A Delta Air Lines flight and a US Air Force aircraft had a near miss near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, just two months after a midair collision near the same airport killed more than 60 people.
The incident occurred on Friday, March 28, at 3:16 p.m. when Delta Flight 2983, an Airbus A319, had just received takeoff clearance.
At the same time, four US Air Force T-38 Talons were inbound to Arlington National Cemetery for a flyover. The T-38 Talon is a two-seat supersonic jet used to train pilots.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Delta pilot received an onboard alert that another aircraft was nearby. Air traffic controllers quickly issued corrective instructions to both planes, preventing a collision. The FAA has launched an investigation.
Flight tracking footage and audio communications, shared by VASAviation on YouTube, show just how close the two aircraft came. Both flights continued to their destinations without further incident.
“Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people. That’s why the flight crew followed procedures to maneuver the aircraft as instructed,” a Delta spokesperson told Business Insider.
The near-miss incident came almost exactly two months after an American Airlines flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter close to the same airport, killing 67 people.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, located just outside Washington, DC, is home to the country’s busiest runway, with over 800 takeoffs and landings per day.
The airport is the closest of three area airports to the city, about 3 miles south of the White House. Its proximity to Capitol Hill makes it a favorite of lawmakers.
Military helicopters also frequently fly low over the nearby Potomac River, transiting between military bases close by and the Pentagon, about a mile north of the airport.
Flying into and out of Reagan Airport, with short runways and such heavily restricted airspace nearby, is “like threading a needle,” one pilot previously told Business Insider.
Following the January incident, Brian Alexander, a military helicopter pilot and a partner at the aviation accident law firm Kreindler & Kreindler, told BI that a shortage of air traffic controllers and increasing airspace congestion had affected safety.
“Our whole air traffic control system has been blinking red, screaming at us that we’ve got it overloaded,” he said at the time.
More broadly, air traffic congestion has become a growing concern. According to a January report from the National Transportation Safety Board, there were more than 15,000 close calls between commercial airplanes and helicopters from October 2021 to December 2024.
