QUICK TAKE: The FAA cleared a flame on Trump’s arch, not snipers or drones

From the Lincoln Memorial

The view

From the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps, we look toward Virginia.

We see the bridge. We see the water of the Potomac. At the far end, we see Arlington National Cemetery, where the country’s soldiers are buried.

Families climb these steps every day. They turn around. They take the same photo.

A view generations have photographed. A president’s memorial. The cemetery of those who served. A bridge to join them.

In between, a traffic circle. Memorial Circle.

That is where Donald Trump wants his triumphal arch. 250 feet, about 76 meters, for the country’s 250th birthday, Reuters notes.

Three thousand feet

There is a detail the postcard leaves out.

The circle sits 3,000 feet from Ronald Reagan National Airport, in the main approach and departure corridor, according to Reuters.

Above the postcard, airliners come down. You hear the whine of the engines. You feel the vibration in the bridge railing.

In the cabin, a passenger grips the armrest. He watches the river come up. He is not thinking about arches.

A postcard, with a flight path running through it.

The eternal flame

September 18

On September 18, the FAA issues its determination.

The arch poses no hazard to aircraft, the agency says, according to the Reuters dispatch. On one condition. An eternal flame at the top, and floodlights trained on the structure so pilots can see it.

The FAA had first required red obstruction lights. It drops them in its final decision.

The Washington Monument, 555 feet tall, carries flashing red lights. That is what the FAA usually requires of buildings over 200 feet near an airport, Reuters notes.

A flame for pilots

For the arch, no red light. A flame. Nobler. Rarer.

An eternal flame is usually a symbol. We light them on graves, for the people we refuse to forget. Here, its first job is to serve pilots.

I like this flame. It is honest. It says what it does. It lights up an obstacle so nobody flies into it.

The agency also sets a floor. Pilots must fly over the area at 780 feet or higher, according to Reuters.

The determination can be challenged until October 18, AVweb reports. It becomes final on October 28, barring a new proceeding.

That is the marker for this quick take. A flame.

A flame to warn. That was the whole program.

Sunday, on Truth Social

September 20

Two days later, on Sunday, September 20, Trump posts a message on his network.

He is acting at the U.S. military’s request, he writes, according to ABC. He agrees to turn the arch into a top-tier military complex.

There will be drones, many of them, ready to launch fast. There will be snipers, on the roof and on the plaza. There will be ammunition for those snipers, in large quantities, stored on site.

The message names no unit, no mission, no threat. It names quantities. Large ones.

The roof and the plaza

Read it again, slowly. A monument. A roof. Snipers.

The same roof that was supposed to carry the flame.

The flame warns pilots. The snipers don’t.

A triumphal arch is for visitors. A military complex is for guards. You cannot have both in one place without one of them eating the other.

No newly filed plan appears in the pages I have read. The Pentagon declines to comment, according to ABC.

A monument on Friday, a barracks on Sunday.

The order of dates

The 18th, then the 20th

Back to the calendar, because the calendar is enough.

On the 18th, the FAA assesses a stone arch topped with a flame. On the 20th, Trump announces drones, snipers and an ammunition depot.

Two days. One determination. One post. No document in between.

The FAA review could not have examined a project announced two days after it. Unless someone had shown the agency the plan beforehand. Nothing in the record suggests that.

On September 24, The National News Desk spells it out. The FAA review did not evaluate drone operations.

Not a line. Not a calculation. Not a scenario.

A review from before

I will say it plainly. I am on the side of the passengers, the pilots and the people who live near Reagan National. Against the military complex Trump announced on September 20. Because the safety determination issued on the 18th covered a flame, not drones.

I am neither Democrat nor Republican on this one. I stand under the flight path.

A determination issued for one object does not cover another.

They cleared a flame. We are getting a nest.

Duckworth’s letter

Friday, two recipients

On September 25, at 7 a.m., CBS publishes a letter it obtained exclusively. It is signed by Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth and was sent Friday, according to the network.

Recipients: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

Duckworth is the top Democrat on the Senate aviation subcommittee. A former Army helicopter pilot, she lost both legs in the Iraq War, CBS notes.

She asks the FAA and the Pentagon to reject the plan, which she considers reckless. And to focus on airspace safety instead.

She files the president’s post among the bizarre, rambling early-morning rants he publishes on social media, CBS reports.

October 5

She wants to know whether the FAA considered any military use of the arch in its assessment. She calls the review incomplete.

She asks Hegseth which military entity, if any, requested the conversion. And on what threat assessment.

She wants answers before October 5.

She writes as a pilot. She talks about approaches, corridors, collisions. Not stone.

The FAA and the Defense Department declined to comment, referring CBS to the White House.

Two simple questions. Two official silences.

Sixty-seven

January 29, 2025

We have to say why this corridor is not like other corridors.

On January 29, 2025, near Reagan National, an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet collide in midair. 67 dead, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, and to CBS.

It was 8:48 p.m. Eastern, the NTSB specifies. Its final report followed a public board meeting on January 27, 2026.

Sixty-seven.

A military helicopter. An airliner. The same sky.

The open recommendations

After the collision, the NTSB issued 52 safety recommendations, CBS writes. Thirty-five were aimed at the FAA. Only three are closed.

Earlier this month, the NTSB found the FAA’s responses to eleven of them unacceptable, according to the network.

The thirteen recommendations addressed to the Pentagon remain open.

Twenty months after the collision. Still waiting.

Duckworth finds it especially galling to watch the FAA and the Defense Department busy themselves with a monument after their shared failure to put those fixes in place, CBS writes.

And yet, by Trump’s account, the Pentagon asked to put drones in this same sky.

Thirteen open recommendations, and a launch pad for drones.

A review done by the book

What the FAA got right

Let’s be fair, since a quick take demands it.

The FAA did its job on the arch it was shown. It studied the effect on the airspace of Reagan National and nearby military and public airports, AVweb writes. It imposed a flame, floodlights, a flight floor.

Bryan Bedford says the arch went through the same obstruction evaluation his career staff apply to every project, The National News Desk reports. No special treatment, he says.

In June, Duckworth feared that the arch itself threatened commercial flights, Reuters reports. On that precise point, the agency proved her wrong.

That stings for anyone who, like me, dislikes this project. It is on the record all the same.

Where the review stops

True. And it changes nothing about the rest.

A sound determination on a flame says nothing about an ammunition depot. It says nothing about a drone launching three thousand feet from a runway.

And yet that same determination is what the White House will be able to wave around, if anyone asks whether the sky is safe.

A good answer to the wrong question is still a wrong answer.

Who asked

A request with no signature

Trump writes that he is acting at the military’s request. That is his sentence. It has no public military signatory.

Who asked for snipers? Who asked for drones? For ammunition on a monument? For the roof, the plaza?

No command is named in the pages I have read. No threat assessment is published.

The Pentagon stays silent

The Pentagon does not comment, according to ABC. The Defense Department points to the White House, according to CBS.

That is Duckworth’s exact question. Which entity? Which threat?

Virginia Democrat Don Beyer called the idea of a drone base in the landing path dangerous and unworkable this week, CBS reports. Local opposition, massive by his account, will not be defeated, he promises, according to The National News Desk.

A military complex in the heart of the capital should have a parent. An order. A budget. It has a post.

A sniper on a Washington rooftop is a security decision. Normally, it is made quietly, by the people who answer for it. This one is announced online, with no known military author.

A military request that nobody signs.

The heritage file

Forty-two properties

Meanwhile, the other file moves forward. The one about stone.

On September 24, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the ACHP, terminates the legally required consultation on this reinforced-concrete and granite arch.

It finds an adverse effect. A large vertical element intrudes on historic and commemorative landscapes of national importance. 42 historic properties are affected, including six National Historic Landmarks and eight historic districts.

The administration had already acknowledged adverse effects on setting and views the week before. Impossible to avoid entirely, it said, because the location is central to the project, ABC reports.

Burgum will decide

The public can still comment until September 29 at 11:59 p.m. The ACHP will send its comments to the Interior secretary by October 7. Doug Burgum will then decide, ABC says.

Virginia wrote on Monday that the arch would disfigure the foot of Arlington cemetery, according to ABC. The District of Columbia declined to comment.

The National Park Service, for its part, flagged damaged views at 37 historic sites, according to The National News Desk. Two counts. One verdict in stone.

ACHP members and leadership are appointed by the president, ABC notes. The capital’s planning commission still has to review the project over the next six months.

Heritage has a calendar. The sky still doesn’t.

Drones in the corridor

The approach path

This is where the quick take stops smiling.

A plane descending toward Reagan National follows a tight path over the river. A plane taking off follows the same one, in reverse. A plane that misses its approach climbs back into the same air.

Into that air, Trump’s post wants drones able to launch fast, in large numbers.

No page I have read says how these drones would share the sky with the planes. Or who would fly them. Or who would warn the tower.

Before the drones, there will be cranes. Duckworth cited the National Park Service: cranes of 300 to 320 feet, up to 20 hours a day, for two to three years, Reuters reports.

A nest in the flight path

The public cannot afford a 250-foot structure on a busy approach path, Duckworth writes, especially with snipers and drones, according to CBS.

Sixty-seven people died in this sky twenty months ago.

The passenger gripping the armrest does not know about the letter. He knows the river. The jolt of the landing gear. The relief of the brakes.

He does not know someone wants to give him an armed neighbor.

The sky over Reagan National has already paid once.

The Senate next week

Merkley forces a vote

On September 24, Axios reports that Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley wants to force a Senate vote next week.

Two resolutions. One to stop the demolition of the Kennedy Center. The other to block the arch near Arlington.

Democrats warn they will use every legislative tool, including the year-end budget process, according to Axios.

The arch is only one piece. Reuters lists the rest: a new White House ballroom, a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a redesigned golf course at East Potomac Park.

The vote and the corridor

I do not know whether these resolutions will pass. I know they will force every senator to say where they stand.

Judges have a say too. On September 4, a federal judge ordered the administration to give 48 hours’ notice before any activity at the site, except to survey for buried artifacts, Reuters reports.

Veterans are suing as well, to protect the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington. An architectural historian has joined the plaintiffs, The National News Desk adds.

A Senate, a court, a heritage agency. Three doors. None of them deals with the sky.

A vote can name what a post never signed.

The arch and the nest

Two hundred fifty years

I am fine with a monument for the country’s 250th birthday. I am fine with a flame. I am fine with a president who loves stone.

Duckworth calls it yet another vanity project, paid for with taxpayers’ time, energy and money, according to CBS. Her words, not mine.

Act by act, the stone arch is judged on heritage. The military complex is judged on the sky.

A birthday deserves a stone. It does not deserve a risk.

A firing post on the approach

Turning a monument into a sniper and drone post on the approach to an airport where sixty-seven people died, with no command named and no assessment published: that is a bad call.

It strengthens neither the military, nor the West, nor the capital. It adds a risk to a sky that has not finished its repairs.

And it damages the one honest thing in the project. The flame.

And yet nothing prevents keeping the flame and dropping the nest. A Sunday post can be withdrawn as fast as it went up.

An honest flame over a roof that has stopped being honest.

The flame is no longer enough

October 18

One window remains. Until October 18, anyone can ask the FAA to reconsider its determination, according to Reuters and AVweb.

On October 5, Hegseth and Bedford must answer Duckworth. On the 7th, the ACHP writes to Burgum.

Three dates, three doors. None is closed yet. None will open by itself.

Watching the approach

When a safety determination covers a flame, and snipers and drones are then installed under that flame, who has to reopen the file before the first missed landing?

From the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps, the view has not changed yet.

Neither has the corridor. Not yet.

The flame may burn one day. Over what, nobody has said.

A flame, cleared. Snipers, never reviewed.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• CBS News — Tammy Duckworth’s letter to Hegseth and Bedford on the militarized arch, September 25, 2026
• ACHP — consultation on the triumphal arch terminated, 42 historic properties affected, September 24, 2026
• Reuters — FAA clears the arch and requires an eternal flame, September 18, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• ABC News — heritage agency ends consultation with Washington and Virginia, September 24, 2026
• Axios — Merkley moves to force a vote on the arch and the Kennedy Center, September 24, 2026
• AVweb — the FAA determination, its conditions and deadlines, September 23, 2026