WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. – Safety concerns are being raised after a jet carrying 64 people collided with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., sending both aircraft into the Potomac River and killing everyone on board.
The crash happened at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. A jet that departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight on approach to the airport runway.
Investigators are still looking into what happened in the final moments before the collision.
The AP reported that less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller told the helicopter moments later, “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
---> What we know: Multiple deaths reported in passenger jet, Army helicopter collision near DC
Deadly 1987 Michigan crash
On Aug. 16, 1987, a Northwest Airlines flight crashed shortly after taking off in Romulus. The plane struck light poles and a rental car facility before crashing to the ground.
The crash killed 148 passengers and six crew members. There was one survivor, a 4-year-old girl from Arizona.
--->Read about the crash here: Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metro Airport
Detroit Metro Airport
The Detroit Metro Airport hubs more than 800 flights per day.
Local 4′s Karen Drew spoke with current air traffic controllers at DTW, who said that the airport has more options if there is a situation on a runway, which makes it easier to divert traffic.
They also don’t deal with military landings and activity, as they use the airspace around Selfridge Air Base.
FAA shares incident data
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes data about incident reports available to the public through the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing System (ASIAS).
In the system, the FAA Runway Safety Office shares reports from runway incursions. According to the FAA, a runway incursion involves the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of an aircraft.
The data only goes back to 2001. Since then, there have been 241 reports filed in ASIAS that occurred at the Detroit Metro Airport. Some of these reports are each parts of a larger report, so that number does not reflect the exact number of total incidents.
Category A runway incursions
A Category A runway incursion is described by the FAA as “a serious incident in which a collision was narrowly avoided.” There were no Category A runway incursions reported in the ASIAS at DTW.
Category B runway incursions
A Category B runway incursion is described by the FAA as “an incident in which separation decreases and there is a significant potential for collision, which may result in a time critical corrective/evasive response to avoid a collision.”
There were only three Category B runway incursion reports in the system that occurred at DTW. Here’s the details made available in those reports:
- Oct. 12, 2001: No description available.
- May 23, 2014: Ground control (GC) issued CRJ7 taxi instructions to runway 4R via taxiways kilo 12, yankee, cross runway 9L. Read back omitted taxiway yankee and GC did not correct the read back. CRJ7 proceeded straight ahead on taxiway kilo 12 and entered runway 4R while B737 was departing. GC instructed the CRJ7 to hurry across the runway for departing traffic. B737 was unable to abort takeoff and passed through the east side of the intersection airborne. Closest proximity was 940 feet lateral and about 135 vertical when the CRJ cleared the runway edge and the B737 was halfway between taxiways victor and kilo 12.
- Jan. 27, 2016: An airport vehicle was driving northbound on runway 22L conducting an inspection. The west side local controller cleared the vehicle to conduct the inspection shortly before the position was combined to the east side. Although the runway inspection was covered during the relief briefing, the east side local controller (LNE) immediately instructed A/C 1/CRJ9 to line up and wait. LNE cleared CRJ9 for takeoff as the vehicle was midway between taxiways romeo and yankee 3. The aircraft and vehicle converged and the asde alerted when they were 4237 feet apart. Six seconds later the controller instructed CRJ9 to abort and instructed the vehicle to exit the runway to the right. The vehicle driver reported clear of the runway at taxiway yankee 5. Closest proximity was approximately 180 feet.
Category C runway incursions
A Category C runway incursion is described as " an incident characterized by ample time and/or distance to avoid a collision.” There were 67 Category C runway incursion reports in the system from DTW.
Category D runway incursions
A Category D runway incursion is described by the FAA as “an incident that meets the definition of runway incursion such as incorrect presence of a single vehicle/person/aircraft on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take-off of aircraft but with no immediate safety consequences.” There were 85 Category D runway incursion reports from DTW.
There were 86 other runway incursion reports available in the system, with a majority of them listed as category N/A.
