The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a safety incident involving Marine One while President Donald Trump was on the helicopter.
Reuters reported that the helicopter carrying the president took off Tuesday afternoon despite air traffic controllers not having stopped traffic at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Commercial air traffic is required to stop at Reagan Airport after a deadly collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, in January 2025.
The FAA said Marine One may have had a loss of standard separation with a jet taking off from the airport, The Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper was the first to break the story.
The two aircraft did not get dangerously close and were not converging, the FAA said.
“There were no ‘close calls’ with the routine Marine One movement this afternoon,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Jacob Sugg told The Wall Street Journal.
White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world, and at no point was the President in harm’s way.”
Air traffic control is given at least three minutes’ notice before Marine One takes to the air so traffic at Reagan Airport can be paused.
CNN reported that Marine One radioed air traffic control at least three times, saying they were going to take off. The controller did not appear to respond and airport traffic was still moving.
“Tower, do you copy? Marine One, three minutes to lift,” the pilot said. The pilot called again, but the controller said that the transmission was “broken and unreadable,” CNN reported.
A few minutes later, the pilots said they were going to depart on their planned route.
The controller responded, “OK, no three minutes. Roger, proceed as briefed.” The controller then told the Marine One crew that there was an Embracer E-179 taking off from the airport.
The Marine One pilot said they saw the traffic and would have a “momentary delay” before flying to Joint Base Andrews.
Marine One landed at the base without incident, then Trump boarded Air Force One for California.
The FAA is planning to start a Safety Review Team to look into the incident, Reuters reported.
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