The federal agency that regulates airplane safety has recommended dozens of safety improvements they say would have prevented a fatal collision in January 2025 near Washington D.C. But six months after their report, most of the conditions they say caused the crash remain unchanged.
In January 2025, a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter collided with a passenger airplane over the Potomac River, killing 67 people on board both aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and made 52 recommendations to improve safety. All but one remain open, meaning Congress and the aviation industry hasn’t fixed most of the problems.
Virginia Tech Aerospace engineering professor Ella Atkins said this kind of delay isn’t unusual, but she’s worried it could cause a similar collision.
“And that is unacceptable, given that all of these recommendations have been made, and we can take specific steps to make flying safer,” Atkins said.
Most of the NTSB’s recommendations include better technology that can help avoid collisions, and training for pilots so everyone in the sky knows when another aircraft is nearby.
“One of the things that happened with the software story was that the collision avoidance software below a certain altitude tends to not function, explained Atkins, who is also a pilot herself. “We kind of need to go back and change the collision avoidance software, update it, so that it works all the way down to very low altitudes.”
A bill that would include many of the NTSB recommendations passed the House earlier this year, but the Senate still hasn’t approved it. The Senate passed similar legislation last year, but it failed in the House. The Senate’s version would have implemented stricter safety requirements and was championed by families of those who lost loved ones in the 2025 crash.
“It’s up to the public to help the aviation community decide whether safety due to new technology is something that Congress should be pushing and mandating, even though it may mean a few extra dollars per airplane ticket,” Atkins said.
She noted there is advanced technology available to pilots that uses data link technology—which would enable pilots and air traffic controllers to share information with each other faster than speaking over a radio. She said this is one of the technologies the aviation industry may increasingly use in the future to help improve situational awareness and streamline communication between pilots and air traffic controllers.
As the skies become even more cluttered with aircraft, including drones, Atkins` warns the same challenges that caused last year’s collision will become more important in the future.
“When we have advanced air mobility going from rooftop to rooftop, and we mix in the drones, the sky is going to become quite a lot more crowded than it is now, but also complex,” Atkins said.
