Washington airport gets extra warning before Marine One takes off with Trump

Air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport are getting an extra warning when Marine One is about to take off from the White House — after a passenger plane breached the helicopter’s buffer zone while President Donald Trump was on board two months ago.The National Capital Region Coordination Center “has an agreement to notify the air traffic control tower before Marine One departs the White House," the Federal Administration said in a statement Wednesday to The Independent.That's in addition to a “three-minute alert” from Marine One that's intended to give air traffic controllers enough time to suspend flights at Reagan so the chopper has a clear route to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One is based.The FAA is a member of the NCRCC, along with various military and security agencies that monitor and protect the airspace around the nation's capital 24/7.The new safety measure, first reported by The Washington Post, was developed in response to an August 4 incident in which Marine One and an Envoy Air jet leaving Reagan flew within about 0.8 miles horizontally and about 700 feet vertically from each other.President Donald Trump gestures to a crowd of onlookers before boarding Marine One with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on the South Lawn of the White House on October 7, 2026 (Getty)FAA rules require that aircraft be separated by at least 1.5 miles horizontally and 500 feet vertically when flying near airports.The FAA also banned takeoffs and landings at Reagan when a helicopter passes by, following the deaths of 67 people in the January 2025 midair collision of an airliner and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River.It was the deadliest American aviation accident since the November 2001 crash of a passenger plane that killed 273 people in Queens, New York.Marine One pilots twice tried to tell air traffic controllers they were leaving the White House, but official FAA tower recordings didn't capture the warnings.The helicopter crew also tried to relay the message through Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in southeast Washington, D.C., but that effort also failed.Trump gives Chinese President Xi Jinping a tour of the new helipad and the presidential helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House on September 24, 2026 (Getty)Trump was traveling on Marine One ahead of an Air Force One trip to Los Angeles, but both the FAA and the White House said he was never in danger.An FAA investigation found that although the Envoy Air jet flight crew never saw the helicopter, the plane's collision-avoidance system issued a warning shortly after takeoff, and it quickly climbed above Marine One.The chopper's crew spotted the plane and hovered in place until it left the area.Late last month, Trump unveiled a new, 100-foot granite helipad on the South Lawn of the White House, but major television networks didn't cover the event over the president's ban of CNN, which had been scheduled to provide pool coverage.Trump also banned MS NOW and Politico from the White House, but all three news outlets sued and won a temporary restraining order that restored their access, with a court hearing in the case set for Thursday.