Near-miss: Marine One's departure warnings lost as helicopter nearly encounters jet at Reagan National
NTSB's preliminary findings show Marine One came within about 0.82 miles horizontally and ~700 feet vertically of an Envoy Air jet at Reagan National after two warnings to air-traffic controllers failed to reach them and a third contact via a nearby facility was unreadable; telecom issues and limited line-of-sight contributed, though officials say the president was never in danger. The FAA will convene a safety review, enhance three-minute lift-notification, and improve radio frequencies as part of broader steps to separate presidential rotorcraft from air traffic; a final root-cause analysis is due in about a year.
