On January 29, an American Airlines regional jet collided in midair with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.
The accident resulted in the death of all 67 people on board, including the three crew members on the helicopter and the 64 passengers on the airliner, six of whom were members of the Skating Club of Boston.
Returning from a selective national figure skating camp, two athletes from the Skating Club of Boston, their mothers and two former world champions coaching at the club were among the 14 U.S. figure skater victims on the flight.
The loss of these individuals has deeply affected the skating community. “Everyone was like family,” Cynthia Wang (II), a former skater at the Skating Club of Boston, shares. “Everyone skates with each other. Everyone grew up with each other. All the coaches knew each other. All the skaters knew the coaches. It is just a really, really tight-knit community.”
Investigations of American Airlines Flight 5342 by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed that a message from the radio transmission could have been cut off, leaving the helicopter crew unaware of the approaching flight’s exact position.
NTSB investigation further confirmed that a single air traffic controller was overseeing air traffic and the helicopter operation simultaneously, a role normally assigned to two people.
“There are air traffic controllers to keep track of all the planes, but you also want well-trained people, and you want to have well-staffed people […] you want them to have authority, and you want them to have clarity, if you want to have a safe air system,” AP Physics teacher Mr. Jesse Southwick explains.
Less than one month later, on February 25, a Southwest Airlines flight encountered a close-call landing with a private business jet entering the runway at Chicago Midway International Airport. The pilot of Southwest Flight 2504 initiated a “go-around” and ascended safely back into the air to avoid the collision after the private jet had proceeded to the runway without authorization.
On the same day, a JetBlue flight from Westchester, New York to West Palm Beach, Florida, made a preventive diversion following an engine failure. The aircraft was able to successfully land without further damage to the plane or injury to the people onboard.
Despite the prevalence of news and social media coverage on these recent flight accidents, data from the NTSB shows consistent numbers of aviation accidents in 2025 with prior years. Since 2023, however, the nation’s understaffed air traffic control facilities have continued to impact aviation safety. The new presidential administration’s further layoffs of several Federal Aviation Administration employees has also negatively affected security.
Most cases of aviation accidents have been blamed by the recent administration on unqualified air traffic controllers. Much of this rhetoric has initiated hiring pauses and mass firings that only exacerbate the risks of aviation errors.
Air traffic controllers play a vital role in moving airplanes in and out of airports and guiding pilots during takeoff and landing. Like prior accidents, many of the incidents were rooted in miscommunication between air traffic controllers and the pilots. Air traffic controllers have also been tasked with far more than they can handle, often resulting in a few individuals handling several vital tasks simultaneously.
Boston Latin School Aerospace & Astrophysics Club president Michael Glazkov (II) expresses his reaction to the recent series of aviation accidents, saying, “Failures often cannot be predicted with airplanes, […] but people have to learn from patterns of the issues and fix them.”
Moving forward, aviation safety is dependent on the proper funding and staffing of trained air traffic controllers and regulators to ensure that both pilots and passengers can fly safely.