Posts about: "ATC" [Posts: 614 Page: 30 of 31]¶

I personally do not think ADS-B on the helicopter would have changed anything , From what I understand , if it had it could have been spotted earlier by ATC , the conflict alert might have sounded a couple of seconds earlier , etc .. pure speculation .

It would not have changed much for the AA CRJ either , the TA would have been more precise and maybe a second or two earlier , but he had already 2 TAs and most certainly so short from landing the PF was focusing on the PAPI not his TA display

It might have changed something if the Heli was equipped with a CDTI ( ADS-B in display) as it is a powerful tool to help identify traffic visually. But not separate yourself from another aircraft . One thing people in offices making such statements forget is that to provide separations maneuvers ATC needs a stable radar picture , with antennas firmly on the ground facing North . Inside an aircraft constantly moving the picture moves with it , (as you can see on your TCAS display ) Extremely complex to separate yourself using that kind of picture when both you and the target are moving. AWACS operators are trained to do this , but not your average pilot .

So I think this ADS-B on the Military Helis is a red herring made by politicians wanting to appear to \x93do something \x93 and perhaps distract the public from the FAA and regulator failures on both the design of the airspace / routes and the lack of action after numerous previous serious incidents reports ,

I disagree. The operating theory was that the helicopter crew was looking at a plane that was farther out and not the one they hit. If they had had the presence of mind to look at an ADS-B display they would have seen two airplanes, not one, and seen the one they THOUGHT was #1 was really #2.
Can I add some sympathy for the AA crew - A night over water runway change on final combined with dodging traffic is a LOT to ask of anyone. I can't say for sure what they would have done with ADS-B on the chopper, they said they would miss us, not by how much and we are 30 seconds from landing. The benefit here is the helo crew realizing they are dodging the wrong airplane.
* full disclosure, I have had a close call with the helo traffic there more than once, back in the day they did some crazy stuff. I would have LOVED to have seen them coming on a screen if such a thing had existed.

Fitting and enabling ADSB has to have some positives, so I don\x92t think it\x92s a waste of time. The elephant in the room is mixing IFR and VFR at night on routes that have no (or totally inadequate) separation; this is inside controlled airspace - it should be controlled! The whole point of separating traffic by level, speed, direction and/or SID/airway/STAR is that if ATC goes down (or is distracted) or has to revert to procedural separation, aircraft are not immediately going to start hitting each other.

I think we misunderstood each other or I was was not clear enough : I was refereeing to ADS-B out not in ;
That would mainly be for the benefit of ATC .
ADS-B in, together with a CDTI, is what I said to be L So in fact we both agree .

In reverse sequence;
Without an assessment of potential liability and damages, no defense counsel I have ever known would recommend settlement negotiations to start. What you say about some plaintiffs and their counsel potentially wanting to buy certainty of recovery in exchange for waiving possibly larger recovery later on certainly can happen in litigation. However in this case, the attorneys who filed the Complaint are, to state it (or to try to state it) neutrally, about the biggest guns in the business of litigating claims on behalf of air crash victimns' families. Sure, they might take the earlier, lower dollar route, and/or recommend such a choice to clients, but their reputations - and track records - suggest this will be the least likely course, and only much futher down the timeline. On the other hand, I have no role in the case and do not know whether the two firms (one in NYC the other Chicago) actually represent all the passengers on the American Eagle flight. (And do the estates and survivors of the deceased airline pilots have representation? Or the estates and survivors of the decesased soldiers? I don't know - and not getting into why they might have representation in this case or in general. Or whether an organization on behalf of ATCOs, in the U.S., or more globally, might seek to intervene in light of the facts being asserted against one or more controllers.)

Further, the government attorneys as well as the airline attorneys on the defense would be (imo) pretty far outside practice norms to recommend settlement negotiations without joining issue on anything yet. Perhaps one or more defendants will not file their (respective) Answer to the Complaint before broaching settlement, but doubtful this will happen (insurers' counsel lurking off-stage probably would insist upon an Answer being filed). And, the defense applying sovereign immunity through the discretionary function exception to the FTCA waiver is most likely an "affirmative defense" which, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, probably must be included in a defendant's Answer to the Complaint. Even if your continued doubts about its applicability prove correct, it strikes me as quite inconsistent with the current Department of Justice approach to things to skip the pleading stage and jump to settlement. Especially when the opposing attorneys are among the biggest guns in this part of the trial bar, and especially with the political overtones of the litigation looming (as in, funding by Congress of the new ATC system, and legislation which may be lurching ahead of NTSB findings, as in recent posts about 'the ROTOR Act').

As to the discretionary function exception on the merits:
On the current state of the public record, it is pretty straightforward to say that the helicopter crew deviated from the applicable duty of care (i.e., negligence) - as noted, though, I can't imagine the Army component of the Defendant-USA just declining to contest liability at this stage. It must be noted that plenty of acts and/or failures to act by the FAA component of the Defendant-USA also appear to have departed substantially from the applicable duty of care. Maybe it's too cyncial to have this view, but I think FAA is more deeply entrenched in trying to prevent a litigated result that it had mismanaged the DCA airspace - more deeply entrenched than the Army because, as the airline company attorney reportedly said, the helicopter flew into the airliner, pretty simple. I cannot quite verbalize how the FAA would try to shift major responsibility to the Army and off itself, but the discretionary judgments FAA might argue drove its methods and processes for operating the DCA airspace could be the way FAA tries to do so. Of course, ultimately that still leaves Defendant-USA fully liable - just a politically different outcome.

But recall that the defense of sovereign immunity through the discretiionary function exception to the FTCA waiver is an Affirmative Defense. The defendant can rasie it even when the plaintiff has not sought to plead anything which would, by itself, invoke the issue. And in federal court (unless things have drastically changed since I last stepped up to the lectern in a courtroom with the Big Eagle on the wall behind the bench) the standard for pleading is "notice pleading" not "fact pleading". The Complaint just has to give sufficient notice of what the claims are about and what they're based on, and not all the facts necessary to state a particular claim under the specific substantive law. (Certain State courts still follow "fact pleading" though....been a minute.)

I think the point you were making is that nothing the Complaint has alleged factually, and nothing else about the accident that is in the public record at this time, suggests that a defense based on the discretionary function exception would work, or in fact would be worth trying. My view is that the government will take a very close look at trying to assert it. For example, the way the Army operated the proficiency flights in general and in DCA airspace in partiucular, including but not limited to use of NVGs, draws upon (it would be argued) policy judgments about the critical importance of "continuity of government" operations, and even the more routine VIP transport. Will that be enough to overcome the assertedly "clear negiigence" of the helicopter crew in their visual scan for visual separation, and altitude adherence (and possibly other related operational factors)? Maybe not, but I have no clear idea what process the Army went through to devise the rules by which those proficiency flights are conducted, evaluated, and so on. (And which a proper Army Inspector General inquiry and review would delineate, and with clarity.)

And for the FAA, how many times on this forum have posters pointed out that FAA's operating principle has been to move traffic in volume, and not to focus on what FAA eviderntly considers minor details of proper ATC methods and procedures? Sloppy discretion, maybe, but Congress recently expanded the slots at DCA (iirc) and so in a sense the United States did indeed exercise discretion.

I have posted several times that I do not believe the defense should be successful here. But what some non-pilot SLF and attorney writes (hoping not to overstay my guest-on-the-forum status) here might be many levels of altitude below what will actually happen in the litigation and in the courtroom.

Sort of. I think everyone needs ADS-B in and out. That said, in this particular case it would have helped the helicopter immensely and AA maybe. It also is no substitute for common sense, no one not in a mental institution would think helicopters should be dodging and ducking planes below 500 feet on short final.

Your insights are invaluable, as a former air traffic controller I do hope that you continue to post.

The crew in the helicopter could not focus on an ADS-B In display as they didn't have one. However, if they had one, they could have glanced at the ADS-B In display to see which aircraft the ATC was referring to and to compare that position to the outside. They would know the airliner was very close and crossing just ahead of them. There was no need to check altitude as they knew the other plane was on final and they were not trying to scoot under it.

The following video is from NTSB, about 8 years ago concerning the midair collision between Cessna 150M, N3601V and Lockheed Martin F-16CM, 96-0085

From the description:

The 78 feet deviation by the Mil Heli is not the cause of this accident . I hope the lawyers during the trial do not focus on that and minimize the rest .

Bit of historical background : when designing this route decades ago they must have followed basic ICAO/ FAA principles . separation IFR-VFR is 500 feet . allowed deviation then was 100 ft either way , so even if one a/c is 100ft above and the other 100ft too low , there would still be 300 ft separation preventing a collision ,
When that was introduced decades ago I bet you a bottle of (real) Champagne that the procedure was use of that route 4 was restricted during RWY 33 arrivals and RWY 15 departures. It was one or the other but not both simultaneously .
How , when and why , over time , did it degraded to the point that this restriction could be disregarded would be interested to investigate and unveil . The why I think we know, i.e. enabling to move more and more traffic, but when and by who we don't. How and on who's pressure did the numerous previous incidents got disregarded is another question worth asking . Not why the Heli pilot was flying 78 ft too high .

Throwing the Heli pilot (and perhaps also the controller on duty) "under the bus" as you say in your country, would be so wrong as it would prevent getting to the truth and learn the real lessons of this accident .

Agreed.

If the helicopter hadn't called "traffic in sight," they would've been instructed to hold until the CRJ was clear. In general, a VFR aircraft saying "traffic in sight" is effectively exempt from such procedures.

The process "to investigate and unveil" the key facts about simultaneous use of Route 4 during RWY 33 arrivals and RWY 15 departures will more likely be the NTSB investigation and not the pre-trial discovery activities, pre-trial motions, and trial in the lawsuit. The object of the lawsuit, despite what my esteemed colleagues in the legal profession may insist, is not "getting to the truth" or "learn[ing] the real lessons of this accident." (In the first season of the t.v. series N.Y.P.D. Blue (circa late 1993 early '94), one of New York City's Finest was charged with homicide. In a talk with her big-time defense attorney, he reminded her that a "trial" and "the truth" have about as much to do with one another as a "hot dog" and a "warm puppy.")

Unless all the possible plaintiffs intend to proceed with the same lawyers who already have filed a Complaint in federal court, other complaints with perhaps different approaches to the facts and the law are to be expected. But at this time, I think there's pretty strong reason to understand the Complaint which was filed as pitching the ATCO and one or more of the helicopter pilots directly toward a large Greyhound. If, after finding time (and attitude) sufficient to read every single word on every single page of the Complaint very closely, I realize that plaintiffs' counsel have not done so in the current Complaint, I'll frame some correcting post.

As a somewhat related point, and without intending to be a flame-thrower, what about the airline pilots in this matter? Imagine being one of their immediate family. The passengers and cabin crew will be part of the overall group of plaintiffs. With the allegations in the current Complaint, the pilots are being alleged to have operated the flight negligently - is this not a fair and accurate reading of the Complaint? But if this accident was caused - in the sense of the actual realities of flight operations and airspace and all the other actual aviating facts - by the airspace design and operation, and the wrong time and place flight of the helicopter - why aren't the families of the pilots entitled to their day in court as well? And I don't mean day in court just to defend their actions against allegations as in the Complaint, I mean in claims against the FAA and possibly the Army....... oh sure, sue the United States? I'm guessing the airline corporate entities which are defendants probably would not think that would be a good idea. And neither would airline industry trade groups - but maybe this is something for former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu to tackle in his new role as CEO of Airlines4America. Something that seems to be part of this is that the airline corporate entities are well-insured. But what good does that do for the families of the two pilots? - answer, it doesn't do any good for them, other than a probable off-ramp for the entire case at some point down the litigation timeline. And still without the families of the two pilots having their day in court to claim rights and remedies against the real causal agents of the accident. End of rant. For now anyway. (See perhaps Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, re: permissive intervention)

I entirely agree that getting the facts, at the granular level (that is, with as much completeness and detail as the facts themselves warrant), about how the airspace got configured and how its operation was established as those facts existed on the night of January 29 should be a strong focus - I would say exteme focus - of a real effort to understand how this accident could have happened. Including the names, and roles and responsibilities, of all significant decision-makers and others with non-trivial input into any decisions. As prior posts have made clear, the way in which the helicopter routes were used during particular approach and departure usage of DCA runways did not just spring into existence deus ex machina.

It is tempting to say that a proper discovery plan in the federal district court litigation - which let's recall has only just started - would indeed drill down into those granular facts. The case might actually see that sort of intense and relentless discovery. In the current era of electronic discovery and perhaps utilizing AI tools to continue to refine content of interrogatories and requests to produce documents (and, down the road a bit, requests to admit specifically articulated facts), more massively intrusive discovery efforts would seem possible. And I say "intrusive" because good and effective discovery really is like taking a sewing needle to one's finger to extract a wood splinter which has embedded itself deeply even if also visibly. You've got to keep digging at it.

If such discovery actually eventuates in the litigation, it could produce results approaching revelation of "the truth" about what happened. Still, seeking compensation for the families of the accident victims, and I'm not unaware for the attorneys for their work (if not also for validation and fulfillment in the type of legal careers they've chosen) will be the main lodestar for all that happenes, imo. (Whether this case ultimately turns out to be an example of the need for "civil justice reform" in the United States .... I can't predict. That would be like saying Congress should enact special legislation to compensate the families of the crash victims, after a proper investigation beyond what the NTSB will provide .... yeah, when Hades sets new wind-chill records.)

Same comments about the myriad previous incidents and follow-up or absence of follow-up. It could be the focus of highly intrusive discovery, which to be effective would need to be conducted in waves, taking information extracted first and then using it to dig out more. I should add, probably need to add, that whether the case management plan which ultimately will be approved by the federal district court judge will or will not contemplate such wide-ranging, time-consuming, expensive, and - to the defendants, "objectionable as unduly burdensome" - discovery is yet to be seen. Of course, the attorneys and law firms already in action (per the Complaint filed recently) aren't rookies, far from it.

One other comment which current Congressional action seems to make relevant. Already 12.5 billion bucks have been appropriated with another 18 billion supposedly somewhere in the Congressional authorizations-appropriations process. No one in the aviation community needs reminding of the litany of emerging and/or intensifying issues confronting the NAS. I happen to hold the view that the European and global ATM communities have advanced very significantly on defining these issues and working - albeit incrementally, and even though not without political issues - on solutions. New entrants, not least UAM. The introduction of AI into ATC functions. Cybersecurity (remote towers being a valid example of the locus of the issue). Of course the drive toward reduced emissions, whether called net-zero or anything else. Include calls for equity and inclusion. HAO; Class E airspace. Service Delivery Model of the ATM Master Plan (Service-Oriented Architecture). My point, which is only partially a rhetorical question, is: how could it be even remotely possible for the United States to design and implement a new ATC system worth 30 billion dollars - and which accounts for the issues I've noted to the extent they apply here as well as in Europe and globally - if the actual hard and distressing facts about the causes of the January 29 2025 DCA midair collision are not uneartherd and properly taken into account?

None. That would obviously be unsafe, so the helicopter would be expected to use lateral separation. (e.g. "Pass behind the CRJ.")

The 200 ft altitude restriction seems to have given some the impression that helicopters were routinely passing directly below the approach traffic, but that's not the case. And even if it was, it wouldn't really be relevant to this accident. The Blackhawk pilots weren't trying to duck underneath the plane, they never even saw it.

Visual Flight Rules aren't a local procedure.

I agree. The prudent thing to do would be to not call traffic in sight and let the controller give you a hold. But first you'd have to know the plane is there.

If that was/is happening, that's a huge problem. But I don't understand how the FAA would be responsible. Visual separation is initiated by the pilot, when they say "traffic in sight." Controllers sometimes prompt it (e.g. "Do you have that traffic in sight?"), but that didn't happen in this case. A pilot should never call traffic in sight unless they truly have it in sight and are completely confident that they can maintain safe separation. I do get the impression that the Blackhawk pilots may not have fully understood that. Both from the NTSB hearings and the ATC recordings (the way they don't even wait for the controller to finish speaking before shouting "traffic in sight request visual separation!")

"It is tempting to say that a proper discovery plan in the federal district court litigation - which let's recall has only just started - would indeed drill down into those granular facts. The case might actually see that sort of intense and relentless discovery. ..."

There are two possible theories of government liability. One is that the accident was the result of negligence by the low level people, the helicopter crew and possibly some ATC people. The other is that it was a system failure in which higher level people placed a greater priority on keeping traffic moving than on keeping things safe.

The second theory has a serious flaw from a legal point of view. If it is true the government is likely immune from paying damages because of the discretionary function exception. So why would the plaintiff's lawyers waste time and money on trying to establish a theory under which the government is likely immune when there is a perfectly viable alternative theory with no such difficulty.

Indeed but Visual Flight rules (VFR) and visual separations are two very different things . Visual separation can be ( and are) locally restricted , and even Airlines restricted ( think Lufthansa and the SFO incident) . My point is , with hindsight of course, that here, in this route in DCA it should have been restricted , even more so at night..

That is why you have a controller and procedures in place If the procedure says no simultaneous use, no traffic needs to be passed and no request for visual made , unless you allow the normalization of deviance
When you say FAA you mean the regulator right ? because here we have the service provider ( making the local procedures) and the Regulator certifying them being the same entity The "regulator " part should make a safety assessment of the procedures and approve them . In this case they were not safe , and, as I said earlier , especially after the numerous incidents a local restriction should have been in place : no visual separation allowed on those portions of the airspace , or no simultaneous use of that portion of the route when 15/33 is in use.

I strongly suspect this is what will come up anyway in the NTSB report .

A number of observations about the litigation and the facts from which it arises (to the extent the facts are in the public record so far) support my disagreement with the assertions (or if it is preferred, analysis or reasoning) in the quoted post.

First is the alignment and nature of the defendants. Only the airline company defendant has exposure to punitive damages (because of the limitations in the FTCA), and unless one is willing to assert that the U.S. taxpaying base is a kind of insurer, only the airline company defendant brings the deep pockets of its insurers into the plaintiffs' calculus. This is the situatjon even though most all if not actually all aviation professionals on this forum deride claims based on acts or omissions of the CRJ pilots - this isn't stopping the plaintiffs, of course. (The plaintiffs' attorneys, it should be noted, include some very highly experienced aviators, one of whom (according to his bio filed with the court) was part of the PAT unit operating in the relevant airspace earlier in his career.) There may be, though it's too early to be certain, some reluctance to assert strong factual and legal attacks against the Army pilots - it might thought that it just doesn't have a good look and recall, the claims against the airline will be tried to a jury, so minimizing "evil lawyer" opportunities could be important. (Gerry Spence once reported that after winning a hotly contested jury trial and a big damage award, one of the jurors caught him in the corridor and asked him why he had made the jurors "hate him so.")** [Correction! see **]

The relevance of this is that the excerpt your post quoted was about the scope of discovery. Given the claims against the airline are situated as the biggest financial targets, I very seriously doubt that plaintiffs' counsel will make their discovery plans based on only one theory of liability. (I have to add that, in early case filings, the bios of the plaintiff's lawyers (or some of them) are included, with regard to the discovery steering committee and executive committe for what will become many other lawyers involved. I hope I did not fail to articulate in earlier posts how voluminous are the experience portfolios of some of these counsel and their firms - saying they're 'heavy hitters' should NOT be read as damning with insufficient recognition of their. . . . well, Pacer is available to anyone who wants to read the bios themselves.)

So, although the discretionary function exception might be advanced by the government's attorneys, the scope of discovery sought by plaintiffs will, in my view, be very broad. And it's too early to say whether the airline company attorneys (and their insurers' counsel who will be deeply involved, I think) will cause discovery also to go the maximum extent. And this is without any implication at all that discovery expense would be run up on purpose to cause defendants to settle earlier and/or for larger sums - I know this happens in federal court civil llitigation sometimes, but that isn't the driver here (imo).

Second, I think the Complaint already provides a basis to understand the plaintiffs are indeed making allegations against - for lack of a better term and without intention of disrespect - functionaries and lower-level or mid-level managers within the FAA. Even if the Complaint does not spell all such facts out at this point, after the testimony at the Board hearing, it seems quite likely that plaintiffs will assert allegations of negligence against one or more ATCOs. the managers at DCA including in the ATO (the testimony of an ATO official at the Board hearing struck me as ripe for plaintiffs to zoom in on - and iirc it was the very same official who was involved in cross-talk leading to rebuke from the Board Chair), and perhaps on up in the ATO organization. The testimony by a fairly senior manager in the Potomac Tracon for example - whether or not this provides grist for the discretionary function exception for the government attorneys, I don't know, but it does appear likely for plaintiffs to want to discover quite a lot about the memo he testified he had written (about spacing of arrivals, iirc) and what, if anything, was done with it.

So I think my view isn't different, insofar as allegations against let's say individual actors within the overall set of "FAA facts" would naturally lead to very wide-scope discovery.

Third, with regard to the FTCA and the exception as potentially invoked on behalf of FAA overall, I've posted more than a few times that I think it should not apply. But perhaps it will in fact be asserted, and then it could prevail (but see the first point above, with regard to anticipating the scope of discovery). I can imagine the successive iterations of the legal analysis as to whether the exception becomes applicable if and only if there is a defined and specific decision, the determination of which was documented whether extensively or at least to some extent. Again (and I apologize for repeating it) as I recall the Varig Airlines case, the process FAA had set up for certain inspections (of aircraft components which failed and caused an accident) was that type of specific determination of a particular course of action or process. Tell me there's a memo from the FAA Administrator to the head of the ATO directly addressing the margins of safety for simultaneuous helicopter flights on the DCA routes when the specific runways are in use (per ATC Watcher's earlier post) and stating that aircraft movements must be given priority - or something similar as this - and then I would more likely agree that the discretion necessary to invoke the exception may well have been applied.

But what we have here is a much more diffuse situation, which took place over many years, isn't it? Normalization of deviance, or normalization of inertia toward "it hasn't caused a problem so far". And similarly, all the safety-related reports - and the apparent lack of meaningful action - or any action? - addressing these, there wasn't a specific determination about a particular choice or course of action with respect to which the federal district court could justify ruling that discretion had been exercised.

A friend who sometimes follows the forum asked me whether all the talk about the discretionary function exception was classic "over-thinking" because the FAA obviously made choices about how to structure and manage the airspace. Well, I answered, we see opinion polls every day about how people would vote if the election were held today, or how they anticipate they'll vote when Election Day occurs. Those are not votes, though, only your ballot cast in the election is a vote. All of FAA's incremental acts and failures to act - just answers to pollsters, not the ballot box. Maybe the analogy works, maybe not.

I have to acknowledge, never having been a law clerk to any judge at any level, that I'm completely speculating, but the law clerks for the federal district court judge to whom this case was assigned certainly will earn their pay, and will they ever have a great tale to tell, sometime down the road.

** I recalled this incorrectly - Spence had lost the case. Considering that some lawyer at some point in this litigation will engender extreme dislike, here's the tale as told by Gerry Spence:
"When I was a young lawyer feeling my power, my strategy in a certain case was to attack
and destroy every witness the other side put against me. I took on the witnesses, old men with
watery eyes who I knew were but company sycophants trying to keep their jobs. I took on the
experts, scholarly actors who I knew were but paid witnesses attempting to earn their fees rather than
reveal the truth. Cut them up, shredded them, pulverized them. The jury was out only fifteen
minutes before it returned a verdict against my client. I was devastated. Hadn't I won every battle?
Hadn't I destroyed the witnesses? Hadn't my power on cross-examination been overwhelming?
As the jury was filing out of the courthouse, one of the women approached me. She looked
up at me with tears in her eyes. It had obviously been hard for her to turn my severely injured client
out of a court of justice with nothing.
'Mr. Spence,' she said quietly, 'why did you make us hate you so?"'
GERRY SPENCE, How TO ARGUE AND WIN EVERY TIME 44-45 (1995) (quoted in [citation omitted]).

I don't see anything in the above which states or implies that the provision in question is a good idea, or even just a neutral idea -- but then, the post perhaps (or likely) wasn't intended to state point of view on the provision's wisdom or absence of wisdom.

But regardless, I'm just trying to "noodle" (as a higher-seniority level lawyer in the same firm once used the term) how such a provision was inserted into the NDAA. I might have been taken in too much by press releases and watching hearings, but the current leadership of the House T&I (Transportation and Infrastructure) Committee has not given - to at least this one observer - any reason to think they would move in a direction contrary to the urgent safety recommendations made by NTSB soon after the accident (which were in fact implemented by DOT soon thereafter). So where is this coming from, this provision?

I won't try to argue leverage against any of the links in the reasoning in the quoted post. For one thing, the cynicism - not saying it isn't valid or warranted - on which the reasoning is based is sharper and more basic than the cynicism I usually experience. But this avoidance still doesn't address the question, where did the provision originate, and why?

Perhaps it is coming from the Executive branch and the Congress people involved feel pressure, for all sorts of Jet-Blasty reasons. The Pentagon might not want the adverse publicity of a trial which casts very unfavorable light. And with the recently announced systems integrator contract for the new ATC system, likewise, trial developments showing governmental incompetence would be seen as impeding the rest of the required appropriations. Not least, the public hype for the new ATC system has frequently referred to the work being completed in three or four years. Reliable sources (including a long time senior ATCO in a major European country with current involvement in a major ATCOs organization) scoff at the idea that all the necessary steps could possibly be completed in less than 8 to 10 years (including but not limited to site acquisition, construction, training on new equipment, not to mention sufficient rosters of ATCOs and then doing the relocations necessary if main facilities are actually consolidated). A really negative trial in Washington would not be helpful with regard to continuing to tout the expected so-very-rapid arrival of the new ATC system which will - it is said - make up for many years of lost time in the NAS.

I'm not arguing that this is what happened - just, what is the root of the provision? I mean, unless one believes it's a good idea, then I guess the "what if" is answered by saying, "good idea". Or even....
"That's good thinking there, Cool Breeze." (Couldn't resist the Boomer aside.)

I've been reading this thread for many months, and there were people in it (pilots and ATC) saying nothing would have changed if ADS-B Out was enabled in the helo. Isn't that what the House bill is trying to require? Politicians (and senior staff of federal agencies are certainly politicians) will produce all kinds of videos about all kinds of things, but does anyone in the industry think this matters? From what I have read, the problem was the lack of vertical separation between helo route 4 and the descent into 033, not the lack of data exchange. This feels like "we are going to do something" theatre.

The NTSB has not said, and Chairwoman Homendy's letter does not say, that lack of ADS-B Out was the central cause of the accident. Without going through the whole thread again, as far as I recall no one has even argued, let alone persuasively asserted, that lack of ADS-B Out caused the accident. Any even mostly attentive reading of the thread would lead one to conclude that there were several big problems with the "situation" on the night of the accident. Just picking the one easiest for a non-aircrew to comprehend, the difficulty of discerning different objects, in the air and on the ground, at night and at low altitudes, particularly against the background of city lights, was a factor. No one has claimed lack of ADS-B Out made it a factor nor has anyone claimed that having ADS-B Out would remove it as a factor in given situations.

The argument that the NTSB Chair and the Congressional people who are opposed have heard some imperative to "don't just sit there, do something" is a straw man, imo.

But taking it with more credence than it seems to deserve, how do you explain the absence of much, or really any, opposition to the NTSB's recommendation issued shortly after the accident? Too much heat in the aftermath of the tragedy to state the opposition at that time, instead wait until things died down?