In a development that sounds less like aviation policy and more like a drunken game of SimCity, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Saturday that President Trump's proposed Triumphal Arch in Washington, D.C., would need an "eternal flame" perched on top to warn pilots they're about to fly into a monument.

The FAA told The Hill that its determination "includes conditions for the Arch to be appropriately marked with a non-standard eternal flame on top of the structure and floodlight projectors pointed towards the Arch to make it noticeable for pilots." Because nothing says "eternal remembrance" quite like "please don't crash your Cessna into this."

The agency released a hazard study Friday confirming the arch "would not pose a hazard to aircraft" - a conclusion reached after safety experts examined "airspace, air traffic patterns and procedures around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, as well as operations at nearby military/public-use airports." So rest easy: the giant marble thing is technically fine, as long as it's on fire and aggressively lit.

The FAA had previously said the arch would need red obstruction lights, like the ones atop the Washington Monument, but according to the New York Times, the structure is no longer required to have them in the hazard report. Apparently an eternal flame is the preferred aesthetic.

A letter to the National Park Service (NPS) about the study also specified that the searchlight projectors accompanying the "eternal flame" should "provide an average illumination of at least 15 foot-candles (161.46 lux) over the top one-third of the structure." For those keeping score at home, that's a very specific amount of light for a very specific flame that is, by definition, eternal.

The proposed Triumphal Arch would become the largest in the world, towering over Mexico City's Monumento a la Revolución at 220 feet and Paris's Arc de Triomphe at 164 feet. It would be located along the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which symbolically represents the reunified U.S., connecting North and South following the Union victory that closed the Civil War in 1865.

Not everyone is thrilled. A veterans group launched a campaign last week against the arch, arguing it was "entirely inappropriate and borders on sacrilege to the men and women buried" at Arlington National Cemetery to break the line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and the cemetery with the arch.

An NPS assessment in August said the arch would adversely impact dozens of historic sites around the city, including by obstructing views. It listed nearly 40 locations across the city after the agency asked outside groups to comment, including the Pentagon, the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol, the National Mall Site, the Lincoln Memorial, the Robert E. Lee Memorial and Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove.

So to recap: the arch is fine for planes, as long as it's got an eternal flame and floodlights, but it's a visual menace to roughly 40 historic sites and a sacrilege to veterans. Washington: where even the monuments need hazard lights.