FAA adds extra pre-departure alert for Marine One flights at DCA

The Federal Aviation Administration has put in place another way for controllers to learn that Marine One is about to leave the White House, the agency confirmed on Wednesday. Under the arrangement, the National Capital Region Coordination Center will pass word to the control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before the helicopter departs.

That step comes on top of an existing rule requiring Marine One crews to give controllers three minutes' notice. The earlier warning lets the tower hold other traffic while the helicopter heads for Joint Base Andrews, according to the FAA. The coordination center is staffed by FAA, military and security personnel who watch over airspace around the capital.

The change follows an encounter on August 4 between the presidential helicopter and an Envoy Air Embraer E170 that was departing the airport. Marine One had lifted off from a temporary site on the Ellipse near the White House at the same time. An NTSB preliminary report put the two aircraft within 0.82 nautical miles laterally and 700 feet vertically, though the board said the gap met the Class B radar separation standard.

The same investigation described communications trouble ahead of the event. Five days before, tower staff and Marine Helicopter Squadron One officials met to go over missed departure notices and difficulty reaching controllers. "HMX-1 advised that communications 'had been spotty,'" the NTSB wrote in its preliminary report.

An alternate procedure was agreed at that meeting, but it did not work on August 4. FAA recordings showed the first Marine One transmission never arrived, and a second could not be understood.