Key Safety System Off in Army Helicopter That Collided With Plane: Senator

A crane retrieves part of the wreckage from the Potomac River, in the aftermath of the collision of American Airlines flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the river near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in Arlington, Va., on Feb. 4, 2025. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

A key safety system was off in the U.S. Army helicopter that collided with a plane near Washington in January, a senator said on Feb. 6.

The Black Hawk helicopter had turned off its automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B), an advanced surveillance technology to track aircraft location, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters after a briefing with officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“This was a training mission, so there was no compelling national security reason for ADS-B to be turned off,” said Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee.

ADS-B systems in general require federal aviation authorization, although authorization is needed to conduct more advanced operations using the systems, according to the FAA. ADS-B systems are permitted but not required for military aircraft.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, recently questioned why the FAA since 2018 has allowed military flights to fly with their installed ADS-B equipment off. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters on Thursday that the helicopter had been recovered from the Potomac River and that it would likely be several days before the NTSB could confirm that the helicopter’s ADS-B was off during the crash.

The helicopter on Jan. 29 collided with an American Airlines Plane that was set to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport near the nation’s capital. All 67 people on board the two aircraft perished.

Officials have said previously that they’re still investigating how the collision happened. They have said that the helicopter was flying at 300 feet, or 100 feet higher than the maximum altitude for helicopters in the area.

Helicopter flights are common in the area. There were some 88,000 helicopter flights within 30 miles of the airport from 2017 to 2019, including about 33,000 military flights, the Government Accountability Office said in a 2021 report.

The FAA restricted helicopter flights around the airport following the collision, as the NTSB conducts its crash investigation. The FAA said on Thursday that it has started reviewing other airports nearby that have “high volumes of mixed helicopter and airplane traffic.”

Homendy also said Thursday that, based on the cockpit voice recorder, it appears the helicopter pilot was wearing night vision goggles.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that if the pilot was wearing night vision goggles on a mission at 9 p.m., rather than the middle of the night, it would be unacceptable.

Duffy also said on Fox News that the U.S. government is going to give air traffic controllers the opportunity to stay on past retirement age.

“We have a plan to get rid of the bottlenecks, get more of the smartest kids into the air traffic control academy. But ... once they graduate, it takes them a year to three years to get trained up in a tower. So, that’s going to take time,” he said.

“But I’m going to make an offer to air traffic controllers to let them stay longer. That’s my authority. I can offer them the chance to stay longer, past the mandatory retirement age of 56, pay them more, give them a bonus, keep them on the job, make the system safer, alleviate the pressure on the controllers. They’ll make more money. Hopefully, they’ll say yes to that great offer that I’m going to make them in the coming days.”

Reuters contributed to this report.