Trump’s Marine One chopper nearly hit a jet after White House construction caused radio glitch

The construction of a new White House helipad helped create radio communication problems that prevented air traffic controllers from hearing warnings that President Donald Trump’s helicopter was preparing to take off, allowing an airline jet to receive clearance to depart at nearly the same time, federal investigators said Thursday.

The incident on August 4 near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport exposed a breakdown in a longstanding safety arrangement: Marine One is supposed to give controllers a three-minute warning before takeoff so aircraft movements can be coordinated.

But that warning never reached the tower that day.


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The helicopter and the Envoy Air passenger jet subsequently came too close to each other before Marine One's pilots spotted the plane and paused its departure. The NTSB said preliminary estimates put the aircraft at just over 0.8 mile (1.3 kilometres) apart laterally and about 700 feet (215 metres) vertically at their closest point.

Officials stressed that Trump was never in danger.

Construction shifted Marine One

The trouble had been building before the August 4 incident.

A week earlier, air traffic controllers and Marine One pilots had met after controllers failed to receive the standard three-minute warning ahead of presidential helicopter flights. They agreed that future warnings could be relayed through another party if direct radio communication failed.

That backup plan failed too on August 4.

Since mid-July, Marine One has been taking off from the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, while construction continues on a new helipad behind the White House. After the near miss, technicians determined that the helicopter's new position had created inadequate line of sight between its radio and the receiver used by controllers.

The FAA subsequently moved the radio receiver from a neighbourhood near the airport to the top of the Reagan airport tower. Tests after the change showed the radios were working properly.

"Even though they were aware of some previous communications issues, they never got at the root cause," aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said.

The FAA said it took immediate action after the incident by moving the antenna "to improve communications" between the airport and Marine One pilots.

The problem was not necessarily confined to August 4. On Thursday, controllers again struggled to hear Marine One shortly before takeoff and sought assistance from a support helicopter.

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"I can't hear Marine One," an air traffic controller says to the support helicopter. "If you hear Marine One, can you let me know?"

Communication returned to normal a little more than a minute later, according to recordings posted by ATC.com. The cause of that brief disruption was not immediately clear.

A safety system strained after a deadly crash

The simultaneous presence of the presidential helicopter and an airline jet in the air appeared to run counter to procedures introduced after a January 29, 2025 midair collision near Reagan that killed 67 people.

Following that crash, the FAA ordered that takeoffs and landings at the airport be halted whenever a helicopter travels along a conflicting route. The airspace around the White House and Reagan is particularly crowded, carrying both military and commercial traffic.

The Pentagon and FAA also have a longstanding agreement requiring controllers to receive a three-minute warning before Marine One takes off, an arrangement that predates last year's crash.

NTSB investigators found that official FAA tower recordings contained no three-minute warning from Marine One on August 4. Separate recordings posted by ATC.com, however, show that the helicopter pilot did make the required call.

The pilot can be heard saying the helicopter was "three minutes to lift", but the tower controller appeared caught off guard when Marine One subsequently prepared to depart.

"Uh, Marine One, you said, uh, you're proceeding as briefed?" the controller asked before directing the helicopter and adding, "OK, no three minutes, roger, proceed as briefed."

Once the controller warned Marine One about the departing aircraft, the pilot said the crew had spotted the traffic.

"We'll be doing a momentary delay."

The Envoy Air crew told investigators that its collision-avoidance system issued a traffic alert shortly after takeoff, although the pilots never saw the helicopter.

Guzzetti said the controller should not be blamed because the warning never reached the tower.

"In this case, the controller did absolutely nothing wrong. He did not receive the transmission saying that they were three minutes away from taking off. So he had no reason to hold the airplane that was lining up and waiting," Guzzetti said.

Once controllers realized Marine One was departing, they warned the helicopter crew and instructed another aircraft approaching Reagan to abort its landing and circle.

The episode also revived concerns about communication between civilian air traffic controllers and the military. After last year's deadly collision, a congressional hearing revealed that a hotline between the Pentagon and Reagan's control tower had been out of service for more than three years without the FAA knowing.

The NTSB investigation into the August 4 incident remains ongoing. The White House did not immediately respond to the preliminary findings.