New footage of the January 29, 2025, midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River surfaced March 30, 2026, as 60 Minutes released internal safety documents showing two Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) alerts at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) the day before the crash and the Federal Aviation Administration announced a permanent ban on visual separation procedures at high-traffic airports.
The collision, on final approach to DCA in Arlington, Virginia, killed all 67 people aboard the Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and the Army helicopter.
New footage has been released showing last year’s collision between a Bombardier CRJ701ER Passenger Jet on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, operating as American Airlines Flight 5342, and a U.S. Army UH-60L “Black Hawk” Helicopter, which occurred over the… pic.twitter.com/lQiuLrw21q
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 30, 2026
On January 28, 2025, two Army helicopters entered DCA airspace at an altitude higher than controllers expected, triggering a TCAS alert on a Norfolk-bound commercial flight and forcing an abrupt climb to avoid a potential collision.
Less than four hours later, a separate Army helicopter prompted a second TCAS alert, causing a Connecticut-bound passenger jet on final approach to abort its landing, according to internal safety reports released by 60 Minutes.
An air traffic controller on duty the day of the crash told 60 Minutes that systemic risks at DCA had been apparent for years. “It worked until it didn’t,” the controller said.
The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on January 27, 2026, citing a layered breakdown across flawed airspace design, over-reliance on visual separation, high controller workload, and degraded communication between agencies.
Controllers had formally warned the FAA for more than a decade that mixing scheduled airline traffic with military, police, and medical helicopter operations in the same corridor posed an unacceptable risk.
The FAA issued a General Notice (GENOT) on March 18, 2026, suspending visual separation between fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters near all high-traffic airports and requiring controllers to use radar to maintain mandatory lateral and vertical spacing.
The agency said a year-long safety analysis found visual separation structurally insufficient in high-density airspace.
