NTSB warns that defense bill could undermine aviation safety changes after DCA crash

WASHINGTON — In an unusually harsh rebuke, the nation’s top safety investigator voiced concerns about a provision in the defense policy bill before Congress on 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 it sounds like I’m mad, I am mad. This is shameful.”

Homendy said the NTSB “vehemently” opposes a section in the massive National Defense Authorization Act that would roll back safety improvements that were recommended by the agency after the collision of a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet 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 a technology known as ADS-B. But the NTSB warns the bill’s language would create exemptions to the policy — in effect, recreating conditions that were in place at the time of the DCA collision, which was the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster in more than 20 years.

“We should be working together in partnership to prevent the next accident, not inviting history to repeat itself by recreating the same conditions that were in place on January 29th,” Homendy said.

Homendy laid out the NTSB’s concerns in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of both the House Armed Services Committees and the Senate Committee on Armed Services. She said no legislators had approached her during the drafting of the NDAA, and she did not know who added the provision in question.

In a statement, the committee leaders defended the language in the bill.

“We all care deeply about and are fully committed to ensuring aviation safety,” said U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) in a statement.

They say the bill would require any helicopter conducting training missions around Washington, D.C. would have to provide warning of its position to aircraft in the area (though it does not specifically require the use of ADS-B), and that the Secretary of a military department would need to receive concurrence from the Secretary of Transportation prior to waiving this requirement.

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

“As drafted, the NDAA protects the status quo, allowing military aircraft to keep flying in DC airspace under different rules and with outdated transmission requirements,” said a joint statement from Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), the leaders of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “This comes as Pentagon data shows a spike in military aircraft accidents since 2020. The families of the victims deserve accountability.”

The senators urged their colleagues in Congress to instead adopt 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 also expressed concern about the language in the NDAA.

“The flying public and all those that utilize our airspace deserve better than what this bill provides,” said Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son, Sam, was the first officer of Flight 5342, 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 people their lives.”