An aviation safety bill seeking to address lessons learned from last year’s fatal mid-air collision of a Wichita-to-DC commercial jet with an Army helicopter near the nation’s capital was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday; but key senators and the families of the 67 victims think the bill still needs to be strengthened.
The House bill, called the Alert Act, has the backing of key industry groups, but lawmakers will now have to try to find a compromise that will satisfy the Senate. The National Transportation Safety Board recently said the legislation, since amended, now addresses its recommendation requiring all aircraft flying around busy airports to have key locator systems, letting pilots know more precisely where other aircraft are.
The NTSB has been recommending the new technology systems since 2008, and Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has said such a system would have prevented the collision of the American Airlines jet and Army Black Hawk helicopter that sent both aircraft plunging into the icy Potomac River.
Two key House committees unanimously advanced the bill last month. The bill was brought up for a full House vote under rules that didn't allow any amendments. But victims’ families said before the vote they want to make sure the bill has strict timelines to guarantee the reforms will be completed. And they worry the House bill would allow military flights to continue flying without broadcasting their locations on routine training flights and not just secret missions.
“January 29, 2025 made clear what is at stake. The 67 lives lost that day should be honored with an improved system that prevents this from happening again,” the main families group said Tuesday in a new statement. “And the flying public should not have to wait longer than necessary for those protections to be in place.”
Sponsored by Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri and Democrat Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington, the legislation easily got the two-thirds support it needed to advance to the Senate; it passed by a vote of 396-10. Separate legislation, the ROTOR Act, crafted in the U.S. Senate, came up one vote short in the House.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican, and Maria Cantwell of Washington, a Democrat, have also said that the Alert Act still needs improvement.
“A warning to my colleagues in the House: the Alert Act would not deliver the safety measures necessary to prevent another midair collision, as it lacks the critical improvements our aviation system needs,” Sen. Cruz posted on X ahead of the vote on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, the NTSB's Homendy sharply criticized the original version of the bill as a “watered down” measure that wouldn’t do enough to prevent future tragedies. But the board said the revised version would now address the shortcomings their investigation identified and require the Federal Aviation Administration, Transportation Department, and the military to take needed actions.
Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, whose Virginia district lost a number of constituents in the crash, said it's important to get this bill right and address all 50 of the recommendations the NTSB made in its final report.
“It wasn’t just one issue that led to this crash. It was a combination of systemic problems that made our national airspace unsafe,” Subramanyam said during debate.
National Transportation Safety Board members at a hearing in late January were deeply troubled over years of ignored warnings about helicopter traffic dangers and other problems, long before the collision.
Everyone aboard the American Airlines jet and the helicopter died when the two aircraft collided. It was the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001, and the victims included 28 members of the figure skating community.
A helicopter route in the approach path of a Reagan National Airport runway didn't ensure enough separation between helicopters and planes landing on the airport's secondary runway, and the route wasn't reviewed regularly, the board said. The poor design of that route was a key factor in the crash, along with air traffic controllers relying too much on pilots to see and avoid other aircraft.
The bill now requires planes to have Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast In systems that can receive data about the locations of other aircraft. Proponents of such systems said they would have alerted the pilots of an American Airlines jet sooner to the impending collision with the Black Hawk helicopter. Most planes already have the complementary ADS-B Out systems that broadcast their locations.
In addition, the House bill requires the next generation of collision avoidance systems to be installed alongside ADS-B In systems, so pilots will be able to receive alerts about nearby traffic and not just see it on a display. The Air Line Pilots Association expressed concerns that the approach could delay installation of the required locator systems because the new collision avoidance system has not yet been fully certified.
Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son was the copilot of the airliner in the crash, said it's crucial that any legislation “reflects the risks in today's operating environment and ensures pilots have the information and technology they need to identify developing situations earlier.”
The NTSB cited systemic weaknesses and years of ignored warnings as the main causes of the crash, but Homendy has said that if both the plane and the Black Hawk had been equipped with ADS-B In and the systems had been turned on, the collision would have been prevented. The Army’s policy at the time of the crash mandated that its helicopters fly without that system on to conceal their locations, although the helicopter involved in this crash was on a training flight, not a sensitive mission.
The Lilleys and the other families want to make sure there is stronger oversight of any exemptions that let the military fly without locator systems turned on to conceal their locations.
By JOSH FUNK AP Transportation Writer
