After Crash FAA Change Requires All Aircraft at Reagan to Broadcast Positions
12 comments
·April 2, 2025Neywiny
memalign
Relevant quote from the article:
“A preliminary report by the N.T.S.B. found that a helicopter and a commercial plane nearly collided at least once a month near Reagan from 2011 to 2024, raising concerns about how the F.A.A. had overlooked such a hazard at one of the nation’s busiest airports.”
Wow.
Neywiny
Thank you. It was getting late and I didn't even think to put it in my comment.
cratermoon
DCA is used by Washington VIPs. Very convenient for anyone working for or with the federal government. They really don't want to be inconvenienced by the distance to Dulles or BWI, and have kept the airport open despite rising risks.
lazide
‘Regulations are written in blood’ has another meaning - until there is a lot of blood, there isn’t regulation.
cmurf
All aircraft broadcast positions (ADS-B) in the Washington Tri-Area, but military aircraft get an exemption. It's crazytown to me that they are exempt in some of the busiest airspace in the country.
If they need to do this for some sort of operation or VIP movement, then a much larger area of airspace needs to be cleared around them rather than mixing flights that don't broadcast position.
And the idea FAA was hiding anything from Congress is silly. NTSB is not submitting its reports of near misses to the FAA under the table. They're as public as any other report. FAA not crowing about every one of these near misses has everything to do with being chronically underfunded, being given a hard time by the military whenever their flights are curtailed, while Congresscritters will complain to FAA if DCA flights are constrained because they don't want to hoof it all the way out to IAD.
Neywiny
I think what the FAA wasn't saying may have been above the sensitivity level of a public hearing. The thing is, people will know when an aircraft is around (audio/visual). They'll also know when it's not transmitting (ADS-B receivers are dirt cheap). So, if the FAA says something like "when members of xx department are flying they won't be transmitting", a bad actor could use that to do bad actor things. I understand their point.
null
null
I think the most crucial takeaway for me is that NTSB finding of how often this was almost happening for over a decade. That's guilt by inaction at that point. I understand that some flights need the security of being un-broadcasted, but I struggle to think they happen so often. It feels like the FAA is really saying that they're raising the bar for being able to turn off the ADS-B which I agree with completely. Too bad it's 10+ years too late.