The Inspector General was surveying the management of the DC airspace FAA after thousands of nearby calls

Nearly eight months after a deadly collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC, the office of the Inspector General of the Transport Department announced on Friday that it would open a management survey by the International Pirs Space by the Federal Aviation Administration of the International Airport.

The incentive incident for the investigation was the air accident in terms of the air that occurred in January when a US Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with a regional jet of American Airlines, killing 67 people. But, according to the announcement of the IG, it was only one of the many relatives who have occurred in their airport in recent years. The National Transportation Safety Board noted that 15,000 nearby incidents occurred in airport airspace between October 2021 and December 2024, many of which involved commercial aircraft.

Last week, an audience in investigation of the accident revealed that a single air traffic controller managed both helicopter and plane traffic at the time of the collision. He also found that the Black Hawk involved in the fatal accident dealt with a technical problem which kept a device known as ADS-B of the operation properly, which would have disseminated the position of the helicopter, the altitude and other information on air traffic control and other nearby planes. Politicians at Reagan airport did not have to helicopter to transmit ADS-B data at the time of the incident, according to an army official who spoke to the hearing.

These revelations have the IG office which looks further in the case. The guard dog will investigate the FAA policies and procedures concerning the supply of ADS-B exemptions to the airport, as well as the way the agency manages the management of air traffic control. The exam should start this month.

The results of the IG office should be interesting, if not painful. There has been a shortage of air traffic controllers for years now, which has not been improved by the freezing of the Trump administration or its plan to prevent the ATC from retirement after being 56 years old, despite the obvious need for acute eyes and mind during work. The fact that there are almost constant, including a non-fatal collision on the Reagan track earlier this year which involved an airplane with seated members of the congress on board, suggests that there are fundamental problems with the way FAA is currently working.

The asset of all of this can, however, interfere with the improvement of anything. Earlier this year, he dismissed the inspector general in office at the Ministry of Transport, so that the office is currently working with an acting GI and no chief lawyer. Until now, the only explanation we have taken out of Trump for the accident is when he blamed him at the hires of Dei. This does not exactly inspire the confidence that we will get a significant reform of this whole situation.