Business
Clues From D.C. Plane Crash Suggest Multiple Failures in Aviation Safety
Clues emerging from the moments before the deadly collision Wednesday night between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet suggest that multiple layers of the country’s aviation safety apparatus failed, according to flight recordings, a preliminary internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration, interviews with current and former air traffic controllers and others briefed on the matter.
The helicopter flew outside its approved flight path. The American Airlines pilots most likely did not see the helicopter close by as they made a turn toward the runway. And the air traffic controller, who was juggling two jobs at the same time, was unable to keep the helicopter and the plane separated.
An F.A.A. spokesman said the agency could not comment on the ongoing investigation, which is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board. Crash investigators will spend the next several months reviewing flight data, recordings from inside the cockpits, weather patterns, as well as interviewing controllers and others involved to try to figure out what went wrong.
But the catastrophe already appeared to confirm what pilots, air traffic controllers and safety experts had been warning for years: Growing holes in the aviation system could lead to the kind of crash that left 67 people dead in the Potomac River in Washington.
Even before an official cause is determined, there were signs Wednesday that pilots and air traffic controllers at Reagan National were not operating under optimal conditions.
The duties of handling air traffic control for helicopters and for planes at Reagan National on Wednesday night were combined before the deadly crash. That left only one person to handle both roles, according to a person briefed on the staffing and the report.
Typically one person handles both helicopter and plane duties after 9:30 p.m., when traffic at Reagan begins to lessen. But the supervisor combined those duties sometime before 9:30, and allowed one air traffic controller to leave, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation into the crash. The crash occurred just before 9 p.m.
While there were no unusual factors causing a distraction for controllers that night, staffing was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the preliminary F.A.A. report said.
On Thursday, five current and former controllers said that the controller in the tower should have more proactively directed the helicopter and the plane to fly away from each other. Instead, the controller asked the helicopter to steer clear of the plane.
Some of the current and former controllers said the darkness could have made it more difficult for pilots to accurately gauge the distance between themselves and other aircraft. Some wondered whether the helicopter pilots mistook a different plane for the American jet.
The helicopter was supposed to be flying closer to the bank of the Potomac River and lower to the ground as it traversed the busy Reagan National airspace, four people briefed on the incident said.
Before a helicopter can enter any busy commercial airspace, it must get the approval of an air traffic controller. In this case, the pilot asked for permission to use a specific, predetermined route that lets helicopters fly at a low altitude along the bank on the east side of the Potomac, a location that would have let it avoid the American Airlines plane.
The requested route — referred to as Route 4 at Reagan National — followed a specific path known to the air traffic controller and helicopter pilots. The helicopter confirmed visual sight of a regional jet and the air traffic controller instructed the helicopter to follow the route and fly behind the plane.
But the helicopter did not follow the intended route, the people briefed on the matter said.
Rather, it was above 300 feet, when it was supposed to be flying below 200 feet, and it was at least a half-mile off the approved route when it collided with the commercial jet.
A senior Army official urged caution in making any assessments until the helicopter’s black box could be recovered and analyzed, along with other forensic data.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry, said the Black Hawk’s pilots had flown this route before, and were well aware of the altitude restrictions and tight air corridor they were permitted to fly in near the airport.
Safety lapses in aviation have been increasing for years, leading to an alarming pattern of close calls in the skies and at airports involving commercial airlines. They have occurred amid rising congestion at the country’s busiest airports, including Reagan National, where the frequent presence of military flights makes controlling traffic even more complicated.
At the same time, a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers has forced many to work six-day weeks and 10-hour days — a schedule so fatiguing that multiple federal agencies have warned that it could impede controllers’ abilities to do their jobs properly. Few facilities have enough fully certified air traffic controllers, according to a Times investigation in 2023. Some controllers say little has improved since then.
The air traffic control tower at Reagan National has been understaffed for years. The tower there was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels. The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers’ union call for 30.
An F.A.A. spokesman said on Thursday that Reagan National currently employs 25 certified controllers out of their goal of 28.
The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs are typically assigned to two controllers, rather than one, the internal F.A.A. report said. This increases the workload for the air traffic controller and complicates the job.
Controllers can also use different radio frequencies to communicate with pilots flying planes and pilots flying helicopters. While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other.
As the passenger jet’s pilots were approaching the airport, they were asked by air traffic control to pivot the landing from one runway to another, according to the F.A.A. report, a person briefed on the incident and audio recordings of conversations between an air traffic controller and the pilots. That request may have introduced another complication shortly before the collision.
The American Airlines flight had originally been cleared by the traffic control tower to land on the airport’s main runway, called Runway 1. The controller then asked the pilot to land on a different, intersecting runway instead — Runway 33 — which the pilot agreed to do.
That decision, according to the person who was briefed on the incident and four other people who are familiar with the airport’s air traffic, happens routinely when regional jets like the American Airlines aircraft are involved. The decision may also have been made to help keep air traffic moving efficiently by not clogging the main runway, the people said.
Runway 33 is shorter, requiring intense focus from pilots landing their planes. The last-minute change raised questions within the F.A.A. on Thursday morning about congestion at Reagan National, the person briefed on the event added.
Robert Isom, American’s chief executive, said at a news conference on Thursday that the pilots of the passenger plane involved in the crash had worked for PSA Airlines, an American subsidiary, for several years, The captain had been employed by the airline for almost six years, while the first officer had worked there for almost two years.
“These were experienced pilots,” he said.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.
Just two and a half years after OpenAI stunned the world with ChatGPT, AI is no longer only answering questions — it is taking actions. We are now entering the era of AI agents, in which AI large language models don’t just passively provide information in response to your queries, they actively go into the world and do things for — or potentially against — you.
AI has the power to write essays and answer complex questions, but imagine if you could enter a prompt and have it make a doctor’s appointment based on your calendar, or book a family flight with your credit card, or file a legal case for you in small claims court.
An AI agent submitted this op-ed. (I did, however, write the op-ed myself because I figured the Los Angeles Times wouldn’t publish an AI-generated piece, and besides I can put in random references like I’m a Cleveland Browns fan because no AI would ever admit to that.)
I instructed my AI agent to find out what email address The Times uses for op-ed submissions, the requirements for the submission, and then to draft the email title, draft an eye-catching pitch paragraph, attach my op-ed and submit the package. I pressed “return,” “monitor task” and “confirm.” The AI agent completed the tasks in a few minutes.
A few minutes is not speedy, and these were not complicated requests. But with each passing month the agents get faster and smarter. I used Operator by OpenAI, which is in research preview mode. Google’s Project Mariner, which is also a research prototype, can perform similar agentic tasks. Multiple companies now offer AI agents that will make phone calls for you — in your voice or another voice — and have a conversation with the person at the other end of the line based on your instructions.
Soon AI agents will perform more complex tasks and be widely available for the public to use. That raises a number of unresolved and significant concerns. Anthropic does safety testing of its models and publishes the results. One of its tests showed that the Claude Opus 4 model would potentially notify the press or regulators if it believed you were doing something egregiously immoral. Should an AI agent behave like a slavishly loyal employee, or a conscientious employee?
OpenAI publishes safety audits of its models. One audit showed the o3 model engaged in strategic deception, which was defined as behavior that intentionally pursues objectives misaligned with user or developer intent. A passive AI model that engages in strategic deception can be troubling, but it becomes dangerous if that model actively performs tasks in the real world autonomously. A rogue AI agent could empty your bank account, make and send fake incriminating videos of you to law enforcement, or disclose your personal information to the dark web.
Earlier this year, programming changes were made to xAI’s Grok model that caused it to insert false information about white genocide in South Africa in responses to unrelated user queries. This episode showed that large language models can reflect the biases of their creators. In a world of AI agents, we should also beware that creators of the agents could take control of them without your knowledge.
The U.S. government is far behind in grappling with the potential risks of powerful, advanced AI. At a minimum, we should mandate that companies deploying large language models at scale need to disclose the safety tests they performed and the results, as well as security measures embedded in the system.
The bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, on which I served, published a unanimous report last December with more than 80 recommendations. Congress should act on them. We did not discuss general purpose AI agents because they weren’t really a thing yet.
To address the unresolved and significant issues raised by AI, which will become magnified as AI agents proliferate, Congress should turn the task force into a House Select Committee. Such a specialized committee could put witnesses under oath, hold hearings in public and employ a dedicated staff to help tackle one of the most significant technological revolutions in history. AI moves quickly. If we act now, we can still catch up.
Ted Lieu, a Democrat, represents California’s 36th Congressional District.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The era of AI agents represents a seismic shift from passive information retrieval to autonomous task execution, where AI can independently perform real-world actions like scheduling appointments, booking travel, or submitting legal documents, as demonstrated by the author’s use of an AI agent to handle op-ed submission logistics.
- Unregulated AI agents pose significant dangers, including strategic deception (where AI pursues misaligned objectives), malicious actions like draining bank accounts or fabricating incriminating evidence, and propagation of creator biases, exemplified by xAI’s Grok inserting false claims about white genocide in unrelated responses.
- Current regulatory frameworks are critically inadequate, necessitating mandatory transparency through disclosed safety audits, embedded security protocols, and upgrading the Congressional AI Task Force to a Select Committee with subpoena power to address risks before agent proliferation becomes unmanageable.
Different views on the topic
- AI agents are poised to revolutionize business efficiency by autonomously orchestrating complex workflows—such as fraud detection, supply-chain optimization, and marketing campaigns—through advanced reasoning and real-time data synthesis, fundamentally transforming operations across finance, HR, and logistics[2][3][4].
- Technological advancements in 2025—including faster reasoning, expanded memory, and chain-of-thought training—enable agents to operate with unprecedented speed and accuracy, reducing human intervention while ensuring reliability in tasks like customer service resolution and payment processing[1][3].
- Enterprises already deploy “digital workforces” where humans and AI agents collaborate seamlessly, as seen in Salesforce’s Agentforce and Microsoft’s Copilot Vision Agents, which independently update CRM systems and execute cross-platform commands to enhance productivity without compromising safety[3][4].
Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen has invested in Hollywood with the $69-million purchase of retail property near the legendary TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
In a bet on the future value of local real estate, Mateen and his brother Tyler bought the Hollywood Galaxy shopping center and the historic Petersen Building next door.
The purchase comes at a time when most institutional investors such as pension funds have stopped acquiring property in Los Angeles. Values of many buildings in the region, including office skyscrapers, have fallen in recent years as the loss of tenants that started during the pandemic and other factors have driven down sale prices.
The Mateens, however, see this as an opportunity. They bought prominent properties in Beverly Hills and Westchester last year and are now stakeholders in Hollywood.
Justin Mateen is known for being a co-founder of popular dating app Tinder but is also a solo venture capitalist through his JAM Fund. He and his brother have a strategy to invest in their hometown of Los Angeles during a cooling commercial real estate market because they expect the region to bounce back in the years ahead.
“I’ve always been a contrarian investor,” he said. “Whether it’s startups, public markets or real estate, I take the long view and hold through cycles for forever. While others are pulling back from cities like L.A., we’re doubling down. Its resurgence feels inevitable.”
The Mateens plan to spruce up the Hollywood property sold by Federal Realty Investment Trust and seek tenants who want to interact with the millions of tourists who visit the blocks around the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue annually.
The three-story Hollywood Galaxy shopping center, which was completed in 1990, is nearly 80% leased to tenants including Target and LA Fitness. The remaining space could go to a high-profile business such as Nintendo or Lego that wants to create an interactive, immersive attraction for Hollywood visitors, Tyler Mateen said.
The brothers are looking for tenants “who benefit off heavy foot traffic and value a large format with visibility,” he said. That might also be a flagship store for a big brand like Nike, Adidas or Sephora.
The Petersen Building at Hollywood Boulevard and Orange Drive, which is also part of the deal, was built in 1929 as the home of a Cadillac dealership. It’s now occupied by a Marshalls department store and La La Land souvenir shop.
Last year the Mateens and their partner Pouya Abdi bought Wilshire Rodeo Plaza, a five-story office building at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They are in the process of signing new retail tenants for the building and planning a rooftop restaurant.
The Mateens also bought the HHLA entertainment center in Westchester near Playa Vista last year and are in the process of refurbishing it. Among its new tenants will be Meow Wolf, an immersive entertainment firm.
All three properties are in high-profile locations where it is difficult to develop new projects, Tyler Mateen said. “We want to own assets that you can’t build again and that the market can’t ignore.”
The team behind Comedy Central’s “South Park” raised allegations that Skydance Media and its associates overstepped their authority by meddling in Paramount Global’s business before they take control of the storied company.
The Los Angeles Times previously reported that negotiations over a “South Park” streaming deal have stalled amid Paramount’s protracted $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Skydance balked at a proposed $2-billion overall deal with “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, sources have said.
Federal securities laws forbid “gun-jumping,” a term that describes a company that exerts too much control over a business it is in the process of buying before the transaction closes. Under the terms of the merger deal, Paramount gave Skydance the ability to approve major deals while the sale is pending.
But this week, Park County — the business entity behind the long-running satirical cartoon — alleged that Ellison’s associates crossed the line by interfering with its negotiations with other companies.
In a series of letters, Park County questioned the conduct of Jeff Shell, a former NBCUniversal chief executive who is part of Ellison’s bidding team. Shell is a senior executive with RedBird Capital Partners, a private equity firm that is helping Skydance finance the Paramount deal.
In a Tuesday letter to RedBird’s general counsel, which was viewed by The Times, Park County’s lawyers accused Shell of committing “intrusive, unauthorized, and gun jumping misconduct” by inserting himself into the auction for “South Park” streaming rights and attempting to depress the show’s value.
The lawyers contended that “not one word” in the 160-page sale agreement between Skydance and Paramount authorized Skydance or Redbird to “intrude” into negotiations over “South Park” streaming deals.
“This misconduct is already causing destruction not only to the business of ‘South Park’… but also the productive decades-long relationship between artists and studio on an iconic show,” the lawyers wrote.
A spokeswoman for Skydance disputed misconduct by Shell, adding, “Any accusation that Jeff Shell tried to lower the price or devalue the franchise in any way is not only nonsensical but patently false.”
“Under the terms of the transaction agreement, Skydance has the right to approve material contracts,” the spokeswoman continued.
The dispute comes as the “South Park” creators work to line up a new streaming deal after its five-year pact with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max service ended this week. Paramount wants to make the long-running Comedy Central show available on its Paramount+ platform. However, given the high cost of the show, Paramount wants to share the rights to the 333 episodes with another streaming service.
Knowledgeable people have said they expect “South Park” distribution fees to be valued at more than $200 million a year.
But Skydance hasn’t signed off, believing the deals to be too rich, according to multiple sources. Paramount executives think the show is worth the big bucks, given its enduring global popularity and legacy.
Park County has alleged Shell inserted himself into negotiations with two prospective partners: Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery. Both have expressed interest in licensing the show.
Park County accused Shell of calling executives at those companies to lower their bids for “South Park,” which would deprive Parker, Stone and Paramount of a higher licensing fee.
Paramount owns half of a joint venture called South Park Digital Studios, which controls the streaming rights to the show. Stone and Parker control the other half of the venture that dates back to 2007.
“Mr. Shell’s proposed changes worsen the deal for South Park Digital Studios, and they appear to be designed to cheapen the business of Skydance Media’s acquisition target, Paramount Global,” Park County lawyer Joseph R. Taylor wrote in a Monday letter to Paramount executives.
“This misconduct is already causing destruction not only to the business of South Park through depressing offers for the [Subscription Video On Demand] rights, but also the productive decades-long relationship between artists and studio on an iconic show,” Taylor wrote. “Further misconduct of this nature will naturally force legal action.”
Two sources close to the matter said that Skydance has objected to the 10-year span of the proposed deals with Paramount+ and Max (soon to be renamed HBO Max) as well as the 10-year span for the overall deal with Parker and Stone. Skydance, the sources said, preferred five-year deals due to changes in the market.
Max’s current deal to stream “South Park” ended this week. However, due to the company’s interest in bidding for the rights, the episodes will remain on the service until a new deal can be worked out, said one person close to the company who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Paramount leaders want to lock down “South Park” streaming rights in the U.S. and abroad and were interested in extending Paramount’s $900-million overall deal with the “South Park” creators to guarantee the production of new episodes. But that deal doesn’t expire for another two years, and Skydance executives don’t want to extend that deal before they take control of Paramount, according to sources.
New episodes run first on Paramount’s basic cable network Comedy Central.
“South Park” is one of Paramount’s most important TV franchises. Along with “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, the four boys from the fictional Colorado hamlet of South Park put Comedy Central on the map for basic cable viewers.
During a May earnings call, Paramount co-Chief Executive Chris McCarthy — who runs Paramount’s media networks as well as Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios — told investors that “South Park” episodes would begin streaming on Paramount+ in July, although that deal has not been nailed down.
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