The Biden FAA let a radio transmitter sit broken in a Washington, DC residential neighborhood while Marine One flew missions out of a location it couldn't reach.
Sean Duffy found out about it when Donald Trump's helicopter nearly collided with a passenger jet.
And a federal report revealed how this broken system almost cost President Trump his life.
The Morning the Radio Went Silent
Marine One's crew tried twice to warn Reagan National's tower before lifting off from the Ellipse on August 4.
The first call went completely unheard.
The second was described in the NTSB's preliminary report as "broken and completely unreadable."
After two failed attempts to reach the tower, the crew tried a backup – relaying the required three-minute warning through the helicopter facility at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.
That failed too.
With no warning received, Reagan National controllers had no reason to halt departures.
Envoy Air Flight 3742 – a passenger jet bound for Pensacola, Florida – was cleared to take off from Runway 1 as Trump lifted off two miles away.
https://twitter.com/SecDuffy/status/2092386756654198991?s=20
The FAA's preliminary estimate found the two aircraft came within 0.82 nautical miles of each other laterally and about 700 feet vertically.
Federal rules require 1.5 nautical miles of lateral separation in that airspace – meaning the president's helicopter came up more than half a mile short of the safety standard.
The Envoy pilots heard their collision-avoidance system announce "Traffic, Traffic" as they climbed.
They never spotted Marine One visually, but the helicopter appeared on their cockpit display – to the right and below.
Marine One eventually climbed high enough to reach the tower on radio.
Both flights continued without incident.
The Meeting That Should Have Fixed This
Here is the detail that should make every Trump supporter's blood boil.
One week before the near-miss – on July 30 – Marine Helicopter Squadron One sat down with Reagan National tower staff specifically to talk about communications problems.
HMX-1 told controllers that radio contact had been "spotty."
Controllers responded that Marine One crews hadn't always been delivering the required three-minute departure warning.
Both sides agreed: if direct radio failed, the crews would relay the warning through another aircraft.
That's exactly the backup Marine One attempted on August 4.
It still didn't work.
https://twitter.com/SecDuffy/status/2091950155150897400?s=20
FAA technicians investigated after the near-miss and found the root cause nobody had bothered to trace.
White House construction had shifted Marine One's operating location to the Ellipse – and the radio transmitter covering that area had been sitting in a nearby residential neighborhood with no line-of-sight to the new position.
The signal was dead before it left the ground.
Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti put it plainly: "Even though they were aware of some previous communications issues, they never got at the root cause."
Sean Duffy Fixed in Days What Biden Left Broken
Sean Duffy publicly acknowledged the breakdown, confirmed his team was working on the problem with the FAA and the White House Marine One unit, and pushed the fix through immediately.
The FAA moved the radio equipment from that residential neighborhood to the top of Reagan National's control tower.
Post-move checks with two Marine One aircraft showed zero deficiencies.
That's the contrast the mainstream media won't draw – years of nobody asking why the radio kept failing, versus one week of Duffy accountability that actually solved it.
This near-miss didn't happen in a vacuum either.
https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/2093316647830397384?s=20
Eighteen months ago, an Army Black Hawk collided with an American Airlines jet over the Potomac River near Reagan National, killing all 67 people aboard – the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in more than two decades.
NTSB investigators later uncovered 15,214 near-miss events at Reagan National between 2021 and 2024, where aircraft came dangerously close with almost no vertical separation.
That's the legacy Duffy inherited: 15,000 near-misses, a radio transmitter with a dead spot over the president's operating location, and nobody connecting the dots until Trump's helicopter forced the issue.
Sean Duffy proved that when you put a competent conservative in charge of a broken agency, things actually get fixed.
Biden's people just hoped nobody would notice the radio was broken.
Somebody did.
Sources:
- Stepheny Price, "Trump helicopter's radio warnings went unheard before close call with passenger jet, report says," Fox News, August 27, 2026.
- "Transportation secretary working on telecom issues after close call involving Marine One," Military Times, August 11, 2026.
- "NTSB final report reveals causes of deadly midair collision near Washington, DC," CNN, February 17, 2026.
- "White House construction contributed to radio problems that let Trump copter come close to jet," MyStateline/AP, August 27, 2026.