FAA Sharply Restricts DCA Helicopter Traffic

The FAA wasted little time following NTSB recommendations to sharply restrict helicopter operations around Reagan National Airport in Washington. In its preliminary report on a crash between an Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Eagle CRJ last month that killed 67 people, the NTSB urged the FAA to eliminate helicopter traffic that might conflict with airliners at the busy airport. On Friday, the FAA responded by essentially closing the airspace in the immediate area of the airport to non-essential helicopter traffic and to close either Runway 15/33 or 4/22 when medical, law enforcement or presidential helicopter traffic is needed.

The FAA is also going to look at helicopter traffic at other major airports to assess their accident risk. Boston, New York, the Baltimore-Washington area, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles will be reviewed as will the Gulf Coast, which has a lot of oil rig helicopter traffic. Changes are expected. "To make us more predictive, we are using machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk," the agency said.