Sen. Kaine warned of dangers at Reagan National Airport before plane crash near DC

Months before the Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., political leaders warned that Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was overburdened.

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, was among the Democratic leaders opposing the expansion of flights added to the Arlington airport in 2024.

Kaine, along with Maryland senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen and Virginia U.S. Senator Mark Warner, began to push back before the passage of the bipartisan Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024. The act would add 10 additional flights at Reagan National, referred to locally as DCA.

They said the airport’s three runways were already among the busiest in the United States.

“We are deeply disappointed by the Senate Commerce Committee’s move to overburden DCA,” the senators said in a joint statement in February. “With this profoundly reckless decision, the Committee is gambling with the safety of everyone who uses this airport.”

Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election, warned of the possible dangers of the airport’s flight expansion

“God forbid waking up and looking in a mirror one day and say, ‘Wow, I was warned. I was warned and I shouldn’t have done this,’” Kaine told reporters in 2024, according to Straight Arrow News.

The senators filed an amendment to exclude the addition of the flights to Reagan National.

Ultimately, the original bill was passed in May. Former President Joe Biden was among those who praised the decision, saying it would “deliver the safest, most reliable aviation system in the world.”

When two planes nearly crashed at the airport later that month, Kaine said it was evidence the airport was at capacity. It was the second near-collision at the airport in 2024.

“This incident underscores again that DCA is at capacity,” Kaine said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This shows why Senate action to jam even more flights into DCA was so dangerous. The FAA must resist any new flights that compromise safety.”

Following Wednesday’s crash, Kaine said he would push for a “thorough investigation into what happened.”

At least 28 bodies had been pulled from the Potomac River, officials confirmed to The Associated Press early Thursday, Jan. 30. No survivors have been found.

This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 8:51 AM with the headline "Sen. Kaine warned of dangers at Reagan National Airport before plane crash near DC."