White House construction that forced Marine One to move caused communication problems with the tower

The ongoing White House construction contributed to radio problems that kept air traffic controllers from hearing calls warning that President Donald Trump's helicopter was getting ready to take off, so they cleared an airline jet to take off just as Marine One took to the air earlier this month, federal investigators said Thursday.The week before the president's helicopter got too close to that Envoy Air jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, air traffic controllers and Marine One pilots met to discuss controllers not receiving the standard three-minute warning call ahead of Marine One flights, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board. They made plans to relay radio calls through someone else if there were future problems but that was also unsuccessful on the day of the Aug. 4 incident.Technicians discovered after the fact that the reason Marine One was having trouble talking to the tower at times was because the helicopter shifted to a new location during the White House construction.

So the Federal Aviation Administration moved the radio receiver out of a neighborhood near the airport and to the top of the tower at Reagan to fix the problem.“Even though they were aware of some previous communications issues, they never got at the root cause,” aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said.The FAA said in a statement that it took immediate action after the incident by moving that antenna “to improve communications” between the airport and Marine One pilots.The White House didn't immediately respond to the preliminary report, although the ongoing NTSB investigation does limit what it can say about the incident.A deadly crash in 2025 prompted new safety proceduresHaving both the jet and helicopter in the air at the same time also seemed to violate safety procedures put in place after last year’s midair collision near the busy airport that killed 67 people, but officials stressed that the president was never in danger. The Pentagon also has a longstanding agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide controllers with a three-minute warning before the president’s helicopter takes off that predates last year’s crash.The NTSB said recordings from the tower showed that the controllers never heard the calls from Marine One's pilot that day warning that the helicopter was getting ready to take off, but…