I live six miles from Reagan National Airport (DCA) and close to the Potomac River, site of the worst aviation disaster in decades. I’ve probably flown in and out of DCA a hundred times. Every day from our house we hear and see hundreds of commercial jets and a bunch of helicopters fly overhead. To say that DCA and the adjacent Potomac River are extremely busy is an understatement.
Watching the horror of the January 29 mid-air collision on television brought back memories of January 1982 when Air Florida Flight 90 took off from National in a blizzard and seconds later plummeted into the 14th Street Bridge, hit several vehicles, killing their drivers and passengers, before plunging into the icy Potomac River. Conditions were so bad that evening that no airplane should have been permitted to fly. I was working late and, looking out of my office window, the snowfall was so intense that I could not see the buildings across the street. Ice formed on the plane’s wings as soon as they were de-iced at the departure gate. However, Flight 90 had to bide its time in line long enough that ice was able to reform on the wings. Upon takeoff, the plane was unable to gain enough lift and crashed a minute later. Only five of its 70-plus passengers and crew survived.
Two important lessons learned from that crash were that (1) blizzard conditions need to be taken seriously when deciding whether to ground flights, and (2) thorough de-icing in cold conditions just before take-off is a must.
President Trump’s reckless, cruel, vile yet eminently predictable claims scapegoated DEI, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg for this horrendous accident. Consoling is totally beyond him. Vice President Vance, leaping at the opportunity to toady up his fealty, eagerly endorsed Trump’s despicable display of crassness. These charlatans would rather lie than lead.
However, the real reason this accident rests squarely on three organizations that should know better: The Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Congress, whose monumentally irresponsible decisions were made and never reversed over many years:
(1) Allowing military and other helicopters to fly up and down the Potomac River and cross the flight paths of commercial airliners taking off and landing at DCA with only a few hundred feet of clearance. Who thought that was a good idea? Heads should roll at the Pentagon and FAA. Surely there is somewhere else much safer where the military could run helicopter training missions. Now, after this terrible yet avoidable tragedy, the FAA has, for the moment at least, banned such chopper flights.
(2) Continuing to let DCA exist and become busier and thus more dangerous because Congress loves its convenience. The Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority had been warning Congress of the dangers of airport over-capacity; and congestion for years, but Congress would not listen. In fact, Congress has consistently voted to increase the number of flights and extend the hours during which they could take off and land (now 5:00 AM through 12:00 AM). They keep doing this solely for their own convenience. It only takes about 15 minutes to get from Capitol Hill to the airport, whereas it takes more than 30 minutes to travel to much safer Dulles Airport in the Virginia suburbs. To save themselves a quarter of an hour or so, members of Congress are perfectly willing to dismiss experts’ safety concerns and put the lives of Americans in jeopardy. Every time a knowledgeable authority recommends closing DCA, Congress says “No!” Since they only work three days a week at best (plus recesses that account for months of time off) and travel to and from their home states and districts on Fridays and Mondays, they keep one of the most dangerous airports in the world operating when it should be shut down. Moreover, they keep adding more and more flights because they all want to be able to fly non-stop to and from their homes. Everyone else be damned.
Ask any commercial airline pilot and they will tell you that flying into and out of DCA is a challenge and an increasingly dangerous one. There have been near misses at DCA for years, and they have spiked in recent years. No big deal, says Congress.
Add to this horrific mix a shortage of air traffic controllers largely due to previous government shutdowns. Some did not return after not being paid for a month during the 2019 Trump shutdown. After it ended, a number of trainees also did not return to the Aviation Academy for continued training. The coronavirus pandemic subsequently shut down the Academy for a year, contributing to the shortage. Trump wasn’t paying attention because he was consumed with bungling the Covid response. Meanwhile, Congress did nothing to address this concern. Now Trump has frozen federal hiring, including the recruitment of new controllers.
The next time your Senator or congressperson holds a town meeting in your burg, ask them how they voted when it came to increasing congestion at DCA. If you don’t like their answer and you value airline safety, you know how you should vote when they come up for re-election.
Dick Hermann
February 10, 2025
Watching the horror of the January 29 mid-air collision on television brought back memories of January 1982 when Air Florida Flight 90 took off from National in a blizzard and seconds later plummeted into the 14th Street Bridge, hit several vehicles, killing their drivers and passengers, before plunging into the icy Potomac River. Conditions were so bad that evening that no airplane should have been permitted to fly. I was working late and, looking out of my office window, the snowfall was so intense that I could not see the buildings across the street. Ice formed on the plane’s wings as soon as they were de-iced at the departure gate. However, Flight 90 had to bide its time in line long enough that ice was able to reform on the wings. Upon takeoff, the plane was unable to gain enough lift and crashed a minute later. Only five of its 70-plus passengers and crew survived.
Two important lessons learned from that crash were that (1) blizzard conditions need to be taken seriously when deciding whether to ground flights, and (2) thorough de-icing in cold conditions just before take-off is a must.
President Trump’s reckless, cruel, vile yet eminently predictable claims scapegoated DEI, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg for this horrendous accident. Consoling is totally beyond him. Vice President Vance, leaping at the opportunity to toady up his fealty, eagerly endorsed Trump’s despicable display of crassness. These charlatans would rather lie than lead.
However, the real reason this accident rests squarely on three organizations that should know better: The Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Congress, whose monumentally irresponsible decisions were made and never reversed over many years:
(1) Allowing military and other helicopters to fly up and down the Potomac River and cross the flight paths of commercial airliners taking off and landing at DCA with only a few hundred feet of clearance. Who thought that was a good idea? Heads should roll at the Pentagon and FAA. Surely there is somewhere else much safer where the military could run helicopter training missions. Now, after this terrible yet avoidable tragedy, the FAA has, for the moment at least, banned such chopper flights.
(2) Continuing to let DCA exist and become busier and thus more dangerous because Congress loves its convenience. The Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority had been warning Congress of the dangers of airport over-capacity; and congestion for years, but Congress would not listen. In fact, Congress has consistently voted to increase the number of flights and extend the hours during which they could take off and land (now 5:00 AM through 12:00 AM). They keep doing this solely for their own convenience. It only takes about 15 minutes to get from Capitol Hill to the airport, whereas it takes more than 30 minutes to travel to much safer Dulles Airport in the Virginia suburbs. To save themselves a quarter of an hour or so, members of Congress are perfectly willing to dismiss experts’ safety concerns and put the lives of Americans in jeopardy. Every time a knowledgeable authority recommends closing DCA, Congress says “No!” Since they only work three days a week at best (plus recesses that account for months of time off) and travel to and from their home states and districts on Fridays and Mondays, they keep one of the most dangerous airports in the world operating when it should be shut down. Moreover, they keep adding more and more flights because they all want to be able to fly non-stop to and from their homes. Everyone else be damned.
Ask any commercial airline pilot and they will tell you that flying into and out of DCA is a challenge and an increasingly dangerous one. There have been near misses at DCA for years, and they have spiked in recent years. No big deal, says Congress.
Add to this horrific mix a shortage of air traffic controllers largely due to previous government shutdowns. Some did not return after not being paid for a month during the 2019 Trump shutdown. After it ended, a number of trainees also did not return to the Aviation Academy for continued training. The coronavirus pandemic subsequently shut down the Academy for a year, contributing to the shortage. Trump wasn’t paying attention because he was consumed with bungling the Covid response. Meanwhile, Congress did nothing to address this concern. Now Trump has frozen federal hiring, including the recruitment of new controllers.
The next time your Senator or congressperson holds a town meeting in your burg, ask them how they voted when it came to increasing congestion at DCA. If you don’t like their answer and you value airline safety, you know how you should vote when they come up for re-election.
Dick Hermann
February 10, 2025
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