Family members of those who lost their lives in the January 29 plane crash in Washington, D.C., have spoken out on the need for urgent reforms by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)."We as a group can never go back to just getting on a plane and trusting that everything will be OK," said Rachel Feres, whose cousin Peter Livingston was onboard Flight 5342 with his wife, Donna, and their daughters, Alydia and Everly."I would like every other traveler out there to be able to do that though, and to be able to trust that they're going to be OK and that every consideration has been taken for their safety," she continued.Feres spoke with Newsweek alongside Amy Hunter, another cousin of Livingston's, and Doug Lane—whose wife, Christine, and son Spencer were among the 67 people who died when the passenger plane collided with an Army helicopter.Since the crash, the deadliest in American aviation in more than two decades, the three have been pushing for the government, particularly the country's aviation watchdog, to address the issues that led to the loss of their loved ones.On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a report detailing the preliminary findings of its investigation into the D.C. crash, after making a series of "urgent" recommendations on military-civilian airspace coordination for the FAA.The board's investigation found that near misses between helicopters and planes at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) occurred at least monthly between 2011 and 2024.The NTSB found that helicopter routes established by the FAA lacked "defined lateral boundaries." Consequently, between October 2021 and December 2024 at DCA, there were 15,214 instances where airplanes and helicopters had a lateral separation of less than one nautical mile and a vertical separation of under 400 feet. Over the same period, the NTSB identified 85 cases where the lateral separation was less than 1,500 feet and the vertical separation was under 200 feet."Both of those were just eye-popping statistics that have a lot of us really questioning how such a cascading set of systemic failures could possibly happen," Lane said."They found over 15,000 instances of near misses of this nature, the exact same nature as the one that affected our families, over a three-year period," he added. "So if that happens a couple of times a month for three years, it was really just a matter of time before a disaster like this occurred.""How did the FAA not know," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference following the NTSB report. "How did they not study the data to say: 'Hey, this is a hot spot. We're having near misses, and if we don't change our way, we're going to lose lives.'"The NTSB urged the FAA to permanently prohibit helicopters from flying along a section of Route 4—a commonly used path over the Potomac River—during times when planes are making a low descent to land on DCA's Runway 33, as Flight 5342 was attempting to do on January 29. It also requested that the agency designate alternative helicopter routes for pilots around DCA. Duffy said on Tuesday that the FAA would accept both recommendations."The existing separation distances between helicopter traffic operating on Route 4 and aircraft landing on Runway 33 are insufficient and pose an intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a midair collision at DCA," NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference on Tuesday.Commenting on whether the FAA was to blame for the loss of his wife and son, Lane said: "I think certainly they're a major party at fault here, both in terms of how they designed the airspace and the rules that were governing how flights in this specific airport were allowed to occur on an ongoing basis.""One of the things that I found really horrifying is discovering that the NTSB has been making safety recommendations to the FAA for years that have gone unimplemented," Feres said. "You trust that when disasters occur and we find the cause that somebody is going to go remediate it. And this has completely shaken my faith that that process happens."Newsweek has contacted the FAA for comment via email.Less than a month after the D.C. crash, the families read reports that a Southwest jet attempting to land at Chicago Midway International Airport narrowly avoided colliding with a private plane, and they realized that the separation issue was not limited to DCA."I thought, Oh, this is already happening all the time, and we're now just starting to learn about it," Lane said. He described the January 29 crash as "really just the Pandora's box in terms of the number of near misses that have been happening throughout the United States that haven't been acted on by the FAA."However, the families said they had been reassured by the diligence and commitment of the NTSB throughout the process."The NTSB has inspired tremendous faith in our families for the work that they're doing," Hunter said. "Their professionalism and compassion have been a gift in what is the worst moment of people's lives."President Donald Trump faced criticism for personnel changes made at the FAA shortly after the crash, which former and current employees told Newsweek could contribute to the already chronic levels of understaffing that plague the agency.The families have refrained from blaming any one administration for the crash."This is an issue that's happened across many different administrations," Hunter said. "This is not a political issue. This is a safety issue—a public safety issue."Evidence of the bipartisan support for aviation safety came when Hunter visited Capitol Hill shortly after the crash, seeking to raise awareness of the necessary reforms and advocate for congressional hearings on the matter.She said both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chair Ted Cruz, were more than willing to speak with them about their concerns."We went and knocked on doors and literally never got a no answer," she said. "It was a very difficult day. But in that day, it was very inspiring to see that it was a nonpartisan issue."On March 27, Senator Jerry Moran, chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space and Innovation, is scheduled to lead a hearing to discuss the findings of the NTSB report. Witnesses set to appear include Homendy and acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau. Brigadier General Matthew Braman, the director of Army Aviation for the U.S. Army, has also been invited.Regarding the changes they hoped to see, Lane said the voluntary and "haphazard nature" of reporting and addressing aviation close calls at the FAA must be reformed.As for recommendations from the NTSB, he hoped for a situation in which these were not merely advisory. He said, "I would like to see some kind of compulsory requirement for them."Lane, as the next of kin to two crash victims, said he was considering taking direct legal action against the FAA, as others had already done."It's likely something that will be coming, but it's not something that I've done yet," he said. "I think you can expect to see quite a few of the families take a similar approach with that."Feres added that while legal action was one avenue of accountability for the tragedy, "there is another form of accountability that comes with necessary change.""I want to be able to get on a plane again and feel confident that everything has been done to make sure that me and my family land safely on the other side," she said.Feres continued: "I want that for the people who are paying attention to this story. I want that for everyone. That's what feels like a good outcome in this."