Daniel Wolfram
A commercial airplane carrying civilians nearly flew into a helicopter carrying Donald Trump. A new report is now blaming the president’s ongoing renovations at the White House.
On August 4, the presidential helicopter Marine One took off from the White House and was close to crashing into an airplane filled with people.
Trump was in the helicopter that came very close to colliding with the plane.
A new report shows that Trump’s own construction site at the White House may have been a massive contributor.
A near disaster
The contentious construction on a massive new ballroom at the White House recently forced Donald Trump’s Marine One helicopter to change its launch spot. Flight crews shifted takeoffs from the South Lawn to a nearby park known as the Ellipse. That almost proved fatal when a commercial airplane justa about collided with the helicopter on August 4.
That temporary move created an unexpected barrier. According to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, technicians “conducted a coverage analysis and determined that there was not adequate line of sight to ensure communications” between the park and the control tower.
The breakdown caused air-traffic controllers to miss warning signals. Therefore, the Envoy Air passenger jet was erroneously cleared for takeoff, resulting in an American Airlines jet and President Trump’s Marine One helicopter flying less than a mile from each other.
Static in the sky
White House spokesman Kush Desai downplayed the incident in a statement. “Marine One flights are piloted by the finest aviators in the world, and the White House maintains the utmost confidence in these patriots and other security officials who are responsible for ensuring the president’s safety,” Desai said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the close call on faulty telecom issues. “We’ve found at a staff level, between the Marine One team and the FAA, there had been some telecom issues,” he explained, adding that teams are resolving the issue.
Yet controllers struggled to hear Marine One again during a departure on Thursday. LiveATC.net captured audio recordings of a controller asking another pilot for help, saying, “If you hear Marine One, can you let me know?”
Calls for change
There have been multiple incidents that have called the leadership of the transportation services into question. Last year, a midair collision over National Airport between a passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 people.
That disaster exposed critical flaws in how officials manage overlapping flight paths near busy airports. Victims’ families are now pushing lawmakers to require advanced location-tracking gear on all aircraft. Safety board investigators found such technology gives pilots nearly a minute of warning to avoid collisions.
Congress remains locked in a bitter dispute over the mandate. Lawmakers in the House and Senate continue to squabble over which planes must carry the technology and whether military flights should be exempt.
