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The New York Times reported that as of September 2023, the tower at Reagan Airport was nearly a third below targeted staffing levels. The staffing shortage has forced many controllers to work up to six days a week and 10 hours daily.
On the night of the collision, air traffic control (ATC) staffing was below the typical level for that time and traffic volume, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety report. Normally, the tower had six controllers: assistant local control, ground control, clearance delivery, local control, and an operations supervisor.
The NTSB says something different: Although ... air traffic control tower facility was not staffed to its target level ... the number of staff in the tower at the time of the accident was adequate ... The decision to combine the helicopter control and local control positions was not the result of insufficient staffing, and personnel were available to staff the helicopter control and local control positions separately
I propose to remove our text (based on an NYT article published immediately after the crash), as it seems to be misleading. Викидим (talk) 21:48, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No, this edit was purely cosmetic and made to improve recently added text. The change being proposed here is in the section "Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport" and the text has been in the article for a long time, Викидим (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I’d support moving everyone including and after “On the night of the collision” to the investigation section and editing heavily to match the recent report. Dw31415 (talk) 01:14, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
– RfC needs to meet neutral Dw31415 (talk) 13:12, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I think we should at least change it from American Airlines Flight 5342 to American Eagle Flight 5342 or maybe even PSA Airlines Flight 5342 in the article itself. The main reason it was change to American Airlines was because it was considered recognizable and more sources called it that. My response is that it also called American Eagle in a lot of sources. It was the livery on the plane and even American Airlines itself calls it that: https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2025/Information-regarding-American-Eagle-Flight-5342/default.aspx. It is just as much of a common name as American Airlines. The only reason some sources called it American Airline crash is because American Airlines is more recognizable than American Eagle. It is also why some sources called Delta Connection Flight 4819 "Delta Airlines Plane Crash in Toronto". Sure, American Eagle isn't a real airline's and is just an airline brand, but all the other American Eagle accidents are called American Eagle becuase it is more commonly referred to it. Just because it is just an airline brand doesn't mean we can't use it in the title. If you don't want American Eagle in the title, we can have PSA Airlines. But PSA Airlines isn't as recognizable and is not the common name. Even though "American Airlines Flight 5342" may be the "absolutely utterly unmistakably" commonly used name as determined earlier, the guideline also states that inaccurate names (like American Airlines Flight 5342) should be avoided, even if reliable sources use them more frequently. The operator mentioned in the infobox states, "PSA Airlines dba American Eagle," and not American Airlines, so it doesn't make much sense to call this "American Airlines Flight 5342" if the operator isn't American Airlines. Plus AFAIK, this is the only article in all of the Wikipedia aviation articles to use this unprecedented misuse of the WP:COMMONNAME policy. It didn't take this long for editors on Colgan Air Flight 3407 to reach a consensus that "Continental Airlines Flight 3407" was not the correct name to use. On the contrary, by now, it shouldn't be hard for readers to understand that American Eagle is the regional subsidiary of American Airlines, which addresses most of the problems mentioned earlier. Reliable sources use "American Eagle Flight 5342" too: (see [1], [2], [3]). I still haven't understood why there's still support for keeping the former. Zaptain United (talk) 03:44, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Which project page was this discussed at? In any case, this doesn't seem like the sort of issue that would need a formal RfC; as I said in my closure above, an ordinary talk page discussion ought to be sufficient to resolve this. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:32, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This draft request for comment is not yet open for comments. Discuss changes to the format of this RfC on the talk page, but do not comment on the topic of the RfC itself until it opens.
In the first sentence and elsewhere, should Flight 5342 be named:
Moved to #Name of Flight 5342 - Feb 2026