By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) – The official who led the Federal Aviation Administration response to the fatal January 2025 collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines regional passenger jet that killed 67 people near Reagan Washington National Airport is stepping down next week.
Deputy FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau, who had been named acting administrator days before the fatal crash, told employees in an email seen by Reuters he was leaving the agency for a new opportunity.
The FAA’s general counsel, Liam McKenna, will serve as acting deputy administrator.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the collision was caused by the FAA’s decision to allow helicopters to travel close to the airport with no safeguards to separate them from airplanes and its failure to review data and act on recommendations to move helicopter traffic away from the airport.
Rocheleau, who served as acting head of the FAA until July and has continued to oversee safety issues as deputy administrator, acknowledged the data was troubling, telling Congress last year: “Clearly something was missed.”
The NTSB said last year that since 2021, there were more than 15,200 occurrences at Reagan between commercial airplanes and helicopters with lateral separation distance of less than 1 nautical mile and vertical separation of less than 400 feet.
The FAA has made a number of changes since the collision, including revising helicopter routes at several airports, and in March suspended use of visual separation between airplanes and helicopters near major airports.
Last year, the FAA barred the Army from helicopter flights around the Pentagon after a May 2025 close call that forced two civilian planes to abort landings.
In January, the FAA announced a restructuring and created a new safety oversight office to consolidate functions across five different units.
As part of the restructuring, the FAA is creating a safety management system and implementing an FAA-wide safety risk management process.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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