When tragedy struck over Reagan National Airport in the first days of President Donald Trump’s second term, two of his Cabinet secretaries were immediately thrust into action.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, both former Fox News personalities, were praised for their open communication style and apparent transparency after a military helicopter collided with a passenger plane, resulting in the deaths of 67 people.
Yet, after multiple months, evidence suggests the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Pentagon are seemingly struggling to get on the same page when it comes to ensuring air safety over Washington, D.C.
The latest moment came on Thursday during a congressional hearing when the FAA said it was considering suspending an agreement that allows the military to fly in D.C. airspace without prior FAA clearance. It was also revealed that a hotline linking air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport and the Pentagon had been out of service since March 2022.
Duffy has been critical this month over senior military officers who use helicopters to go to and from the Pentagon, near the heavily congested airspace around Reagan airport.
“Who do these generals think they are, that they have to take helicopters to go to meetings?” he said.
“As Americans, we have a civilian military,” Duffy added. “They are supposed to work for all of us, and we should know who qualifies for that VIP mission, and if you are going to train, why are you training in the middle of the day? Maybe you should train at 2 or 3 in the morning instead.”
The person who would be able to get the answer to those questions is Duffy’s former colleague, Hegseth. Duffy has maintained that Hegseth “is a friend of mine,” and he does not appear to have directly criticized his former Fox News stablemate. However, the transportation secretary has been unable to get answers to his questions.
“Some of you tried to make a play like Secretary Hegseth and I don’t get along,” Duffy said recently. “Secretary Hegseth is a friend of mine. We communicate often together. As we went through the DCA air crash, we were in constant contact, so the Secretary’s a friend, he shut down the airspace for two weeks at Penny County, I appreciate and we were going to work together to figure out what’s an appropriate level of traffic coming out of the Pentagon and what works for the DCA airspace. We’re friends and like to work together, and I appreciate his partnership in this situation.”
In light of the near-accidents, the Army announced on May 5 that it would be suspending helicopter flights into the Pentagon for the time being, while the FAA is also reviewing “possible restrictions.”
“Everything is on the table right now in our review to make sure that we keep a safe environment for the vicinity around DCA,” Franklin McIntosh, the FAA’s deputy head of air traffic control, said during a congressional hearing this week.
McIntosh told lawmakers that the Army helicopter that veered off course around the Pentagon earlier this month entered Class B airspace without the required clearance from air traffic control, which prompted the air traffic controllers to direct two nearby aircraft to go around, to maintain safe separation and prevent a more serious situation.
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It was uncovered during this scare that the hotline linking air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport and the Pentagon was out of service.
“We’re insisting on that line to be fixed before we resume any operations out of the Pentagon,” McIntosh told lawmakers.
Samantha-Jo Roth contributed to this report.
