The hotline connecting military and air traffic controllers in Washington has been out of service for more than three years

A hotline that connects military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., has been out of service for over three years, and this issue may have contributed to another near miss after the Army resumed flying helicopters in the area. This follows the deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter. Senator Ted Cruz brought up the issue during a hearing on Wednesday.

Frank McIntosh, the FAA official responsible for air traffic controllers, confirmed that the agency wasn’t aware the hotline had been down since March 2022 until after the recent near miss. He mentioned that civilian controllers still had other ways to communicate with military controllers through landlines. However, the FAA is insisting that the hotline be repaired before helicopter flights resume near Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Defense Department officials didn’t respond to questions about the recent near miss and the steps being taken to improve helicopter flight safety in the area. The FAA did not provide additional answers following the hearing about how the hotline was meant to function.

“The developments at DCA (Reagan airport) in its airspace are extremely concerning,” Cruz said. “This committee remains laser focused on monitoring a safe return to operations at DCA and making sure all users in the airspace are operating responsibly.”

The Army temporarily stopped flying helicopters near Reagan Airport after the latest near miss, but McIntosh said the FAA was nearly going to order a halt to helicopter flights due to safety concerns before the Army chose to pause them on its own.

The January crash, involving an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter, killed 67 people, making it the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that there were 85 near misses around Reagan Airport in the three years before the crash, which should have led to action.

Since then, the FAA has worked to keep military helicopters from sharing airspace with commercial planes, but on May 1, controllers had to order two planes to abort their landings because an Army helicopter was flying near the Pentagon.

In another incident, a commercial flight taking off from Reagan Airport had to take evasive action when it came too close to four military jets flying to Arlington National Cemetery for a flyover. McIntosh said the problem was caused by miscommunication between FAA controllers at a regional facility and the tower at Reagan, but that it had been addressed.