Communication problems between Marine One and air traffic control preceded an Aug. 4 incident involving the presidential helicopter and a departing Envoy Air Embraer E170 near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, according to an NTSB preliminary report released Thursday. The FAA estimated the aircraft came within 0.82 nautical miles laterally and 700 feet vertically, although the NTSB said that distance met the applicable Class B radar-separation standard.
DCA tower officials and Marine Helicopter Squadron One personnel had met five days earlier after reports that controllers were not receiving the required notification three minutes before presidential helicopter departures.
“HMX-1 advised that communications ‘had been spotty,’” the NTSB said.
An alternate procedure was established, but an attempt to use it Aug. 4 was unsuccessful.
FAA recordings showed Marine One’s first attempt to contact the tower was not received and a second transmission was unreadable. A subsequent FAA analysis found inadequate line-of-sight radio coverage between the Ellipse and the radio site. The agency later relocated the helicopter-control radios to the top of the DCA tower, and follow-up checks using two HMX-1 helicopters found no communication deficiencies.
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