The FAA today permanently suspended the use of visual separation between helicopters and airplanes in the airspace around most high-traveled U.S. airports. The move, announced through a general regulatory notice this morning, applies to aircraft in class B and C airspaces, as well as in Terminal Radar Service Areas (TRSAs) that surround some smaller class D airports. 

Visual separation is a tactic that requires pilots to identify traffic with their naked eye and assume responsibility to maneuver well clear of it. The procedure has been under heavy scrutiny since the January 2025 midair collision in Washington, D.C., which the NTSB said occurred in part due to an overreliance on visual separation in poorly-designed airspace with little to no margin for error. The FAA said its decision today was made after a “year-long” safety review prompted by the crash which found that “for high-traffic areas, visual separation was not enough of a safety mitigation tool.”  

The practice is a tenet of traffic management in the national airspace system, and this change is sure to require significant adjustment from aircraft operators as well as air traffic controllers who are used to the flexibility that visual separation enables. Controllers will instead be required to ensure aircraft separation through radar practices where visual separation may have otherwise been used.