By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
Marine One, the helicopter that carries the President of the United States, lost communication with air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport for the second time this month, according to ATC audio reviewed by ABC News.
The details of what caused the lapse, and how long it lasted, were not immediately clear from the audio. ABC News did not report an official explanation from the White House or the Federal Aviation Administration for either incident.
Reagan National sits inside one of the most tightly regulated stretches of airspace in the country, a fact underscored by January's midair collision between an Army helicopter and a passenger jet near the airport that killed 67 people. That crash triggered scrutiny of helicopter routes, controller staffing and communication protocols in the corridor — scrutiny that a repeat communications lapse involving the President's own aircraft will only sharpen.
[Editor's note: This item is sourced from a single ABC News report citing ATC audio. The cause of the communications loss, its duration, and any response from the Secret Service, the Army unit that flies Marine One, or the FAA have not been independently confirmed and should be pursued for a fuller account.]
Neither incident, per the available reporting, resulted in a collision or a declared emergency. But two lapses in a single month involving the aircraft carrying the commander-in-chief is the kind of pattern that invites hard questions in the coming days — about equipment, about protocol, and about whether the corridor around Reagan National is any safer than it was in January.
Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by ABC News.
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