NTSB warns defense bill could undermine aviation safety at DCA : NPR

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy sharply criticized a defense authorization bill that rolls back safety improvements. The board recommended the changes after a January collision between a Black Hawk military helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 people.

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WASHINGTON — In an unusually harsh rebuke, the nation’s top security investigator expressed concerns about a provision of the defense policy bill before Congress Wednesday, warning that it would undermine aviation safety improvements made after a deadly mid-air collision in January.

“It’s a safety whitewash,” National Safety Transportation Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters. “If I look like I’m angry, I am. It’s shameful.”

Homendy said the NTSB “vehemently” opposes a section of the massive National Defense Authorization Act that would roll back safety improvements recommended by the agency after a Black Hawk military helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet collided near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 people.

After the crash, the Defense Department agreed to require military aircraft to broadcast their position using technology known as ADS-B. But the NTSB warns that the bill’s language would create exemptions to that policy, in effect recreating conditions that were in place at the time of the DCA collision, which was the nation’s deadliest air disaster in more than 20 years.

“We should work together in partnership to prevent the next accident, without inviting history to repeat itself by recreating the same conditions that were in place on January 29,” Homendy said.

Homendy outlined the NTSB’s concerns in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committees and the Senate Armed Services Committee. She said no lawmakers contacted her when the NDAA was drafted and she did not know who added the provision in question.

Committee leaders did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment.

But some lawmakers on Capitol Hill share the NTSB’s concerns.

“As written, the NDAA protects the status quo, allowing military aircraft to continue to fly in Washington, DC airspace under different rules and with outdated transmission requirements,” Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Jerry Moran (R-Kans.) and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), the leaders of the Senate Committee, said in a joint statement. commerce, science and transport. “This comes as Pentagon data shows an increase in military aircraft crashes since 2020. The families of the victims deserve accountability.”

The senators urged their congressional colleagues to instead pass the bipartisan ROTOR Act, which would require aircraft operators to equip their fleets with ADS-B technology and limit exemptions for military helicopters.

Family members of the victims of American Airlines Flight 5342 have also expressed concern about the language in the NDAA.

“The traveling public and everyone who uses our airspace deserves better than what this bill provides,” Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son, Sam, was the first officer of Flight 5342, said in a statement. “Congress now has a choice: strengthen this provision and protect the traveling public or leave in place the same vulnerabilities that have already cost too many lives.”