FAA says it is investigating Trump helicopter safety incident in Washington

TheU.S.Federal Aviation Administration is reviewing an air-trafficsafetyincidentTuesday involving a militaryhelicoptercarrying President DonaldTrump, the agency said.

“TheFAAisinvestigatingasafetyincidentinvolving Marine One but it didn’t appear to be a dangerous close call and the aircraft weren’t apparently converging,” theFAAsaid.

Trump’s Marine Onehelicoptertook off from the White House Tuesday afternoon, but air-traffic controllers had not halted commercial flights at nearby Ronald ReaganWashingtonNational Airport as required under a policy set last year following a fatal collision,two sourcestold Reuters.

The Wall Street Journal first reported theincident.

Trump’shelicopterlifted off from the Ellipse near the White House around 2:33 p.m.(1833 GMT), on his way to Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Los Angeles, according to a pool report.

A source told Reuters that Envoy Air3742 — aregional E170 jet bound for Pensacola,Florida — departed at 2:34 p.m. and was involved in the apparent loss of separationincidentwith Marine One. Envoy is a wholly owned subsidiary of American AirlinesAAL.O, which did not immediately comment.

FAArules require aircraft to remain separated by at least 1.5 miles horizontally and 500 feet vertically around airports. The sources said it appeared Marine One and the plane did not maintain separation. One said it appears they were not converging during theincident.

BothTrump’shelicopterand the jetlanded withoutincident.

Two sources told Reuters theFAAis planning to convene aSafetyReview Team into theincident. The White House did not immediately comment.

Another regional flight — Republic 4700 — was3 miles (5 km)from Reagan at the time of theincidentand was sent around out of caution, the other source said. The Republic Embraer 175 operating on behalf of American had departed from Raleigh-Durham and looped around the airport before landing at 2:52 p.m., according to FlightAware.

TheFAAimposed permanent restrictions onhelicopteroperations aroundWashington’s Reagan National Airport after a fatal January 2025 mid-air collision of an American AirlinesAAL.Oregional jet and an Armyhelicopterkilled 67 people.

The National TransportationSafetyBoard said in January series of systemic failures by theFAAled to the collision, citing the agency decision to allowhelicopters to travel close to the airport with no safeguards to separate them from airplanes.

After the crash, theFAAhas barred mixedhelicopterand jet traffic around the airport, and when Marine One is in flight around the airport, commercial traffic is typically halted. TheFAAin March barred the use of visual separation to handlehelicoptertraffic near major airports.

FAAair traffic control is typically given at least three minutes’ notice before Marine One departs to halt traffic from Reagan.