DCA Mid Air Collision Recap

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is located in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital. The airport spans 860 acres, including 733 acres of land and 127 acres underwater, according to the airport.

The airport has 58 gates and its designator name among airlines is DCA.

It originally had four runways and today has three — including runway 33, where the American Airlines flight was set to land.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose the airport’s location in 1938 after Congress debated the need for the airport. Washington National Airport first opened for flights on June 16, 1941, with American Airlines winning a contest on which airline would land there first.

In its first year, the airport saw more than 340,000 passengers and over 2 million visitors. More than 24 million people were passengers at the airport between January 2024 and November 2024, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

There were more than 23,000 flight operations out of DCA each month in 2024, according to airport authorities — an average of 812 per day.

President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill in 1998 that renamed the airport after the 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

More than 13 million passengers flew American Airlines out of Reagan National Airport in 2023, according to the airline. Fifty-three percent of commercial passenger traffic at the airport is operated through American Airlines.

A bill last year to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years included a deal to add flights to the already-busy Washington Reagan National Airport, despite a heavy lobbying push from some lawmakers in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C., who warned of dangerous conditions at the airport.