The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking into why several commercial flights preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) received midair collision warnings despite no nearby aircraft.
On the morning of March 1, 2025, the FAA reported that several pilots seemed to have received false alarms from the onboard Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). According to the FAA, TCAS is a family of airborne devices that function independently of the ground-based air traffic control (ATC) system. All TCAS systems provide some degree of collision threat alerting, as well as a traffic display.
According to CBS News analysis of air traffic control audio, at least 12 flight crews reported false TCAS alerts, causing three flights to make go-arounds between 06:00 local time and 10:00 local time on March 1, 2025. Six of these incidents occurred less than 11 minutes after 09:00 local time that day.
The pilots of American Eagle flight 4538, operated by Republic Airways and coming from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, mentioned that they received a similar alert on March 1, 2025, stating “it said on the TCAS, it was 600 feet above us and we didn’t see anything”.
American Eagle flights 5197, arriving from Minneapolis, reported similar issues during its approach, while American Eagle 5098 mentioned receiving two alerts, according to the CBS News.
The FAA said in a statement to CBS News that multiple flight crews heading to DCA Airport experienced onboard alerts when no other aircraft were around, but it is unclear how many flights were affected.
“Some of the crews executed go-arounds as a result of the alerts,” the FAA’s statement to CBS News read. “The FAA is investigating why the alerts occurred.”
The incidents follow a deadly mid-air collision over the Potomac River near Washington, involving an American Eagle CRJ700 regional jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter.
Preliminary investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) indicate that the helicopter crew might have overlooked an important instruction from air traffic controllers before the collision. There is also evidence that the helicopter was flying at a higher altitude than permitted on its path.
