Posts about: "President Donald Trump" [Posts: 18 Page: 1 of 1]¶

This feels like an alarm fatigue/ever-brighter-light problem. If you make aircraft lights even brighter, you'll start asking questions about other safety lights in the area and going round and round in circles.

Visual management of traffic isn't really acceptable, especially at night against a backdrop.

I really hate to say it, but I kind of have to agree. See above. This helicopter path may as well be a taxiway crossing an active runway, with the same levels of risk. Why are they allowed to loiter on the runway path; why are they allowed into the approach corridor with an aircraft on approach?

Can I argue this is the 'fatal runway incursion' everyone has been warning the US is going to have?

On the take-out question, this SLF/attorney would vote "Aye", it meets the essential (if also somewhat implicit) criteria for such type of incursion.

On the POTUS characterization, in his defense, it may be noted that the "it should have been prevented" phrasing is the President's shorthand way of saying 'things like this would not happen if things were done my way' (like a couple of armed conflicts going on which opened in the previous administration, for instance).

[Mods: have not caught up on thread beyond quoted post, just fyi, W-R]

Imagine being that ATC right now. As if yesterday wasn't horrific enough, the President of the USA is now on TV implying that the accident was directly your fault, and that you are a mentally-handicapped diversity hire.

good lord, from your pontification, you'd think that this was an exec airport for the ruling class. Tens of millions of people use it every year. Including me. It's revenues actually subside KIAD, and is the preferred airport for many, including me. I would prefer it remain open. "buy what about the children"... etc. etc. well, realistically you have a better chance of getting abducted by aliens than dying at KDCA. No, I am not in cahoots with the government elite
I have flown into KDCA , and traversed the inner FRZ Potomac TRACON airspace more than a thousand hours. It's an intense place (go listen to liveATC tower freq , every day it's "AA123, traffic on 36 inch final, cleared to takeoff rwy 1, NO DELAY, EXPEDITE!", but its not some cowboy wild west. Everybody keeps it together, even the GA folks are sharp. When I've flown out of Ft. Meade and you stay gotta keep your head under the B shelf because there's SWA fights a couple of hundred feet above. You can literally see SW pax in their window seat. On departing KCGS, I've been maybe 20 seconds delayed switching from CTAF to Potomac Approach checkin, and they told me they were panicking and just about to pick up The Red Phone to send me oblivion.
From friends, I know of three separate DC area military units doing fixed wing VIP transports, and I guess the Army also does helo VIP. They have done this for decades, there's an enormous amount of flights. It all seems to work well enough.
And for folks saying "they shouldn't have been doing training", well I can assure you it was not an initial training event. I've flown in Marathon KS, next to the Army blackhawk flight school, and that and their other two schools is where you go to train - wide open spaces. I know someone who was Marine 1 and they do sim training to the WH s. lawn, and then they obviously do a real checkout (without the POTUS) at the real thing.

Everytime there's a crash, this place is flooded with knee jerked, all ill considered. I bike past the KDCA all the time and I'm pretty sure there's no Berm of Satan, but I'm sure the mob will latch on to some new 'smoking gun'

For a minute there, I misread your post, and thought that Trump was the mentally handicapped diversity hire!

Hanging the ATCO on duty will not bring back the dead, and was not the cause of the problem. Having a civil aircraft flight path immediately overhead a LL RW VFR transit lane that guarantees that there is a loss of separation standards is what set this off, and that has been the case for decades. The crews, pax, ATC officers and families just happened to be the ones that got caught out by the insanity that permitted this track and procedure to exist.

Will Mr T go after the ATC guy? probably, the ATC officer doesn't own a kingdom, a corporation, in fact he is highly unlikely to have a DUI, and certainly won't be a convicted felon. So, I would rate the ATC guy as the convenient fall guy for the US Govt, the FAA who should not have permitted the operation of civil aircraft proximate to military LL traffic, and the US DOD, who will have signed off on the practice of disregarding minimum separation per \xa791.111. As far as right of way, the CRJ was landing, \xa791.113(g) applies, notwithstanding 91.113(d). The CRJ had every reasonable expectation of not sharing a cockpit on short finals to a short runway with crossing helo traffic.

• IDTEK is 1.4nm from touchdown, 490' PA
• the east bank of the river is half way to the runway, ~0.7nm, -> 245'+40' = 285'PA
• the collision occurred around mid river, ~0.3-0.4nm from T/D, or 125+40=165'

How does a 200' transit height down the east side of the river overwater provide any reasonable separation for the guys who were unfortunate last night to be the graphic example of normalisation of deviation, by the US GOVT, FAA, and US DOD.

What is particularly annoying is that the generals and other command staff, and Secretaries of Transport, Defence etc are quite happy to cashier the F-18 pilots who do a slow flypast of an arena, or the T-38 instructors who do the same over some other game, and yet, what is the chance that any general takes responsibility for their part in this sorry state of affairs. responsibility like other stuff, only goes downwards,

Its pretty easy for the guy in charge to defame the ATCO.

Glass houses.

Umm, no. DCA and IAD are both operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The real estate itself is still owned by the US Government (via the Department of Transportation, I think). Per the Wikipedia entry:

Interesting viewpoint.
My take is, in order.
5) No, I don't think he was overwhelmed. He was shot through with adrenaline and shocked as anyone would be having just witnessed two aircraft he was talking to seconds before vanish in a fireball, realising his career, reputation, life and future sanity was irrevocably blown to pieces no matter the cause.
No, no and thrice no. Assuming the tapes are in real time there are considerable gaps between transmissions so he most certainly did not 'have' to speak so quickly. He had plenty of time to speak clearly and coherently instead of spouting those eruptions of incoherent, almost incomprehensible babble.
Sadly - reprehensibly, this style of unnecessarily theatrical auctioneer-style unpunctuated babble seems all too frequent in the States. Tower frequencies are usually if not almost invariably much less time-pressurised as they handle fewer aircraft in a well spaced sequence than in a termnal control area.

6) Concur 100%. And they failed miserably to achieve this. I've been flying for several decades and struggle to hear one word in three (and only assume much of the rest because I know what to expect - a human factors disaster) of that controller's outbursts, and the shoddy partial readbacks are shocking to European ears.

7) Once again, NO! Even if super-busy (and I'd argue especially if super busy) it is essential to keep r/t steady, clear and comprehensible; gabbling that fast might save half a second on an exchange, but no frequency is so busy it requires that, least of all a Tower. He only had three or four aircraft to deal with for simple go-arounds, all well spaced out on approach. He pretty much had time to recite half the Lord's Prayer to each.

This crazy r/t seems to be a cultural thing and needs to be changed, as do some fundamental procedures like having helo lanes crossing final approach tracks at essentially the same height instead of with decent vertical separation. Why wasn't the helilane at 800ft or 1000ft as a Heathrow? No aircraft is up there one mile out from finals while every single one is at 300ft. Madness. Just madness. It's like a figure 8 banger race dodging cars at the intersection. If there was a flyover - vertical separation too accidents would be all but eliminated.

And this buisness of "...pass behind the CRJ on finals" when no none can determine whether the lights in sight are a CRJ, a Cessna or the Space Shuttle or in what sequence they are landing. It might work in daylight but imho it assumes unreasonable levels of instant almost head-on aircraft recognition - a disastrous human factors trap quite aside from the additional one of assumption.

I'm not having a go at the poor controller who imho is compleely blameless, he did his job as well as the flawed system that indoctrinated him allowed.

As for 'stopping' helicopters in a free- air hover. This is (in my experience) never ever requested, done or attempted as a traffic avoidance method. I can only assume people suggesting this have absolutely zero knowlege of flying helos and the litany of pitfalls and hazards it would generate, helos simply do not 'stop' in midair unless they have to for SAR, load-lfting ot maybe surveillance. If necessary, as in holding at 'dual taxiways' between the Heathrow runways at 1000ft you'd slow to a sensible speed, maybe 50-60Kts in a tight orbit and even that is 'interesting' in 40Kts of wind. "Are you visual with landing traffic 2 mile final" identifies the traffic far, far better than "the CRJ on finals" when there might be three in a row, not to mention assuming superhuman powers of head-on distant aircraft recognition even in daylight - and impossible at night!!! Crossing clearance is then "cross over the threshold after the landing traffic" where no aeroplane ever is at 1000ft. (bar a g/a when there is enough time to skedaddle and avoid) With any significant wind a hover would have to be into wind, ie more or less tail -on to the conflicting traffic, an utterly absurd concept. Bin this one people, please.

As for the appalling behaviour of the 'president' to instantly apportion blame with no understanding of either the situation or accident investigation in general whatsoever - which anyway is not his job and none of his business, thereby prejudicing any enquiry (what pressure does this put on the investigators and report writers, federal employees, when they are all but directed by their deranged and vindictive boss what they are expected to report? This is a very, very dangerous precedent that smacks more of a shonky third world dictatorship than a western democracy.

I know the mods don't want this to descend into politics, but will the FAA really be able to deliver a report that's free from political interference, bearing in mind the above plus the current administration just having forced its current head out of office ? Nobody particularly enjoys the process, but separation of concerns and independent oversight is widely understood to be important, particularly in safety-critical industries like aviation where the consequences of incidents can be grave. Is this a cultural shift in the US, and deliberate avoidance of regulatory oversight has become normalised? I'm also thinking of the ongoing multiple Boeing fiascos, for example.

The coverage of this that I've seen suggests that the family is concerned that identifying that crew member, apparently a female pilot, would expose them to hatred and threats ignited by the president's anti-DEI remarks. That seems to me to be a reasonable concern.

Spotting the blinky stuff ahead is one thing, especially all going in the same direction on approach

However this incident is crossing or converging traffic

People outside aviation, such as Donald Trump as quoted, don't understand that the helicopter is not looking straight ahead at the airliner in the centre of its view for several seconds. Other people think that the other moving across the field of view should make it easier to notice.

But neither is true. One possibility that represents a collision risk is the one a bit out to one side that keeps the same relative direction in the view of the other, just getting bigger

From pictures I found, this helicopter type seems to have four vertical bars in the frame of the front screen, two at the edges, two nearer the middle. So it might be possible for a collision risk aircraft to be hidden behind one of these for some time


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Hello fellow flyers, I am a 65 y/o retired pilot. I served 20 years in the Navy flying P-3C and trainers then served another 20 years flying for Southwest Airlines, nine of those years as Captain. Also, I am a graduate of the Naval Post Graduate Aviation Safety School with extensive hands on experience in military mishap investigation.

I have mostly enjoyed my latest years of not sitting at the front end of a jet. During my 40 years of flying people, I never really felt the stresses of being responsible for the well being of so many. Now that I spend most of my days on my boat fishing or growing tomatoes in my garden, life's pressures are minimal. This has opened my eyes to the gravity of the enormous responsibility I held on my shoulders, for the safety and well being of so many.

I have always had the mindset not to "arm-chair" quarterback any aviation mishap, regardless of how tempting it may be. But the aviation mishap that occurred at DCA on the evening of Wednesday, January 29 has compelled me to speak out.

Was it preventable? Sadly, It was entirely preventable.

How did it happen you may ask. After all both aircraft were clearly operating normally up until impact. First lets clear up one detail both the President and our news media has consistently made error.

Elevation refers to the height above sea level of the ground. These two aircraft were flying altitudes, not elevations. Aircraft fly altitudes and above 18,000 feet they are called flight levels. Example, flight level 180 is 18,000 feet. The ill-fated regional jet was at approximately 325 feet when it was impacted by the Army UH-60 helicopter. I have flown into Washington National since the first days Southwest began operations at DCA. I was already a Captain at this point, and I can tell you this airport is one of the most technically challenging of any I have flown.

However, that is not why this disaster happened.

I would be very surprised if the RJ black box revealed either of the two young PSA pilots were aware up until the moment of impact. Why you may ask? Because when you are flying a jet on short final, at 325 feet, you are focused on the flare and touch-down point on the runway. Perhaps the young First Officer may have seen the UH-60 just with enough warning to make a call-out, just prior to impact. From the angle of impact, very unlikely the more seasoned Captain would have even been able to see anything at all. If the First Officer was making the landing, it is most certain that neither of them saw it coming and there was nothing said on the microphone. I have no doubt, the pilots on the regional jet will be completely vindicated. In any aviation mishap, there is a chain of events that lead up to the accident. If any one of the links in the chain are broken, the accident will not happen. In this case, there are two remaining main causal factors.

DCA control tower: Tower controller made a fatal error in communicating with the Army UH-60. Time was clearly critical and was wasted by asking the H-60 if they had jet traffic in site. Clearly, they did not. What should have been said in a very assertive voice, "PAT25 (UH-60's callsign), IMMEDIATE TURN TO XXX HEADING, CLIMB AND MAINTAIN XXX ALTITUDE TO AVOID COLLISION. Tower was no help at all. First they cleared the RJ for a last minute change to 33, and then failed to ensure their approach corridor was clear of traffic. In my view, the tower controller could have easily prevented this fatal collision.

Army UH-60 crew: In military aviation training, we have always have preached the importance for pilots to maintain situational awareness. That philosophy by the way is also a cornerstone to commercial aviation safety. Were the pilots tuned up to tower when the controller gave the RJ clearance to land runway 33? Had they been aware the commuter jet was going to track over the ground through their intended flight direction, something should have been said. Request vector, due to traffic! One H-60 pilot responded, yes we have traffic in site, we will maintain VFR (visual flight rules) which means "see and avoid" yes even at night. Clearly he was looking at the wrong traffic which by the way is a very common occurrence, especially at night. No doubt the Army crew was engaged in training, which may have been a distractor to situational awareness.

In the end, the chain of events were allowed to happen as did this horrible accident that took the lives of sixty-seven beautiful souls. The President is totally correct in that we need to hire pilots and air-traffic controllers based on merit and experience, nothing else! I have witnessed first hand, the failed attempts to ensure diversity while training pilots, at the expense of safety. That practice, both military and commercial aviation, needs to stop! The current administration has their hands full but I have complete confidence they will make significant headway. Clearly we need to train and educate more air traffic controllers! The shortage and perhaps poor training standards are likely the primary cause of this mishap. I have no doubt our new Transportation Secretary is on it with both feet running. We need to maintain pilot standards also. The pilot shortage resulted in the FAA reducing the flight hours required to be hired to fly commercially. Why didn't they allow experienced pilots age 65-67 to work? In this country, we have effectively dumbed down just about everything, in the name of getting everyone through.

Just like on the operating table, you want the most experienced individuals in the most demanding jobs!

The President is likely not quite correct in his description of some of the accident circumstances, and has perhaps misunderstood a briefing if there was one. Pilots used to considering the risk of mid air collision know it might not be straight ahead in the view

"The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn\x92t the helicopter go up or down, or turn,"

As for recruitment of new people, decode this and following remarks

As part of the hiring freeze, no federal civilian position that was vacant at noon on January 20 would be filled, and no new positions would be created unless required by law or under the president's orders. Trump's order does not apply to military personnel or positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.

It is unclear whether the freeze prevents the FAA from hiring new air traffic controllers or if these roles fall under public safety professionals.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...-crash-2023348


Other articles say that air traffic controllers were amongst FAA staff who received offers to resign with 8 months pay

Subsequently there may have been some later official sourced remarks that they are not eligible for the offer, but not necessarily also clarification whether they have been told this

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/air-traffic-controllers-initially-offered-buyouts-told-leaving-118330627

Ah. I hoped I wouldn't have to spell this out explicitly, not least because the moderators may well take the view that this is straying into political territory. The very best thing about this article is that it is artfully cloaked in terminology that might entice the incumbent powers to engage.

Too cynical for my view.
The tug-of-war about Article II Executive authority doesn't determine the merits of legal and factual lawsuits arising from this accident. That power struggle at the constitutional level may not even be relevant to how the lawsuits over this accident will proceed and what results they'll produce.

No, I think the US Army policies with regard to ADS-B will be found to be irrelevant to this accident. Brigadier General Matthew Braman is correct in that the US Army, and other government agencies with policing, security and counter intelligence responsibilities do not want their aircraft tracked on FR24 and the like. The MOU is key and may not see the light of day in the public domain. National Security will trump (sorry) other considerations, even safety, especially with so many high profile score buildings adjacent to DCA.

I'm applying SLF/attorney license here (hey, there's poetic license, so why not?) of repeating - with some editing - a post I placed on the R&N thread about testing at DCA.

1) Regarding ADSB-Out being turned off, what is the reason there was such emphasis placed on this at the recent Congressional hearing (and just scoring media points per usual in Committee hearings doesn't qualify as a "reason" in this context). Is the reason that there are objections to running the kinds of tests in question (per the R&N thread) in or near DCA airspace? Is it valid to say there is no connection to the chain of causes-and-effects which led to the midair collision on Janaury 29 (but if there is, what is that connection, specifically)? Is the reason some connection with the occurence of TA's and RA's on TCAS as documented by NTSB? (although other posts on the R&N thread indicate that ADSB-out isn't connected to TCAS advisories . . . that is, if I understood those other posts). Or something else? I'm dismissing the mere fact that FR24 doesn't provide information to enthusiasts as the reason for such emphasis in the hearing.

2) If the Army operates certain "missions" with ADSB-Out turned off, and it conducts these operations based on national security concerns, my initial thought about this practice is, . . . . . . . hey, isn't there a discretionary function involved in deciding what avionics (or electronics system if this isn't within the technical definition and scope of "avionics") to operate based on national security concerns? So the Senator declaring that there is "no justification" seems to deliberately overlook the existence in the Federal Tort Claims Act of the exception. (I realize there has not been, to my knowledge at least, any lawsuits filed yet. But they're certainly going to happen.)

Of course, this all said, the indictment of the structure and operation of the portion of the NAS in which DCA is situated might (as suggested previosly) itself be adjudged inconsistent and non-compliant with basic standards of aviation safety. The only not-crazy-sounding justification for that state of affairs would seem to be "but we have to move traffic in volume." As a legal wrangle over whether that obvious judgment of a "policy" nature is or is not a proper basis for keeping federal immunity in place in a particular matter . . . I am quite skeptical such a legal wrangle would ever make it as far as an actual courtroom proceeding. But will Congress not try to manuever itself into the issue for all the usual reasons - some people want actually to address the problem constructively, some just want to please their donors, and some just follow the crowd, or so it always appears.

3) Something about discovery in civil litigation was underscored by the exchange in the video clip: there's an Army memo, dated Aug. 9, 2024 as referenced by Sen. Cruz, about operating in the NAS with ADSB-Out turned off. And the Army so far declines to turn it over to the Committee. (Applying the rough equivalent of a pre-snap read by a QB, the manner in which the Army witness replied to Sen. Cruz's questions gave the impression that the Army and DoD will strongly resist the memo in question becoming public.)

[Okay, I'll refrain from speculating how much fun it would be to decide which officer or officers would be presented as the Person(s) Most Knowledgeable about the matters discussed in this memo (on the Army side, receiving the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice), or similarly, how much fun would be had by counsel describing the "subject matter(s)" which must be specifically iterated in a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice (on the plaintiffs' side).]

4. I'm very determinedly hoping this won't be read or even misinterpreted as an offensive point. In the YT video produced by "Mover" in which he interviewed a former Army helicopter aviator (post 1228), it was possible to draw the impression that Army helicopter pilots operating in the airspace in which DCA is situated have a certain attitude toward FAA ATC. That is, the Army operates - one could get the impression - in its own "airspace system" and deals with FAA ATC only as much and only as quickly as necessary. Listening to the pertient Jan. 29 ATC R/T, and knowing the visual difficulties presented by the basic facts of nighttime in that specific area of the DCA airspace, plus NVGs, an observer could get the impression that the Army aviator handling the R/T was doing so in a perfunctory manner on Jan. 29.

To explain further, upthread (in post 1261) in the context of a Mover/Gonky YT video (post 1228) someone much more knowledgeable than myself observed that the way in which the Army pilot interviewed in the video described communications with FAA ATCOs in DCA airspace was as if Army chopper pilots view FAA ATCOs somewhat as a nuisance. Far be it from me to fault any pilot over any practice or custom in anything, including comms with ATCOs. But faulting any pilot is not the point. The point is that in that YT video, as related that other poster, --
"it was suggested that it\x92s perfectly OK to second guess what ATC might have said to you, reply to that, and then if no correction is forthcoming you can comply with your guess. As others have pointed out implicitly, that works if there\x92s only one error involved, but here there were three: an untrue statement, leading to a wrongly issued clearance, and a missing read back."

It is known that ADSB-Out is not active on the Army and other certain missions in the relevant airspace. Is there also a pattern or practice of operating with a mindset that FAA ATC is a necessary nuisance, to be indulged but not focused upon as closely as other airspace users? If any reader asserts this question accuses the Army pilots or any one of them in the helicopter on January 29 of negligence - that would be incorrect. The way in which the airspace had been designed, managed and operated handed those pilots a pre-determined normalization of complacency - so it appears, does it not?. They operated their flight within the system they had been given, which does not constitute negligence. The designers, managers, and operators of that system . . . well, it will be for the courts to sort out whether the exception to the removal of federal immunity to tort claims applies to those systemic level actions, or not. If it were not for the existence of the discretionary function exception, I personally believe the race to the courthouse would already have been a feeding frenzy worthy of the most biting negative stereotypes about lawyers.

Speaking of immunities, wasn't it generally believed that the airspace within the NAS, and especially airspace in which major airports in the United States are situated, was immune to midair collisions, in general and not only collisions sudden, without actionable warning, and with at most two or three seconds' knowledge of impending death and disaster? Mere SLF/attorney as I am, I had believed that. It follows, but only under that mindset, that what occurred was obviously negligence, and even gross negligence. The point is, expect the lawsuits to be, in a word, consistent with the ugliness one feels seeing the wreckage pulled from the Potomac, or reading about the backgrounds of 67 people. Or both.

The DOD has its own investigation process which is detailed and regulated by each service. Any fatal serious injury accident or substantial damage is investigated in a Safety Investigation Board (SIB) usually under a O-6 or O-7 grade officer. Just like an NTSB investigation the Board President can accredit subject matter experts, outside contractors, JAGs to interview, gather data, etc. The SIB runs under a tighter timeline than an NTSB investigation, usually the report is due within 90 days, but obviously that’s subject to the complexity of the mishap. The report is “privileged” releasable only within the service, generally only within the Major Command in the USAF. It is NOT public released. The SIB recommendations do not include disciplinary or administrative actions for DoD members. It cannot be used in the courts. The MAJCOM commander is usually briefed in a meeting without coffee or cookies. It’s a tense briefing.

At some point during the SIB, the command convenes an Accident Investigation Board (AIB), also run by a senior officer. The AIB can use factual data from the SIB, but must conduct its own interviews, on scene investigations, etc, to ensure its independence from the SIB. The AIB report is releasable, may recommend disciplinary or administrative actions, may have recommendations to outside contractors or suppliers. Being public, it can be used in court actions, FEB or courts martial.

The Congressional “privileged” status came out in the 50s when the military accident was astronomical and needed a process to establish what happened and what actions could prevent a repeat mishap. The privilege took away anyone’s Article 31 rights, basically everyone had immunity in the SIB process but not in the AIB process. You get “rights” read to you in a AIB and a Defense Counsel is offered.

I would guess the Army is or will run an AIB as there’s, at least, the possibility of disciplinary actions or specific recommendations for regulatory changes that must come out of a military process, as the NTSB cannot issue recommendations to the military authority. It might just be an echo of the NTSB report.

This mishap maybe the first since the Ron Brown accident in FRY where the NTSB was involved, mostly for political reasons. The AIB ripped a bunch of officers new orifices ending their careers. I believe, at least one flag officer retired as a Major or Lt. Col.

BTW, the military uses “mishap” to indicate the crash was preventable whereas “accident” implies God reached down and just took them out. I always laugh cynically at the news of a car accident where it’s written like it was the driver became a passenger and had no agency. Car went out of control. No, the driver was (fill in the blank) and crashed the car.

The Senate has passed the legislation with the controversial Section 373 still included. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bill now goes to the President for signature into law. (Also, I should have checked my knowledge of legislative process more thoroughly - my previous post stating a House-Senate conference would follow Senate passage was incorrect.)

But there is other action regarding Section 373. Excerpt from the WSJ article:
________________
"The bill passed despite concern from federal officials and senators over an airport-related measure in the 3,086-page package. Lawmakers said it was unclear how the provision ended up in the final version, and senators quickly approved a bill that would overrule it. That measure still needs to be passed by the House.
......... [ paragraphs with background re: accident omitted ]......

"Anger at Section 373
Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) led a bipartisan effort to remove Section 373 and replace it with the ROTOR Act, which would require aircraft in controlled airspace to be equipped with ADS-B and would impose stricter oversight of military flights in the area. At a press conference Monday, Cruz, Cantwell and families of victims from the collision denounced the section.

\x93There\x92s no reason to have this language in the National Defense Authorization Act unless you\x92re somebody who wants to continue to see letting the military do whatever they want to do in a congested airspace,\x94 Cantwell said.

Trump administration officials have also criticized the measure. \x93It\x92s a safety whitewash,\x94 said Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, last week. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said that regardless of any legislation passed by Congress, he will ensure that there is no cross traffic between planes and helicopters.

After the vote Wednesday on the NDAA, Cruz took to the floor and passed the ROTOR Act by unanimous consent, a shortcut to quickly approve legislation when no senator objects. A spokesman for the Defense Department said the Pentagon supports the bill."
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