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The chairperson of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Jennifer Homendy called out Hollywood Burbank Airport as having a concerning risk of a midair collision and urged federal regulators to take action.
As stated by her, there are safety concerns about air traffic into and out of Hollywood Burbank Airport and that if there’s another midair collision in the U.S., it would likely happen there.
In the board meeting in Washington Tuesday, Homendy had praise for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, calling him “a partner,” but she also criticized the FAA’s safety culture.
She told reporters that airlines have warned her that Hollywood Burbank Airport in California could be the next location of a midair collision, though she did not elaborate on that claim. The FAA in a statement said it has worked to alleviate concerns there.
“I keep hearing about other areas in the air space where they’re concerned. Burbank is one where commercial airlines have called me to say the next midair [collision] is going to be at Burbank and nobody at FAA is paying attention to that,” she said.
Homendy said the NTSB found no evidence of the FAA conducting required, annual reviews of Washington helicopter routes, and she noted how one of the pathways above the Potomac River, where the Black Hawk was flying last year, had only 75 feet of vertical separation — “at best” — with an approach to one of Reagan National’s runways.
Chair Jennifer Homendy said, the airport is a busy Class C, or medium-sized, airport with short runways and a tight airspace. It is among “hotspots” with a high volume of mixed helicopter and airplane traffic, according to the FAA.
The warning came from NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy during a hearing about last year’s midair collision between an American Airlines Flight and an Army helicopter in Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.
The NTSB determined Tuesday that the crash’s probable cause was the FAA’s placement of that helicopter route in a risky location and failing to “regularly review and evaluate” such pathways and “available data,” while not acting on past recommendations to mitigate the chances of a collision in the area — along with controllers’ overreliance on visual separation to manage air traffic.
The agency, that has been investigating the catastrophe for an year, cited a range of issues both the night of the crash and well beforehand as contributing to the incident, including air traffic control’s “overreliance” on “visual separation”, having pilots look for other aircraft mid-flight to avoid them.
The NTSB issued dozens of recommendations Tuesday related to the crash, including that the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization undergo an inspector general audit and that the Army revise training procedures for its flight crews to make sure they learn about plane operations at Reagan National.
The issue regarding the Burbank Airport (BUR), according to experts, is the proximity to Van Nuys Airport just 15 miles away, where there are up to 700 mostly non-commercial flights every day.
After the stern warning from Homendy, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration fired back, saying that after safety analyses, they already lowered the Van Nuys traffic pattern by 220 feet and that has resulted in a “reduction of traffic collision avoidance system alerts.”
In this context, Homendy insisted that the FAA needs to do more to keep passengers and crew members safe.
“People are raising red flags,” she said. “That’s their job.”
The FAA in a second statement Tuesday said safety “is and always will be” the agency’s top priority, adding that it has worked “side-by-side” with the NTSB during its probe. The FAA said it will “diligently consider” the board’s suggestions.
As per FAA, they have worked to address concerns about the airspace, permanently closing the helicopter route near Reagan National, with limited exceptions for “essential” flights such as transporting the president.
The Regulatory body has also required ADS-B Out broadcasting around the area in most cases, and it has reviewed other airports nationwide where helicopters and planes fly close to one another.
Additionally, the Department of Transportation (DoT) has launched a country wide effort, using $12.5 billion from last summer’s GOP domestic policy law, to revamp the FAA’s aging infrastructure and technology.
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