Reagan Airport Crash Kills Soldiers, Figure Skaters

A tragic but perhaps inevitable event.

WaPo (“What we know about the plane and military helicopter crash in D.C.“):

An American Airlines plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday night. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River in Washington. Police have had pulled 28 bodies from the water as of Thursday morning, according to officials, as search-and-rescue efforts turned to recovery. Reagan National Airport has been shuttered as emergency services work at the crash site but is expected to reopen late Thursday morning.

American Airlines said 60 passengers and four crew members were aboard American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita. The flight — a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines — was set to land in Washington at 8:57 p.m., according to aircraft tracker FlightAware.

The plane and an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was on a training flight collided at 8:47 p.m., according to publicly available flight-tracking data.

[…]

About 20 members of the U.S. Figure Skating community were aboard the American Airlines jet, according to a person professionally involved in the sport who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

[…]

Three U.S. soldiers were on the helicopter at the time of the collision, two defense officials said. No senior U.S. leaders were aboard the Black Hawk, they added, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

[…]

The number of casualties is not yet known, but police have pulled 28 bodies from the water, Donnelly said Thursday morning: 27 from the plane and one from the helicopter. Officials had switched from search-and-rescue to recovery efforts as of Thursday morning, Donnelly said, and do not believe anyone survived the crash.

WaPo (“Champion figure skaters confirmed as passengers aboard crashed flight“):

A cohort of competitive figure skaters and their companions, including retired champions, athletic coaches and family members, was aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Potomac River, according to the figure skating community and Russian officials.

In a statement shared with The Washington Post, U.S. Figure Skating, the sport’s national governing body, said “several” members of its community were on the Washington-bound flight from Wichita. A U.S. Figure Skating spokesperson declined to specify a number.

D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly Sr. said at a news briefing Thursday morning, “We don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident.” Neither the airline nor aviation authorities had published an official list identifying the flight’s 60 passengers and four crew members by name as of early Thursday.

About 20 of the passengers were competitive figure skaters or coaches, numbering around one-third of those on board, according to a person professionally involved in the sport who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The person confirmed that the list of figure skaters aboard included minors.

Two renowned Russian former figure skaters, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were among the passengers, the Kremlin said.

At a news briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not name the two former champions, but he answered in the affirmative when asked whether they were aboard the flight.

“There were other of our fellow citizens there as well,” Peskov added without identifying anyone by name.

Jon Maravilla, a Team USA pairs skater, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that at least 14 skaters were on the plane, in addition to coaches and family members. The Post could not independently verify the figure.

Obviously, a huge tragedy. There will certainly be a lot of questions about safety procedures at Reagan, including why an Army helicopter was anywhere near the the landing path of an airliner. Apparently, though, this is standard operating procedure.

WaPo (“D.C. crash took place in congested airspace shared by jets, helicopters“):

The airspace along the Potomac River where an Army helicopter and an airliner crashed Wednesday night poses some of the most complex challenges in the country for pilots, requiring them to rely on layers of procedures and electronic safeguards to avoid a catastrophe.

Military and Coast Guard helicopters frequently fly low over the river, sharing the skies with planes on the heavily used takeoff and landing routes for Washington’s Reagan National Airport. Congestion in the skies and on runways and taxiways around the airport has raised safety concerns for years. National was built to handle 15 million passengers annually; it now handles 25 million.

Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines captain, said that means pilots have to be at their best when flying into the airport.

“It’s a beehive of activity,” said Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, American’s pilot union. “It’s extremely compact, and it’s a high volume of traffic.”

[…]

“We know the system has been under duress,” said Tajer, who does not represent pilots at American subsidiary PSA Airlines, which was involved in the crash.

There are designated routes for helicopters flying around the Washington region that tend to follow the area’s rivers. It appeared that the helicopter that collided with the airliner Wednesday was in or near one of those routes along the eastern bank of the Potomac, according to Scott Dunham, a retired National Transportation Safety Board investigator. Air traffic controllers also help manage traffic and were in contact with the helicopter, according to audio recordings archived by LiveATC.net.

“It’s a corridor where helicopters are allowed to fly at a low level,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration investigator. How the routes and altitudes of both aircraft intersected in the moments before the collision will be closely scrutinized.

As another layer of protection against midair collisions, airliners are equipped with the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, or TCAS, which issues automated verbal alerts to pilots to avoid an imminent crash. Experts said it will be up to investigators to determine whether the pilots received any warnings from the system, whether the military aircraft was detected by the system or whether it was providing alerts at such a low altitude with many other aircraft around.

As planes approach the ground, the system gradually limits the number of alerts it provides to avoid distracting pilots, according to retired United Airlines pilot Ross Aimer.

The crash occurred in one of the most sensitive air corridors in the country, many of whose operations are classified because of security considerations given the proximity to the White House, Capitol, Pentagon and numerous other civilian and military facilities. The region is home to three major airports, 11 regional airports and 55 heliports, not including those operated by the military.

According to a 2021 report to Congress, 50 entities operated roughly 88,000 helicopter flights between 2017 and 2019, based on FAA data. Most were tied to the military, but others included flights by medical operations, state and local law enforcement, and federal agencies.

Lawmakers proposed in 2023 to add more flights at National to serve new long-distance routes. Opponents of the idea raised questions about safety.

Last year, as part of legislation to fund the FAA, Congress added five round-trip flights. The decision came over the objections of members of the D.C.-area congressional delegation, who have long argued that the airport is at capacity.

U.S. airlines have had a strong safety record in recent years, with the last mass-fatality crash occurring in 2009. Federal aviation officials have scrambled to respond to a spate of near collisions at airports around the country that began in 2023. Industry leaders said they were a warning sign that there was risk of a crash as air traffic bounced back from pandemic-era lows.

The FAA has investigated at least three close calls at National in recent years. Two occurred in quick succession last year, heightening concerns. In one, air traffic controllers instructed a Southwest jet to cross a runway while a JetBlue plane was starting its takeoff roll down the same runway. In a second incident, an American Airlines jet preparing for takeoff nearly collided with a King Air plane that was landing on a shorter runway nearby. The FAA was investigating both incidents.

Michael McCormick, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who specializes in air traffic control, said complacency about the airport’s complicated traffic patterns and lower nighttime staffing levels for air traffic controllers could be a factor.

“This is an avoidable and unfortunate tragedy,” McCormick said.

I suspect there will be some changes after the investigation.

FILED UNDER: Military Affairs, , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is a Professor of Security Studies. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Michael Reynolds says:

    National Airport is in a ridiculously dangerous location. It should have been closed after 9/11, flight paths are within easy range of Capitol Hill and the WH. You see the potential every time you fly in or out. You also notice the jinky approach. Adding flights, indeed failing to dramatically curtail flights at DCA, is on Congress. They like their handy in-town airport.

    6
  2. Rick DeMent says:

    While I am certain that this had absolutely nothing to do with the tragedy, imagine what they would be saying over at FOX News if this had happened right after Joe Biden fired 100 FAA officials less than a week ago. The frothing would never ever stop. We would be hearing about this at the debates at the next election. It would become an article of faith that the accident would never have happened had it not been for that move.

    This is how the right grades on a curve. This goes hand and hand with the “new” talking point from Trump adminitration that it’s really hard to bring down prices because of how terrible the economy was under Biden when he was telling us he could solve in in one day. Now the bird flu matters for the Right apparently. I guess Biden killed all of these chickens for LOLs. I mean, would Trump have allowed infected chickens on the market, or just keep them alive to infect more.

    These are also examples of why doing what the right does can’t work for Democrats becase most on the left undersand that there isn’t rearly a 1 to 1 relationship between cause and effect.

    18
  3. Rob1 says:

    Seems like a bad plan to conduct Army helicopter training flights in the path of a congested national airport. At night no less.

    5
  4. SC_Birdflyte says:

    @Michael Reynolds: I agree. Shut Reagan down entirely and install dedicated high-speed rail service to Dulles and Baltimore-Washington International.

    5
  5. Mikey says:

    @SC_Birdflyte: It’s not high-speed rail, but you can already take the Metro out to Dulles.

    Getting to BWI from the DC area is a pain in the ass, but it can be worth it because a lot of flights out of that airport are considerably cheaper. I saved $1500 one time flying to Frankfurt out of BWI instead of Dulles.

    2
  6. Kathy says:

    The striking part of the image above, is that the airliner might have entirely missed the chopper had it been directed to land in the other runway.

    The choice of runway, either by ATC or the pilots, often has to do with wind direction. You want to land into the wind, or with a low speed crosswind at worst. Runways are oriented to the prevailing winds in the area.

    Airport in metropolitan areas are a big problem. Between sprawl and population densities, they’re getting surrounded by housing and commercial buildings. Lots of airports surrounded partly or totally by urbanized areas were isolated from such things when they were built.

  7. HelloWorld! says:

    It took less than 12 hours for Trump to blame Biden and Obama, and DEI policies. With so many non-white air traffic controllers, everyone better cancel their flight. I’m sure all the air traffic controllers on duty last night were black, trans, or H1B1 visa holders.

    7
  8. Gustopher says:

    In the words of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy: “Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”

    Video here:
    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lgxo34aomx2b

    Meanwhile, I’m seeing comments that Trump is blaming DEI and people with dwarfism. Nope, not gonna hunt that down.

    5
  9. a country lawyer says:

    @Kathy: While wind direction and velocity is always a factor, in busy metropolitan airports runway selection by the controllers is often simply a matter of sequencing traffic, alternating runways to keep traffic moving.

    2
  10. MarkedMan says:

    If anyone ever has time to kill at BWI there is an out of the way area that houses some displays (as well as a really cool little bar). One of the displays is a 3 dimensional lucite model over a map of the greater Baltimore-Washington metro area, which indicates visually all the no fly and restricted flight areas. It is unbelievably complex. In addition to the three commercial airports, there are a number of large airports associated with the military, as well as places like the Capital and the White House, with lethally enforced restrictions on them. And so many buildings, not just hospitals, have helicopter takeoff and landing sites.

    1
  11. Rob1 says:

    Despicable He:

    Trump Criticizes FAA’s DEI Hiring Policies And Suggests, Without Evidence, They Could Be To Blame

    [Trump] blaming Federal Aviation Administration DEI hiring practices from Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s administrations, without evidence.

    [..] and suggested without proof that people with “severe intellectual disabilities” had been hired as air traffic controllers under the Obama and Biden administrations. He said only “naturally talented geniuses”
    would be hired for the job under his new policies. He later said “we don’t know that necessarily (the crash) is even the controller’s fault.”

    When asked how he could have determined diversity hiring practices were to blame for the crash without evidence, Trump said, “because I have common sense. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-live-updates-trump-criticizes-faas-dei-hiring-policies-and-suggests-without-evidence-they-could-be-to-blame/

    4
  12. CSK says:

    @Rob1:

    You had to know this was coming.

  13. Rob1 says:

    [Newly minted Trump] Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy: “Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lgxo34aomx2b

  14. Kathy says:

    @Gustopher:
    @Rob1:

    They’ve been at it a while now. The gist is that women and minorities are unqualified for just about every job, and DEI consists in lowering standards so they can be hired. As opposed to , you know, a rapist who suggested injecting bleach to cure cases of the trump disease.

    6
  15. Daryl says:

    @Rick DeMent:
    Add to the tale that the former head of the FAA was forced out of office by Musk, the chief of DOGE, after SpaceX was fined $600,000 by the FAA for unsafe launches.
    And that Diaper Donnie named an acting head of FAA…after this crash.
    Heil MAGA.
    Heil Trump.

    5
  16. Matt Bernius says:

    @Rob1:
    I really hoped that they got that reporting wrong. Then I watched the presser.

    BTW, if it happened under Obama AND Biden, that means that policy was in place during Trump’s administration…. Oh an definitely no new programs to provide more access to people with Disabilites would have happened under Trump… Oh wait

    https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-provides-aviation-careers-people-disabilities

    FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities
    Thursday, April 11, 2019

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.

    A key focus for the FAA’s Office of Civil Rights is to identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

    The FAA will enroll up to 20 people in the Aviation Development Program. They will train for up to one year at 10 Air Route Traffic Control Centers throughout the U.S. The following facilities will participate in the pilot: Minneapolis, Minn., Cleveland, Ohio, Boston, Mass., Denver, Colo., Fort Worth, Texas, Jacksonville, Fla., Seattle, Wash., Memphis, Tenn., Kansas City, Kan., and Salt Lake City, Utah.

    TO BE CLEAR: This isn’t an attack on that or previous programs. It’s firmly directed at current President Trump’s rhetoric and outright lying to the public.

    10
  17. DK says:

    I agree with Epstein-bestie pedophile Trump — if by DEI he means the Drunk, Entitled, Ignorant hacks and unqualified Fox News hosts he’s putting in charge of government, while firing experienced civil servants.

    The Trump-Musk regime is already incompetent. Their fascist destruction of systems meant to protect us includes firing senior FAA officials and the heads of the TSA and Coast Guard, while trying to force out air traffic controllers.

    Just like Trump’s reckless extremism stands to raise grocery prices and worsen ongoing disease outbreak while his pardoned J6 thugs commit more crimes, Trump’s government purges will worsen safety and security.

    More suffering, disorder, and tragedy will follow. Racism won’t wash blood off the hands of the gullible sheep who voted in MAGA failure because woke DEI cat-eating Haitian trans CRT migrant drag shows.

    10
  18. Bill Jempty says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    National Airport is in a ridiculously dangerous location. It should have been closed after 9/11, flight paths are within easy range of Capitol Hill and the WH.

    Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor concludes with a pilot flying a 747 into the Capitol when the President is addressing Congress. If I remember correctly, the pilot had declared an emergency and was headed for Andrews AFB when he charged course.

    It wouldn’t be so hard for a pilot flying into or out of DCA to do the same. Are there SS agents armed with Air to Air missiles stationed on the a DC area roof as portrayed in Clancy’s book?

    I lived and worked in the DC area for over two years in the 80’s but never flew in or out of either Dulles or DCA.

    1
  19. Bill Jempty says:

    Some quick comments

    Figure skaters? The entire USA figure skating team was wiped out in a 1961 plane crash.

    Last night’s crash isn’t the first Commercial/Military mid-air at DCA. There was this crash in 1949.

    1
  20. Michael Cain says:

    Preliminary interpretations of publicly-available data make it look bad for the Army. (1) The commercial flight was exactly where it was supposed to be, doing exactly what it was supposed to do. (2) Air traffic control asked the helicopter if they saw the commercial flight. (3) The helicopter pilot said they did and asked to be responsible for avoiding it because they could see it. (4) ATC approved that. (5) The helicopter was well above the official operating ceiling for the route it was using when the collision occurred.

    It is amazing how much real-time data is available to the public.

    12
  21. DAllenABQ says:

    DCA will never be shut down so long as Congress operates. George Washington National Airport (still hate that it was renamed Reagan) is a hop, skip and a jump from federal government land and downtown DC by road and Metro. When I lived in Arlington my house was maybe 2 miles from the airport. It is an amazingly convenient airport; my wife and I flew into and out of it often.

    2
  22. MarkedMan says:

    @Matt Bernius: Air Traffic Controller is the very definition of “desk job”. You literally can’t leave your desk without turning over what you are doing to someone else. It’s an ideal job for people who are confined to a wheelchair or similar. Given the perennial shortage of Controllers (since the frickin’ Reagan administration!) a program to recruit and train such people seems like a complete win/win.

    2
  23. MarkedMan says:

    @Michael Cain:

    (3) The helicopter pilot said they did and asked to be responsible for avoiding it because they could see it.

    When I heard that, and also that it was a training flight, my immediate thought was that the helicopter pilot was looking at the wrong aircraft when he asked for visual flight rules

    2
  24. Rusty22 says:

    Sadly, ignorant people are placing blame or speculating causes without any investigation results, including blaming Reagan of 40+ years ago. SMH.

    Sure, shut down DCA (with its 900+ daily operations) and move them to BWI and IAD, and watch the people complain about the increase in delays and fares. F’n Morons!

    This is a sad event, and we should all play for the families. BUT,,,this is really selective outrage!!! How many people died on MD/VA/DC highways last year? Answer, 759…where is the outrage and the action plan to reduce the death rate to zero, or hell…67.

    2
  25. dazedandconfused says:

    @Matt Bernius:

    I can add that there is no such thing as “DEI” when it comes to assigning controllers to the toughest seats, and DC is one of the toughest. Only the best of the best get assigned to those spots and are paid significantly higher wages for the resultant stress.

    FAA has a hell of a lot of spots for those who are just competent. All those airports scattered in the west, south, and mid west. Only about 10% of the posts are considered high traffic. They can and are very choosy about who gets them, it’s a job not many people are capable of handling. Pilots well tell you communicating with ATC in the high volume areas is a different game, you have to bring your own A-game to keep up. This is one of the all-time favorite approaches for the professionally sadistic torturers of sim training, btw.

    Found a posting that shows one of the approach plates for DC and explains why it’s as hinky as it is. The workload for pilots is as high as it gets there.

  26. DK says:

    Plane crash: ‘Control tower staffing level was not normal’ on day of disaster says report (The Mirror)

    Staffing levels at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport were “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety report on the mid-air collision…

    According to a preliminary report seen by The New York Times, a single controller was responsible for both managing helicopters in the airport’s vicinity and directing arriving and departing planes at the time of the crash. Such duties are typically handled by two separate controllers.

    Perfect time for Republicans and Nazi-saluting oligarch Musk to sow chaos by defunding and destabilizing government systems — gutting the air safety board, firing the TSA and Coast Guard heads, urging experienced air traffic controllers to take a buyout, and putting an unqualified drunk like Pete Hegseth in charge of the miltary.

    Too late to get Biden and Harris back? Asking for Americans who don’t want to be killed by the Trump cult’s DUI hire druggies, rapists, and Fox News hosts.

    6
  27. Kathy says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    There was a great deal of chatter on Bluesky yesterday that an accident at Washington National Airport was just a matter of time. I can now see why.

    1
  28. James Joyner says:

    @DAllenABQ:

    George Washington National Airport (still hate that it was renamed Reagan

    My wife refuses to call it “Reagan” but it was never “George Washington,” just “Washington National,” after the city it services rather than its namesake. It’s been “Ronald Reagan Washington National” since 1998.

    1
  29. James Joyner says:

    @DK: While I fully concur that reduced staffing is problematic, it doesn’t appear implicated here. As @Michael Cain details, a controller was talking to the helo crew, which certainly appears at this early juncture to be at fault.

    @MarkedMan: This is “training” in the sense of “keeping one’s skills sharp,” not “learning to operate the equipment.” The Army doesn’t train people to fly helos in DC—that happens at Fort Novocel (FKA Rucker) in Alabama. I gather from the Pentagon statement that this was a very experienced crew.

    2
  30. DK says:

    @James Joyner: If Trump and Musk were competent, and serious about fixing problems, they’d be looking to increase staffing — not to gut agencies and force out experienced government employees. Their reckless slashing and burning is going to make Americans less safe, if it hasn’t already done so.

    4
  31. Kathy says:

    Air accident reports do not apportion blame. Their purpose is to understand what happened, how, and why, and more important what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again. And this is one big reason, if not the main reason, flying has become as safe as it is now.

    But sometimes these things get politicized. Egypt, for example, has meddled with accident reports. And there have been others. Since such investigations tend to involve agencies from different countries, chances are one truthful report will be issued.

    For this crash, the rapist has already determined the cause. It’s likely he will push for the report to confirm his “judgment,” rendering the whole exercise not only useless but actively harmful.

    The plane involved was a Bombardier CRJ, likely made in Canada. I mention this because the country where the plane was manufactured can take part in the investigation. There’s a complication here in that Bombardier, a Canadian company, sold its regional jet division to Mitsubishi. Still, the jet was made in Canada, and whatever Canadian government agency investigates air accidents hopefully will choose to be involved.

    The bigger complication is the Army helicopter involved. The military does investigate air accidents with the goal of preventing further ones, but it also has an image to maintain and a boss as determined as the felon to score political points off this tragedy.

    1
  32. Jen says:

    @DAllenABQ: Agreed. It is an incredibly convenient airport. I used to have to travel to DC fairly regularly for meetings, and I always flew into DCA. A colleague once booked our flights and flew us into BWI because it was cheaper–no. It meant we had to fly in hours ahead of the meeting and had to get back to BWI during rush hour, and that ended up requiring a few meals there, (a.m. and p.m.) and by the end of everything, it wasn’t that much cheaper. I never let him book any flight for me ever again.

    I still fly to DC on occasion because one of my best friends lives in Old Town, and I always fly into DCA. I can’t see Congress giving that up.

    1
  33. dazedandconfused says:

    @Kathy:

    It’s almost fair to say “just a matter of time” applies to all high traffic density areas. The chopper appears to have had the wrong airplane “in sight”.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgllf1L9_4

  34. Kathy says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    Not for mid-air collisions. Not in normal airports where the traffic is heading to and from it, rather than past its approach routes.

    Given all the near misses in the past couple of years, it seemed for a while any airport at any time would see a major accident. As it is, reports of such things went down.

  35. MarkedMan says:

    @James Joyner:

    This is “training” in the sense of “keeping one’s skills sharp,” not “learning to operate the equipment.”

    Thanks. That’s what I get for breaking my rule about letting news like this work through the system for a few days before expressing an opinion.

    1
  36. Grumpy realist says:

    Have flown into DCA quite a few times but have always hated the approach. Now, with this accident and the stark knowledge of how many military heloes are buzzing around there—nope. BWI or bust.

  37. Mikey says:

    @Grumpy realist: For me it takes the same amount of time to get to either Dulles or DCA. I think if changes aren’t made to the situation at DCA, I will default to Dulles going forward.

  38. Mikey says:

    This afternoon I had a chance to talk with a fellow from a neighboring workcenter who is a retired Army helicopter pilot. He even flew with the unit to which last night’s mishap aircraft belonged, so he is familiar with the flight path the aircraft would take.

    A couple things he told me:

    He believes pilot error by the Army pilot will be the primary cause.

    The flight path Army helicopters should take down the Potomac would hug the shoreline opposite DCA, but the mishap pilot for whatever reason made a right turn, which my coworker did not understand.

    The mishap helicopter was too high (he figured this out before news reports).

    Very sad for all involved. There will be an extensive investigation, of course, he told me the Army has flyaway teams based at Fort Rucker, the center of Army aviation, and they would be dispatched immediately to assist.

    1
  39. Rob1 says:

    ‘You want me to go swimming?’: Trump says he won’t visit DC plane crash site because it’s ‘the water‘

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/dc-plane-crash-site-trump-swimming-b2689573.html

    It’s going to be a long 4 years.

    1
  40. DrDaveT says:

    @James Joyner:

    It’s been “Ronald Reagan Washington National” since 1998.

    My favorite overheard conversation on the Metro of all time: “Mom, who was Ronald Reagan Washington?”

    1
  41. Gustopher says:

    Was this the week that Pete Hegseth was supposed to quit drinking?

    (“Airplane!” Remains one of the best movies ever)

    1
  42. DK says:

    @Gustopher: Oh stewardess? I can speak jive.

    2
  43. Jere Suleski says:

    Another example of how economic policies influence global markets. Let’s see how this pans out.