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The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined the probable causes of the accident to be the FAA’s placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path; the FAA’s failure to regularly review and evaluate helicopter routes and available data; failure to act on recommendations to mitigate the risk of a midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA); and the air traffic system’s overreliance on visual separation in order to promote efficient traffic flow without consideration for the limitations of the see-and-avoid concept. NTSB investigators also cited the lack of effective pilot-applied visual separation by the helicopter crew as a causal factor. Other causal factors were the KDCA air traffic control tower team’s loss of situational awareness and degraded performance due to the high workload of the combined helicopter and local control positions, plus the absence of a risk-assessment process to identify and mitigate real-time operational risk factors, which resulted in the misprioritization of duties, inadequate traffic advisories, and a lack of safety alerts to both flight crews. The report also noted the US Army’s failure to ensure that its pilots were aware of the effects of error tolerances on barometric altimeters in their helicopters as a causal factor, as it resulted in the crew flying above the maximum published helicopter route altitude. Investigators also listed several contributing factors to the accident.

The VERTICON 2026 Liftoff and VAI Annual Membership Meeting and Breakfast will be held Tuesday, Mar. 10, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. During the meeting, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and European Union Aviation Safety Agency Executive Director Florian Guillermet will discuss key challenges and opportunities facing vertical aviation in a fireside chat with VAI President and CEO François Lassale. All VAI members and VERTICON attendees are invited to attend.

The OEM will bring H145, air medical–equipped H160, and H125 helicopters along with a Flexrotor unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to the event, which takes place Mar. 9–12 (exhibits open Mar. 10–12) in Atlanta, Georgia.

A US Coast Guard (USCG) Sikorsky MH-60 crew from Astoria, Oregon, assisted special operations ground teams with hoisting two injured people Feb. 15 from Olympic National Forest in Washington.

(BBC) – The air medical charity is seeking approval to build a new base on farmland in Leicestershire after operating at Coventry Airport (EGBE) for more than 23 years.

(KEYT) – A California Highway Patrol helicopter crew from Paso Robles Municipal Airport (KPRB) transported the injured rider Feb. 14 from an area near Creston to a local hospital.

(The Japan Times) – The automaker is safeguarding its nearly $1 billion investment pledge to Joby by troubleshooting production processes and mulling a deeper role in manufacturing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

(Dronelife) – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) plans to train about 60 state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers to operate drone-mitigation equipment ahead of World Cup soccer events that will start in June across 11 US cities. The World Cup will also take place at locations in Canada and Mexico.

(AIN) – Alpha Metalcraft Group believes it can reduce the cost and complexity of specialist manufacturing tasks such as applying the leading-edge guards that prolong the service life of carbon-fiber rotor blades.

(FlightGlobal) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron conducted a virtual inauguration of the H125 final assembly line in Karnataka.