Plane takeoff during Marine One flight renews concerns about D.C.'s busy airspace

Amna Nawaz:

As we reported last night, the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why a commercial plane was allowed to take off at the same time President Trump's helicopter approached the same airport on Tuesday.

The incident at Washington Reagan National Airport is again raising questions about the safety of the capital's busy airspace. It comes after a nearby midair collision last January between a passenger jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people.

For more on this, we're joined again by aviation correspondent Miles O'Brien.

Miles, it's always great to see you.

I want to underscore here the White House emphasizes too the president was never in any danger. The two aircraft did not appear to be on a collision course. But this did seem to break some new safety protocols that were put into place after that last fatal collision in January.

So, when you look at this, how serious was this incident?

Miles O'Brien:

Well, that's the thing about aviation, Amna. You have to be really attentive to tiny little details.

And when a few of those tiny little details are overlooked, that's when you have real trouble. In this case, what appears to have happened is, there was a communication failure between the Marine aviation contingent that was responsible for lifting off Marine One from the White House and the control tower at National -- Reagan National Airport.

Now, typically, what should happen is, three minutes before that helicopter lifts off on the White House lawn, the Marine crew will send a radio signal to the tower saying, we're three minutes away. Or, actually, they use a little bit of code saying, as briefed, so as not to tip off anybody and cause a security concern.

And that should prompt the controller in the tower cab there at Reagan to stop departures or arrivals, depending on which way the airport is flowing that day, in order for there to be a bubble around Marine One and its contingent as it flies to Andrews Air Force Base.

That did not happen in this case. There was some miscommunication on the radio. The radio was a little bit scratchy. But, for whatever reason, that controller did not stop the departure, and that's what caused the airliner to take off as Marine One was. There was no near-collision, but it does violate the bubble around Marine One and the rules for that and, in the wake of that collision in January of 2025, raises questions about, once again, communication between military aircraft and the civilian airspace and how that can be improved.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Miles, this incident was specific to D.C.'s airport, to the president's travel, but are there broader safety concerns that this raises to you?

Miles O'Brien:

Yes, the concerns are that the communication has to flow fluidly and every little detail has to be attended to in the world of aviation.

And while this one particular incident didn't really raise a safety concern, it is troubling in the fact that something like Marine One, with all the capability of communicating to Reagan National Airport to indicate it's about to lift off, if that can't get through, and that signal and that communication can't get through, it raises concerns about other, more routine flights.

Amna Nawaz:

While we have you, I want to ask you, miles, about another air safety incident that's making headlines. The NTSB says it's now investigating the crash of a medical plane in New Mexico in May in which all four people on board were killed.

And the U.S. military has said that they were testing GPS jamming technology in the area and that disrupted the plane's navigation system. What do we know about what happened here?

Miles O'Brien:

Well, first off, GPS has become revolutionary in aviation. It's something that pilots rely on heavily now for navigation, from getting from point A to point B, with a lot of situational awareness in a way that we didn't used to do it.

Now, that is not the only way that aircraft navigate. There are ground-based radio beacons, which all pilots learn to use as a backup in this case after GPS. Now, GPS spoofing and jamming has become a huge problem worldwide, more likely to occur around Ukraine or the Middle East.

In December of '24, there was an Azerbaijan Airlines crash after an airliner was trying to approach an airport. The GPS was jammed. It was unable to land safely. As it tried to land again and again, it was hit by shrapnel, ultimately led to a crash.

These incidents happen really thousands of times, and most of the time pilots go to those backup systems. But, in this case, it was a moonless, dark night. And the crew, -- even though the military ultimately turned off that jamming capability to the GPS nearby, the crew was not able to get its situational awareness back and unfortunately flew into a mountain.

Amna Nawaz:

It's a terrible tragedy there, making a lot of headlines.

Miles O'Brien, we're so glad you can join us to help us make sense of it all. Thank you so much.

Miles O'Brien:

You're welcome, Amna.