the 1,757 “runway incursions” documented by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2024. The term describes incidents involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft, person or other vehicle on a runway, and can range from minor (with no immediate safety consequences) to serious (in which a collision was narrowly avoided).

The collision Wednesday was the first fatal disaster involving a U.S. commercial aircraft since 2009, when a propeller plane crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, killing 45 passengers, four crew members and one person on the ground.

The American Airlines jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, while three people were onboard the Black Hawk helicopter. The flight was approaching the Washington, D.C.-area airport to land when the collision occurred over the Potomac River around 9 p.m. ET.