OAN Staff Abril Elfi
1:15 PM – Wednesday, May 14, 2025
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) disclosed that a critical “hotline” designed to facilitate coordination between air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, and the Pentagon — has been non-functional since March 2022.
Deputy Chief Operating Officer Franklin McIntosh stated that the new FAA employees, under the second Donald Trump administration, were not aware that the line was broken until an incident occurred where a helicopter circled the Pentagon and dangerously forced two flights to abort landings on May 1st.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was the site of one of the most catastrophic airline disasters in U.S. history, occurring on January 29th, when an American Airlines regional jet collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter conducting a training mission.
According to a report from CNN, the unit flying the helicopter that circled the Pentagon was the same one involved in January’s midair collision.
McIntosh noted that military flights to the Pentagon have now been suspended since the incident, and will not resume until the hotline is fixed. The Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for maintaining the hotline, as it allows controllers to collaborate, in addition to utilizing ordinary landline lines.
“We were ready to deploy any option available that we could use or have that we felt was necessary to bring safety measures and better behaviors from the DOD,” McIntosh said.
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