Report on Marine One Issue Mentions Work at White House

The construction at the White House was a factor in communication and safety issues involving President Trump's helicopter and Reagan National Airport earlier this month, a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board released Thursday says. Investigators found that the ongoing work forced Marine One to depart Aug. 4 from the Ellipse, a temporary site that interfered with radio contact with Reagan National Airport, the Washington Post reports. Required advance notice to controllers never clearly got through: One radio call wasn't received, and a follow-up transmission was so garbled it couldn't be understood.

That breakdown meant commercial traffic at National hadn't been halted when Marine One lifted off for Joint Base Andrews, leading to what the FAA later called a "momentary loss of separation" with an airliner. At the nearest point, the two aircraft were about 0.82 nautical miles apart horizontally and 700 feet vertically, the NTSB says, before continuing to diverge. The White House has said Trump was never at risk. The report notes that there had been other communication issues, with the Marine One crew saying communications "had been spotty" and air traffic control staffers saying they aren't always getting the required three-minute warning before takeoff. The agency said the two staffs have met about the problems, per Reuters.