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Duffy Holds a Press Conference Following the NTSB Preliminary Report on the DCA Midair Collision, Mar. 12, 2025

March 12, 2025 · US Department of Transportation · 0:26:19

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy held a press conference following the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report on the midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in the Department of Transportation’s upload of the event — a crash, he opened by stating, in which 67 souls lost their lives on January 29. He commended the NTSB chair for the board’s work and recommendations, as he stated it, and walked through the report’s central finding on Route 4, the helicopter route on the Potomac River off Runway 33 where the crash took place: at 200 feet a helicopter on that route can be only 75 feet from a landing aircraft — threading a needle, as he put it.

The actions he announced continue the response begun within about 36 hours of the crash, as he stated the sequence: the restrictions on Route 4 airspace — from Hains Point to the Wilson Bridge — will continue, with a notice to airmen carrying the specific guidelines; he had spoken with the Secretary of War that day about a military route around the restricted airspace; and exclusions will apply for presidential and vice-presidential air travel, life-saving missions, and law enforcement, with DCA air travel shut down as needed to keep helicopters and airplanes from crossing paths, as he stated the arrangement. He also carried the board’s wider finding into the record as he cited it: over the last two and a half years there had been 85 near misses or close calls within 200 feet of vertical and 1,500 feet of lateral separation — data, he asked, the FAA should have studied to find the hot spot before lives were lost. The FAA, he said, has now deployed AI tools to sift the data and find hot spots in the airspace so corrective action can be taken preemptively rather than retroactively, as he stated the measure.

Why it matters

The March 12 press conference converts the NTSB’s preliminary findings into standing policy: the Route 4 restrictions made indefinite, a military reroute negotiated the same day, and a new AI screening program for near-miss data announced as the systemic lesson of the 85 close calls the board counted.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the continuation of the Route 4 helicopter restrictions at DCA and the FAA’s AI hot-spot screening of near-miss data, announced March 12, 2025 following the NTSB preliminary report. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “Secretary Duffy Holds Press Conference Following NTSB’s Preliminary Report” (official upload, embedded above; description identifies the report as concerning the midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport). Remarks and figures as delivered by Secretary Duffy at the press conference.