Virginia’s senators want to restrict the number of flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to increase safety after a fatal in-air collision last year.
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are set to introduce legislation next week that would limit the number of hourly arrivals at DCA, according to The Washington Post. The effort comes after an Army helicopter collided with a commercial plane over the Potomac River in January 2025, killing 67 people.
Prior to the 2025 crash, the airport allowed 36 arrivals each hour. That was reduced to 26 following the accident, then gradually increased to the current cadence of 30 per hour. The new bill would decrease hourly arrivals to 28, according to the Post report.
Congress members have long tried to increase the number of flights to and from DCA to make traveling home easier for them, as the Arlington, Virginia, airport is less than a 30-minute drive from the Capitol. Kaine said in an interview with the Post that lawmakers’ travel needs shouldn’t take precedence over general safety.
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“The convenience of 535 members of Congress can’t outweigh the safety of 25 million people who use that airport,” Kaine told the Post.
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