The FAA Builds Redundancy Into Marine One Departure Notices

The FAA has put a second, redundant method in place for flagging when Marine One is about to depart, so that a single missed call no longer leaves the helicopter's movements unannounced to traffic around it. The change traces to an incident in August in which the aircraft that carries the president and an airline flight in the vicinity of Reagan National did not get the coordination they should have. For anyone who operates in and out of the Washington area under Part 91 or 91K, the practical takeaway is a layer of notice that did not exist before. The underlying airspace rules have not changed. The fix is procedural: when the primary line of communication fails, something else now speaks up.

With reporting from AVweb.