DC Plane Crash: Luck Ran Out On The FAA’s Deadly Near-Miss Streak

Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

True Crime Today

True Crime, News, News Commentary

3 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On January 29, 2025, tragedy struck near Washington, D.C., when an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair, killing all 64 people on board. While the official investigation is still ongoing, the warning signs leading up to this disaster were clear. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the systemic failures of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a broken air traffic control system plagued by staffing shortages, outdated technology, and ignored near-misses.
How did a government agency responsible for air safety allow the cracks in its infrastructure to widen until they finally gave way? How many more close calls were brushed aside before disaster became inevitable? And most importantly—how can we stop this from happening again?

Join us as we unravel the disturbing truth behind America’s crumbling aviation safety net, the long history of near misses, and the bureaucratic failures that have left pilots, controllers, and passengers at the mercy of a dangerously underfunded system. The FAA has had every opportunity to fix these problems. Instead, they gambled with public safety. This time, they lost.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a true crime in real time update from True Crime Today and the Hidden Killers podcast.
0:07.0	On January 29th of 2025, an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided mid-air near Ronald Reagan, Washington National Airport, DCA, killing all 64 people aboard both aircraft.
0:22.8	As a National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB conducts its investigation, we do not yet
0:27.8	have the official cause of the catastrophe.
0:29.8	However, given the circumstances, a mid-air collision occurring just miles from one of the
0:36.8	busiest airports in the country, and the FAA's
0:39.8	well-documented history of near-miss, staffing shortages, and technological inadequacies,
0:44.4	we can make an educated evidence-based assessment of what likely went wrong.
0:50.4	Let's be absolutely clear here.
0:51.9	This is not about blaming the individual air traffic controllers
0:55.7	involved in this specific incident. The men and women who keep our skies safe are professionals
1:01.9	who work under grueling conditions, tasked with making life and death decisions while suffering
1:07.5	from chronic understaffing, mandatory overtime, and outdated technology.
1:12.7	Instead, the blame has to fall on the system itself, a system that's been teetering on the edge of
1:18.4	failure for decades, one that has continuously ignored warning signs and placed passengers
1:24.3	and controllers alike into a game of Russian roulette where luck, rather than sound policy,
1:31.3	determines safety.
1:33.6	The cracks in the FAA's air traffic control infrastructure are not new.
1:38.6	In 1981, the mass firing of over 11,000 striking controllers by Ronald Reagan.
1:48.4	The same man whose namesake airport, the January 25 plane, was trying to land at,
1:57.8	fired over 11,000 striking controllers, gutting institutional knowledge and left a void that's never been fully addressed.
2:06.1	Maybe there was a reason they were striking back in 81.
	...

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