Pentagon hotline to Washington DC airport controllers inoperable since 2022

A critical communication hotline between the Pentagon and FAA air traffic controllers at Reagan Washington National Airport has been nonfunctional since March 2022, according to testimony from an FAA official before a Senate panel on Wednesday.

The U.S. Army announced on May 5 that it is suspending helicopter training operations near the Pentagon after two commercial airline flights were forced to abort landings at Reagan due to the close presence of a Black Hawk helicopter.

A previous incident on January 29 involved a Black Hawk helicopter colliding with an American Airlines passenger jet near the airport, resulting in 67 fatalities.

Speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee, Franklin McIntosh, the FAA’s deputy head of air traffic control, stated that helicopter operations originating from the Pentagon would not be permitted to resume until the disabled hotline is repaired. McIntosh explained that the hotline is maintained by the Pentagon and that the FAA only recently discovered it was no longer in service.

As a result, the Army’s 12th Aviation Battalion has temporarily stopped all training flights in the Pentagon area while it investigates the May 1 event. This unit is responsible for conducting Army helicopter operations in the region.

Senator Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, noted that the FAA is considering suspending its standing agreement with the Army that allows military helicopters to operate in the area without seeking individual clearance for each flight.

The Pentagon did not provide a comment on the matter.

“We were extremely troubled by the incident that occurred,” McIntosh told the committee. “We were ready to weigh any option available that we could use… to bring safety measures and better behaviors from the DOD (Department of Defense).”

In a separate issue, McIntosh also reported that on April 28, air traffic controllers managing Newark Liberty International Airport temporarily lost communication for 90 seconds due to a failure in both the primary and backup telecommunications lines. “The second line did not kick in… That’s what caused the disruption,” he said. To improve reliability, the FAA is installing a third redundant communication line at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility.

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