The Potomac River Midair Collision: How America's Golden Age of Aviation Safety Ended
On January 29, 2025, a PSA Airlines CRJ-700 collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, killing all 67 people aboard. This in-depth analysis explores the systemic failures—from airport congestion and helicopter traffic to regulatory and cultural issues—that made the tragedy at Washington National Airport almost inevitable. Drawing on NTSB records and expert interviews, it examines how decades of dysfunction culminated in disaster and what must change to prevent the next one.
Now, lubricated by the shock of disaster, the gears of bureaucracy have begun to turn, advancing safety improvements that will help make American airspace safer. But even as I write this, the same forces that created the conditions for that disaster remain at work, steadily pushing us into the jaws of the next one.
- ajkjk
It's strangely meditative to read the prose of someone who was so willing to absorb every single fact about something and to have a considered opinion on each of them. It is a strange type of mind to interact with. I feel slightly cleansed somehow.
- fmajid
My nephew's wife died in that crash. Only 26, and already a widower.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/husband-pa...
- kccqzy
I spent three and a half hours reading the report. It’s well worth a read. It’s scary; I was aware of the Swiss cheese analogy in aviation safety, so it was scary to read how so many people were raising red flags, but due to either ignorance or politics these red flags were ignored; like people were complaining about the size of holes in the Swiss cheese so much but no real action took place.
The chapter about the rot in the machine made me especially worried. I now have serious doubts about the readiness of our armed forces.