There was a brief ‘loss of separation’ between President Trump’s helicopter Marine One and an American Eagle flight near Washington’s National airport.
American Airlines flight 3742 headed to Pensacola, an Embraer 170 operated by Envoy Air, had already taken off from runway 1 and was already climbing above Marine One and turning west. Marine One saw it, paused for nearly four minutes, and then continued.
Marine One: “Tower, just want to make sure you copy. Marine One, three minutes to lift.”
Marine One: “Tower, do you copy? Marine One, three minutes to lift.”
Tower: “Uh, last calling, that’s broken, unreadable.”
Marine One: “Tower, Marine One is three minutes to lift.”
Marine One: “National Tower, Marine One, proceeding as briefed.”
Tower: “Uh, Marine One, you said, uh, you’re proceeding as briefed?”
Marine One: “National Tower, that’s Marine One, proceeding as briefed.”
Tower: “Marine One, Tower, altimeter 30.07. Okay, no three minutes, roger. Proceed as briefed.”
Marine One: “30.07, Marine One.”
Tower: “Marine One, you got, uh, traffic rotating off Runway 1, E-170.”
Marine One: “Marine One, visual traffic.”
Tower: “Marine One, roger.”
Marine One: “National Tower from Marine One, we’ll be doing a momentary delay.”
Here’s the MARINE ONE ATC audio from yesterday. M1 made several calls to NATIONAL TOWER (DCA) on the helicopter specific frequency advising they are 3 minutes from lifting. Tower here’s them briefly on one attempt and say’s they’re broken and unreadable.
M1 then lifts getting a… https://t.co/tcVF8KIkqg pic.twitter.com/P9uQtUArzb
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) August 5, 2026
The standard is that Marine One gives air traffic control a three-minute alert” prior to takeoff. Here you hear the controller’s surprised “no three minutes” because they understood only after Marine One was moving that the earlier failed calls had been the required advance warning.
When Marine One announced it was proceeding, the tower had already allowed American Eagle 3742 to depart. They warned Marine One as the jet took off. Marine One spotted it and delayed four minutes. Air traffic control shut down arrivals and departures at the airport for 10 minutes.
UPDATE: Here's a second STATter911 camera showing a much wider view. This one shows the jet, reported to be Envoy Air 3742, above and to the west of Marine One as it follows the Potomac River north on it's departure from DCA Runway 1. https://t.co/zb3yhPyZNE pic.twitter.com/GmgYvBpYMh
— Dave Statter (@STATter911) August 5, 2026
It’s not clear yet what the breakdown was. One possibility is weak radio frequency reception. Marine One was surrounded by obstructions but communications became clear after liftoff. Regardless, no backup existed or at least was used to communicate with air traffic control. That seems like a problem.
Coverage of the incident emphasizes that the President was never actually at risk. Little focus is given to the Florida-bound passengers not being at risk. Marine One transmittied, didn’t receive confirmation, and proceeded anyway. That seems unwise especially after American 5342 last year.
“no three minutes?” is telling. Reckless, but basically no one is gonna tell this guy ‘no,’ so that’s what we get. (‘TDS!’)
Crickets from the peanut gallery on this one.
Sounds like the pilots gave a three minute notice, but the transmission was not received intact by the tower. Was there a standing procedure to wait for an acknowledgement from the tower? Not sure what 1990 is braying about
This is what happens when we finally get an answer to the question nobody asked,
“What if a perpetually extended middle finger became a person and then became POTUS?”
Ronald Reagan Washington National is becoming increasingly more and more dangerous first it was the tragic crash last year, then another incident involving an Army Helicopter, and now this one that thanks to the quick action of Marine One’s pilots avoided another crash due to an ATC controller was either daydreaming or his equipment was not working properly. Something got to be done sooner the better.
Just adding the new ( no-contract ) heated landing pad at the WH was found to be not level after it was built last week and will be redone. I’m glad we are so wealthy
Omg, somebody in the vast federal government f’d up during a GOP presidency? Must be the President’s fault! Yeah I’ve read this story a few times before.
@AlohaDaveKennedy — Ah, ok, so, the right-wing talking-points are: ‘The President’s and his aircraft aircraft cannot possibly do anything wrong, is always right, and worked perfectly; it’s that lazy, stupid DEI ATC at DCA!’ /s
Ideally, there would be a non-partisan FAA investigation, objective facts identified, and improvements made so that no lapses or incidents like this happen again. The fact that ATC was unaware is a problem in-and-of-itself; whether it’s because MarineOne failed to communicate (or not), the equipment failed (or not), or ATC failed (or not), all can and should be identified.
Hypothetically, if the President himself impatiently directed MarineOne pilots to ‘Just go! Now! I’m the President! I said so!’ And the pilots said, ‘But, sir, we need to give ATC 3 minutes,’ and the President responded, ‘If you don’t go now, I’ll execute you for treason!’ … and then, after the fact, the administration’s PR machine just blames ATC at DCA… all that would be good to know. (And would be incredibly reckless.)
@Mantis — Every time I see your comments, I remember, ‘Wow, this guy is based in Asia, yet still takes the time to shine the President’s balls, all the way over here.’ Dr. Toboggan, now THAT’s a long-distance ‘service’!
I am sure it’s the reflecting pool’s fault. . .or Iran. . or . . .
dca remains open for lazy entitled critters to save 10 minutes going home when they flee their workplace 4 or 5 times a year
move all commercial traffic to andrews, fill in the basin around gravelly point, and add 3000′ to 01/19 to get 10500′ for 748 ops
should have been done after palm90 in ’82
I’m here for the comments from people talking as if Trump was piloting the helicopter.
The mob boss don’t like to be kept waitin’
@Thing 1 — Obvious straw-man, but he probably did ‘dictate’ to those pilots, overrule them, etc. (So, yeah, basically, @Andy actually gets it… though, a bit hyperbolic.)
@sunviking82 — Ya know, it’s funny you bring up the Reflecting Pool as a joke… You’re mocking people for pointing out *actual* “waste, fraud, and abuse” when it’s committed by your guy, but look at the actual track record here…
We literally just witnessed the administration force a $5M+ helipad onto the South Lawn without Congressional approval, routing Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky money through a non-profit conduit to bypass the Anti-Deficiency Act and Congress’s power of the purse. Having a top defense contractor directly finance executive facility upgrades (more like ‘decorating projects’ by an aging autocrat) is a massive ethics conflict on its own, but then comes the punchline… yet again, those crony contractors were ordered to tear up and redo weeks of completed granite work because it wasn’t level. You. Can’t. Make. This. Stuff. Up.
It’s pretty much the same story as the Reflecting Pool renovation earlier this summer (where an inexperienced contractor’s botched sealant peeled within weeks, and the administration tried blaming “vandalism” instead of admitting to poor oversight and cronyism.) Oh, did you see they dropped that baseless case against the Olympian? Probably missed that one in the Friday night news drop (Fox, OAN, Newsmax certainly won’t be covering it.)
So whether it’s Marine One lifting off without waiting for ATC confirmation at DCA, or ignoring federal procurement laws for a pet construction project, there’s a clear pattern… total impatience, zero oversight, and a rules-don’t-apply-to-me mindset. But hey, when you treat the presidency like an absolute monarchy, I guess basic geometry and the U.S. Constitution are just minor inconveniences. *circus music playing*
Not sure how anyone could fault ATC when the Marine One Pilot took off after ATC asked him to repeat his message??? Radio Transmission’s get stepped and garbled all the time, asking for a repeat is SOP…. Just taking off without proper clarification is blatant Pilot error, unless you are being shot at of course
@JohnW — How astute, sir. However, as you can see above, no one will admit what likely happened, which is, you-know-who was simply impatient. Those pilots are top-notch. Wouldn’t blame ATC, here, either. The buck stops with the narcissist-in-chief.
@1990:
“Obvious straw-man, but he probably did ‘dictate’ to those pilots, overrule them, etc.”
“How astute, sir. However, as you can see above, no one will admit what likely happened, which is, you-know-who was simply impatient.”
1) Glad to know you were in the helicopter so you’re sure what happened.
2) Trump’s being “simply impatient” and that he “did dictate to those pilots” doesn’t hold up when you look at the time stamps.
– 1st call with 3 minute warning comes pretty much exactly at 14:31
– Call with “Marine One, proceeding as briefed” comes right at 14:34 (3 minutes later)
I’m betting if they briefed the tower that the takeoff will occur at 14:34, and they try to reach the tower at 14:31 but cannot, the procedure is to still depart at 14:34.
FYI – It’s not always Trump’s fault, just because Trump is involved.