A former Washington DC-area air traffic controller has spoken out about the ‘obvious cracks in the system’ that existed long before an American Airlines plane collided with a Blackhawk helicopter last year.

The flight was traveling above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in DC on January 29, 2025 when it crashed into the Army Blackhawk helicopter in mid-air, killing all 67 passengers onboard the flight.

But Emily Hanoka said she had seen problems at the congested airport long before her shift that night, which ended just a few hours before the fatal collision.

‘There were obvious cracks in the system, there were obvious holes,’ she told 60 Minutes’ Sharyn Alfonsi in an interview that aired Sunday night.

‘You had frontline controllers ringing that bell for years and years, saying, “This is not safe. This cannot continue. Please change this.” And that didn’t happen.’

In a report released earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that between 2021 to 2024, 85 near mid-air collisions between helicopters and commercial planes at the airport were reported to the FAA.

60 Minutes also obtained records that show that just one day before the fatal collision, two separate passenger jets had to take sudden action to avoid colliding with Army helicopters. 

‘The warning signs were all there,’ Hanoka said. ‘Controllers formed local safety councils and every time that a controller made these safety reports, another controller was compiling data to back up the recommendation. And many recommendations were made and they never went too far.’ 

Emily Hanoka, a former air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, spoke out about the ‘cracks in the system’ that existed before a fatal crash last year

An American Airlines flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter mid-air over Reagan National Airport last year 

Part of the problem, Hanoka said, is that Reagan National Airport is owned by the federal government – and Congress decides how many flights can take off from the airport each day.

Since 2000, lawmakers added at least 50 flights a day to the airport’s roster and approved another 10 in 2024.

Reagan National Airport now transports 25 million passengers each year, 10 million more than its intended capacity.

‘Some hours are overloaded, to the point where it’s over the capacity that the airport can handle,’ Hanoka said, adding that there was ‘definitely pressure to get planes out.

‘I you do not move planes, you will get gridlock at the airport,’ she explained. 

Making matters even more complicated, airspace is restricted over the White House, the US Capitol and other government buildings, funneling planes and helicopters into the same narrow corridor over the Potomac River.

There are also only three short runways at Reagan that all interconnect, with the airport’s Runway 1 ranking as the busiest in the country, with more than 800 flights a day, or roughly one every minute. 

To meet the demand, Hanoka said air traffic controllers relied on what they called ‘squeeze play,’ which she said is ‘dependent on an aircraft rolling, an aircraft slowing and you know it’s gonna be a very close operation.’ 

Hanoka revealed how there are only three short runways at the airport, which all interconnect

Airspace is restricted over the White House, the US Capitol and other government buildings, funneling planes and helicopters into the same narrow corridor over the Potomac River

That is not a common practice at other airports, she noted.

‘So you’ll get new controllers come in, so they’ve transferred from other facilities and they’ll look at the operation and say, “Absolutely not,”‘ Hanoka said.

‘And they’ll withdraw from training. And that, when I was there was about 50 percent… About half of the people that walked in the building to train would say “Absolutely not.”‘

More than one year after the fatal collision, nearly one-third of controller positions  at the airport remain unfilled. 

‘It was surprising, walking into that work environment, how close aircraft were,’ she said. ‘This is what has to happen, in order to make this airspace work. 

‘And it did work,’ she noted. ‘It worked until it didn’t.’ 

In January, the NTSB determined that the mid-air crash was preventable as it cited ‘systemic failures,’ including ignored warning signs about the risks and a ‘helicopter route’ that was designed so poorly that in some parts of the sky, it allowed for just ’75 feet of vertical separation’ between helicopters and passenger jets. 

The crash marked the deadliest commercial aviation accident in the US in almost 25 years

All 67 passengers onboard the American Airlines flight were killed

The night of the crash, which became the deadliest commercial aviation accident in the US in almost 25 years, investigators said the Black Hawk crew was relying solely on ‘visual separation’ – looking out the window to avoid nearby passenger jets.

The Black Hawk was then flying 78 feet higher than it should have been as the Army pilots turned off a system that would have broadcast the helicopter’s location more clearly.

An animation showing the view from inside the jet’s cockpit, meanwhile, showed pilots were dealing with dark skies and landing with the help of night-vision, while air traffic controllers failed to warn them they were on course to hit the helicopter.

The chopper then appeared suddenly to the left of the plane’s windshield, hitting the jet in a flash and without offering any time for the pilots to swerve out of the way. 

 This is a breaking news story and will be updated.