The Federal Aviation Administration has closed off most helicopter access to Ronald Reagan National Airport’s airspace after a deadly collision on Wednesday night involving an Army helicopter, officials said.
The closures, which were announced to the airspace’s approved users about 12 hours after the crash, effectively close off helicopter access to the north and south of the airport, said a helicopter pilot who was briefed on the decision by an F.A.A. email alert but requested anonymity in order to discuss what was described as an “eyes-only” message from the aviation agency.
Sean Duffy, the new secretary of transportation, confirmed the closure on Friday, saying it was an important step toward ensuring greater safety.
“The American people deserve full confidence in our aviation system and today’s action is a significant step towards restoring that trust,” Mr. Duffy said in a statement.
No end time for the restrictions was offered.
The decision was made after an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet that was en route to the airport from Wichita, Kan. There were no survivors.
The change cuts off parts of two aerial helicopter routes commonly used by military and law-enforcement pilots along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.
The F.A.A. restriction makes exceptions for helicopter flights that are attending to medical emergencies, flights involving key government officials or flights related to national-security missions.
Still, some aviation experts said the closures amounted to an admission that the clogged airspace around Reagan had become an insurmountable problem. The traffic has long been a concern to the F.A.A. and may have played a role in the death of 67 passengers and crew of the two aircraft.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat who piloted Black Hawk helicopters during her military career, described the curtailments in an interview as “a wise decision for now.”
The new restrictions affect two heavily trafficked helicopter routes: a roughly four-mile long section of what is called Route 1, which spans from the Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River to the South Capitol Street Bridge on the Anacostia River; and the entire four-and-a-half-mile long Route 4 from Hains Point, the end of a peninsula in the river, to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Potomac.
The Army helicopter that collided with the civilian airliner had flown along the now-closed section of Route 1 and had just turned onto Route 4 south of Hains Point when the collision occurred
In a news briefing at the White House on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter that crashed was doing “routine annual training” at night along “a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission.”
Such flights involve practicing to carry high-ranking officials to safe locations away from Washington, D.C., should the nation’s capital come under attack, so that the government can continue functioning.
Those “continuity of government” flights would almost certainly fall under the exception made for “national security missions,” according to the pilot who received the F.A.A. notice.
A third helicopter flight path, Route 6, runs east and west over the airport. But that route is rarely used, said the helicopter pilot who received the email, and the section of it that is closest to Reagan has been shut down to most helicopter traffic now as well.
