While congressional members are hesitant to jump to conclusions until an in-depth investigation is completed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), lawmakers are underscoring concerns they had leveled for years over the congestion in the skies above the nation’s capital. 

Over the last two years, lawmakers from the D.C. area fought back against an intense lobbying campaign to allow additional long-haul flights out of the airport closest to the nation’s capital, arguing the airport was already strained by traffic and noise disruption. 

“When you just look at the raw numbers, what Reagan National was built for, what is going on right now, the airspace has gotten very complicated, especially post 9/11. You’ve got commercial, you’ve got military, all layered in,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), speaking to the Washington Examiner. 

“I’ve just been very nervous that something like this would happen. I was very disappointed I was unable to convince my colleagues of that last year,” he added. “I was so distraught when I heard this news.”

Despite concerns raised by regional lawmakers, five new round-trip flights were authorized in a major aviation bill signed into law last spring. Proponents of expanding the perimeter rule had been pushing for an additional 28 slots but ultimately only received five. 

The new slots are not up and running yet, but routes continued to be added over the years through the perimeter rule, which limits the number of flights that travel more than 1,250 miles from DCA. Both Reagan and Dulles International Airport are owned by the federal government, which means Congress has the power to decide how they operate. 

Lawmakers have carved out exemptions over the years to allow a small number of flights at the airport that are beyond the 1,250-mile limit, including flights to cities like Phoenix, Austin, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Denver. The 2012 FAA reauthorization allowed 16 more flights beyond that perimeter. 

“I think this crash is going to curb the desire to expand the number,” Kaine said. “Senator Warner and I never view this as over, it’s just a perennial chipping that comes back and chip and chip and chip. This now, I’m sure, will guarantee that. Before we do anymore on this, we’ve really got to check some things out.”

Reagan National is one of the busiest airports in the country, with a record 25.5 million passengers in 2023. The airspace is complex with commercial jets sharing restricted air space with a plethora of other aircraft, including military, Metropolitan Police Department, National Park Service, Marine One, among others, that crisscross the Potomac every day.

“Congress, I feel, didn’t take into consideration the region’s concerns, but I don’t believe those additional flights or slots as we call them have actually been added yet,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said, speaking to the Washington Examiner.

Warner said looking into the flight perimeter expansion is something they may need to “reconsider now,” but also emphasized that he would take cues from the NTSB and FAA professionals, who are still conducting an investigation.

The Virginia senator also said he addressed a shortage of air traffic controllers in a speech on the Senate floor, ironically hours before the crash on Wednesday.

“The irony is in a speech on the floor that nobody listened to about 6 o’clock last night, I specifically pointed out we’re 2,000 air traffic controllers short,” Warner said.

.@MarkWarner: “I am going to do everything I can to make sure that bill doesn’t become a law,” he said of efforts to expand the flight perimeter rules. pic.twitter.com/GJmMGpByEo

— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) July 10, 2023

Warner, Kaine, along with the congressional delegations from Maryland and D.C., had sounded alarm bells for the last two years, sending out press releases, giving floor speeches, and even holding a press conference in July 2023 at the airport. 

At the time, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority argued the main runway at DCA was the busiest in the nation and did not have the capacity to handle more flights.

“This metropolitan area has the benefit of being served by three major airports,” said Jack Potter, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO in 2023. “Dulles has four runways 10,000 feet plus long 12,000 acres, BWI, 3,000 acres, a 10,000-foot runway, a 9,000-foot runway, and a 5,000-foot runway.”

“Here at Reagan National, we have a runway that’s under 8,000 feet long,” Potter added. “We do not have the capacity to handle this without constraints being thrust upon our neighbors and our passengers.”

The Federal Aviation Administration indefinitely restricted helicopter flights near the airport in the wake of the collision, an update first reported by Reuters. There were 11,000 military helicopter flights annually within 30 miles of the airport, according to a 2021 government report. 

Dan Rose, who served in the U.S. Navy as a carrier-based attack pilot, said officials need to reevaluate the helicopter routes that are near the airport and build in more significant restrictions to ensure another fatal collision never happens again.

“There’s no way there should be that kind of margin of error built into a route underneath an approach to a runway, it’s really the same thing as setting up a taxiway on a runway and just letting planes cross the runway at the taxiway point, without any real control over them,” Rose said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “It’s the same thing.”

“You really shouldn’t have the route designed the way it is, or you have to have significant limitations built in like you cannot cross the approach end of the runway without the tower, the control tower, specifically clearing you to cross underneath the flight path,” Rose added.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) who met with family members of victims in Washington on Thursday evening said he wants to see major changes specifically in how communications are handled between military and civilian aircraft. Investigators are still looking into whether the crew of the commercial plane was aware of the helicopter.

Military aircraft often utilize ultra-high frequency (UHF) radios while civilian aircraft utilize very high frequency (VHF). The civilian aircraft can hear air traffic control speaking to the other aircraft but will not hear the pilot’s response.

“I understand why military planes don’t want the bad guys to know where they are, same with the regular police as well, I understand that, but they don’t need to be over commercial airspace, busy, busy space like that,” Marshall said. “I don’t know who made the policy, but it sounds like a future mistake.”

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the chairman of the committee that oversees aviation issues and Jerry Moran (R-KS), who leads the panel’s subcommittee on Aviation received a briefing from federal officials on Thursday. They announced they intend to hold a member-level briefing with a bipartisan group of senators in the near future.

Cruz announced his panel will launch their own investigation into the crash.

“I’ve directed the Commerce Committee to actively gather information about what went wrong,” he wrote on X, “and I plan to hold a bipartisan member-level briefing with key federal officials as soon as possible.”

While the DMV delegation hadn’t specifically raised concerns about military aircraft in their fight against expanding flights at lawmaker’s favorite airport, Kaine repeatedly highlighted a near-collision between a Southwest Airlines flight and a Jetblue flight on a DCA runway in mid-April of last year. As lawmakers were debating the FAA bill last spring, Kaine gave a speech on the Senate floor, highlighting the crash and arguing that more traffic at the airport was a major safety risk.

“I can’t re-watch that speech I gave. It would make me too upset,” Kaine said.