The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened a formal investigation after it was confirmed that the presidential helicopter Marine One, with President Donald Trump on board, came within less than 1.6 kilometers of a commercial aircraft in Washington's airspace on Tuesday, in what authorities describe as a possible violation of security procedures.
The incident occurred around 2:33 PM Eastern Time, when Marine One took off from the Ellipse area near the White House, heading to Joint Base Andrews, where Trump boarded his plane to travel to California, according to the agency EFE.
What exactly happened?
Just a minute after the presidential helicopter took off, Envoy Air flight 3742 -an Embraer E-170 operated for American Airlines bound for Pensacola, Florida- departed from Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The two aircraft were less than a mile apart, according to two sources cited by the New York Times, which is below the regulatory minimums requiring at least 2.40 kilometers of horizontal separation and 150 meters of vertical separation.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cautiously confirmed the incident: according to its "preliminary safety analysis, there was a momentary loss of separation after which each aircraft moved away from one another."
The agency added that “the air traffic controller was in contact with both the commercial pilot and the Marine One pilot during the loss of separation”, and emphasized that the aircraft did not appear to be on a collision course.
The White House dismisses the danger
The White House spokesperson, Kush Desai, addressed the reports with a statement to AFP in which he downplayed the risk: "Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world."
“At no time was the president in danger,” stated Desai.
Despite the official assurances, the NTSB announced that it is investigating "the reported event of loss of separation between Marine One and a commercial aircraft" that took off from Reagan, without providing further details in its initial statement.
The protocol that would not have been applied in time
The central focus of the investigation is whether the established protocol was followed after the air disaster of January 29, 2025, on the Potomac River, when an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with a regional American Airlines flight near the same airport, resulting in the deaths of all 67 people on board both aircraft.
After that accident, the FAA adopted a policy to completely halt commercial traffic at Reagan whenever Marine One operates in the vicinity, with very limited exceptions.
According to sources cited by Reuters and CNN, this protocol may not have been implemented in time on Tuesday: air traffic control audio captured a call of "three minutes to takeoff" before Marine One's departure, suggesting that commercial traffic was still moving when the presidential helicopter began its maneuver.
An airspace under constant scrutiny
Ronald Reagan National Airport is one of the most complex airspaces in the United States due to its proximity to downtown Washington, the White House, and the areas designated for presidential flights.
Following the accident in January 2025, the FAA reduced the number of arrivals per hour at Reagan from 36 to 26 and indefinitely closed the helicopter corridor near the airport.
The incident on Tuesday occurred in the same airspace and puts the coordination between commercial traffic and presidential transportation movements under scrutiny once again, just as Trump had declared a national emergency at airports months earlier in response to the aviation security crisis.
Despite the scare, commercial flights at Reagan continued as normal after the incident, and no additional cancellations were reported, according to the FAA.
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