Air traffic controllers to get more support after a fight and latest near miss at Washington airport

Air postulation controllers astatine Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport volition beryllium offered situation counseling and further supervision aft a combat successful the operation and another alarming adjacent miss 2 months aft a midair collision betwixt a rider pitchy and an Army chopper killed 67 people.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it is besides evaluating whether the existent accomplishment complaint astatine Reagan is excessively high. The bureau said it would widen other enactment to the controllers who nonstop flights astir the engaged airdrome portion Congress and the National Transportation Safety Board proceed investigating the deadly January crash.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the president of the Senate Commerce Committee, said that troubling missteps since the clang “underscore the precarious concern successful the nation's airspace.” Expressing vexation with the Army's refusal to crook implicit a memo detailing its formation rules, Cruz said during a Wednesday proceeding that immoderate deaths resulting from different collision adjacent Reagan “will beryllium connected the Army's hands.”

The FAA's determination to bring successful situation counselors followed the Thursday apprehension of a 39-year-old worker from Maryland connected suspicion of battle and artillery aft the power operation fight, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority confirmed successful a statement.

No details were released astir the altercation. The FAA said the worker was enactment connected administrative permission portion the combat is investigated.

The adjacent day, a Delta rider pitchy had to instrumentality evasive enactment arsenic it took disconnected from Reagan due to the fact that of the proximity of a formation of 4 Air Force jets progressive successful a flyover astatine Arlington National Cemetery. The incidental continued a pattern of adjacent calls that the NTSB has said went connected for years astir the airdrome arsenic commercialized flights repeatedly got dangerously adjacent to helicopters and different aircraft.

The FAA said Wednesday that it was reviewing the “current accomplishment complaint of craft per hour, which is disproportionately concentrated wrong the past 30 minutes of each hour.”

After the crash, the accomplishment complaint astatine the airdrome fell to 26 an hr portion crews worked to retrieve the wreckage of the American Airlines pitchy and Army Black Hawk chopper from the Potomac River. But the acting caput of the FAA said astatine a proceeding past week that arrivals are present backmost up to 30 an hr and could spell up to 32. Now the bureau is rethinking that.

To assistance with the stress, the FAA plans regular wellness checks of its unit astatine Reagan arsenic good making counselors available. It wasn’t instantly wide if the bureau took that measurement close aft the Jan. 29 crash. The fig of supervisors volition summation from six to eight, and the bureau volition measure whether it has capable controllers moving each shift.

The national that represents aerial postulation controllers astatine Reagan and airports crossed the country declined to remark connected the situation.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Cruz threatened the Army with a subpoena if it did not springiness the committee a transcript of its memo spelling retired erstwhile its craft are allowed to alert without a cardinal strategy that broadcasts their determination to different craft turned on.

The information that strategy wasn’t activated successful the Black Hawk that collided with the rider pitchy is simply a cardinal interest investigators person highlighted. With the determination strategy turned off, the operation had to trust connected radar for updates connected the helicopter’s presumption that lone came erstwhile each 4 seconds alternatively of each 2nd earlier the crash.

“It begs the question, what doesn’t the Army privation Congress oregon the American radical to cognize astir wherefore it was flying partially unsighted to the different craft and to the aerial postulation controllers adjacent DCA (Reagan airport)?,” Cruz said. “This is not acceptable.”

The Army didn’t instantly respond to an enquiry Wednesday astir the memo. The U.S. Army’s caput of aviation, Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, told the Senate Commerce Committee past week that helium wasn’t definite if helium could supply the memo due to the fact that it is portion of the investigation, but the caput of the NTSB assured him that would beryllium okay.

The January clang was the nation’s deadliest level clang since November 2001. But a series of different crashes and adjacent misses successful the months aft fueled worries astir aerial question adjacent though it remains harmless overall.

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Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Lisa Leff contributed to this report.

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