Posts by user "WillowRun 6-3" [Posts: 107 Total up-votes: 129 Page: 6 of 6]¶

Waiting to see what becomes of the controversial Section 373 in the recent NDAA.
_________________________
Joint Statement of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and House Armed Services Committee Bipartisan Leaders on NTSB\x92s Recommendations to Address DCA Crash
For Immediate Release: February 06, 2026
[Committee contacts omitted]

Washington, DC \x96 The bipartisan leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Armed Services Committee today issued a joint statement regarding the National Transportation Safety Board\x92s (NTSB) recently approved recommendations to address the January 29, 2025, midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
Joint statement from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA), House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL), and House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA):

\x93Now that we have received the approved recommendations and probable cause from the NTSB on the tragic DCA midair collision that claimed 67 lives, and with the NTSB\x92s final report expected in a matter of days, we are working on a comprehensive legislative solution to address what we\x92ve learned. It is our firm belief that meaningful improvements to the safety of our airspace require the full and fair consideration of all of the NTSB\x92s recommendations. We are continuing to evaluate the information and analysis gathered and put forward by the NTSB, and we will work together expeditiously on legislation to ensure a crash like this can never happen again.\x94

The Wall Street Journal has published an intensely relevant piece reporting on the advocacy efforts - and the grief, and the resilience - of Tim and Sheri Lilley, the parents of Sam Lilley, the F/O of Bluestreak 5342.

Here is the headline and subheading:
"A Pilot\x92s Parents Work to Clear His Name After the Deadliest Crash in Decades
An American Airlines regional jet and an Army helicopter collided a year ago over the Potomac, creating unlikely friendships and advocates."
by-line, Christoper Kuo (Feb. 13, 2026 8:00 p.m. ET)

In several of the perhaps too-many posts (including a recent rant) I have written onto this thread, I have repeatedly made the point, or asked the question, who speaks for the pilots of Bluestreak 5342? Despite the WSJ reporting focusing on just the RHS pilot on the fateful night of 29 January 2025, I believe we now know that indeed, those blameless aviators indeed have a voice. In the safety ecosystem aftermath on Capitol Hill and before the eminences of the NTSB. And in the courtroom, I hope. Because although I have met a goodly number of very fine "aircraft crash litigation attorneys" on both sides of the adversarial barrier, I'm not recalling any whose advocacy resonates with such resolve as shown by these two grieving but determined parents. (No offense to the Gucci loafers or Clarence Darrow vests.)

If you've posted on this thread, or if you have just read it from time to time (or entirely) - go read about the parents of Bluestreak 5342's F/O, Tim and Sheri Lilley, please.
WillowRun 6-3

There is one lawsuit pending in federal district court in Washington, D.C. - although I am fairly certain that it is a consolidation of claims arising from the accident brought by some different groupings of plaintiffs represented, in each instance, by different attorneys. This imprecision of my knowledge of the actual litigation at present, for which I am making no excuses, is another reason why I will have to shift some attention away from other pursuits and spend some time reading court filings on the Pacer U.S. court systems web portal. More on the first reason, later. (And among my other pursuits is actual legal work, and it happens to be in the aerospace domain - transactional, not litigation, however.)

I want to draw three distinctions about the lawsuit arising from the accident. First, insofar as deriding (and mocking, and disliking or worse) the legal profession in general and particular individual lawyers is concerned, I will say in advance that I will shake my head in disbelief if anyone in this forum community believes that litigation against the U.S. federal government relating to this accident is improper or just about lawyers enriching themselves. Essentially every single post here, or at the very least every line of inquiry or analysis or interpretation of the facts as they have emerged, points a very straight finger of blame at the FAA's way of doing things.

Related to that, secondly, in my reference to the advocacy by the parents of Bluestreak 5342's F/O I was not trying to highlight their grief or the grieving process. The point was - and in my mind (capable of being derided because it sometimes is a legal mind to some extent) still is - that although obviously connected to their grief, these survivors also appear to be on a quest to exonerate the F/O's conduct on the final approach in question. I suppose I could hope to have learned more aviation history and be able to recite some, maybe most, of the significant previous accidents in which survivors of aviators, when those aviators were blamed for accidents in which they were killed, sought to clear their names. I don't think the instance of 5342's F/O's parents is unique. I do think it is very relevant to the impact, the implications, of the lawsuit and the Board's report. (More on this also later.)

Soon after the accident, I read about two young attorneys who were passengers on Bluestreak 5342. From memory, they were mid-level associates (maybe four or five years in practice, not yet partners in the firm) in a comparatively small law firm. They were returning to D.C. from taking depositions. I realize no one (or probably no one) on this forum who qualifies for the first Papa letter in the forum title will care much about the travails of young lawyers doing the equivalent of building hours. I will just say that it is hard work, and often far more thankless than digs at the legal profession would have a reasonable person conclude. And ..... I mention these two particular victims of the accident because I could - when I read that news report soon after 29 January - largely relate to where they were in their careers. Say what you will, and say it with as much vitriol as forum rules will allow - their deaths in the accident deserve their day in court, despite digs at lawyers and the profession. Discussion of what is wrong with the court system and the legal process in the United States - well, this isn't Scotus blog or something; that's all another subject. But: I maintain strongly that the attorneys who represent accident victims' families and other survivors of those victims have as much right to attack the responsible parties in court as attorney-bashers do to make fun of their profit motive. I haven't done that kind of legal work. I have met very fine, very excellent attorneys who do, and I think it behooves aviation professionals to recognize that bringing their clients' claims forward to that ultimate day in court is honorable, and necessary work. (This is not to defend jackpot justice awards, or bad-attorney behavior, as if I need to make that clear.)

Third, and the "first reason" I'll need to start eating more time on Pacer, is that I continue to believe that the aviators of Bluestreak 5342 are being taken advantage of by an otherwise respectable legal process. If one believes that they did nothing wrong, then why is it that their estates are not represented in the courtroom in order to defend them? Aren't they implied or implicit defendants, though obviously not named as such? And as I said in an earlier post, one could argue, 'well, the Army pilots aren't there to defend themselves, and they're getting pretty seriously wrung out as having primary responsibility - in addition to the systemic factors of course - and these three deceased U.S. Army aviators, they don't have an active defense in the courtroom either, do they? So why should the airline pilots have one?" Pretty simple answer: the U.S. federal government admitted liability, so the Army pilots - admittedly indirectly - have had their possible defense as pilots waived out from under them.

But since I haven't been delving into all the various court filings which by now presumably have piled up during pre-trial discovery, it is possible that the Bluestreak 5342 aviators' estates have retained their own counsel and are seeking to intervene in the case. I'll find out. Though I should apologize for repeating myself, and while admitting that intense study of intracacies of federal procedure was something I left behind when I picked up the J.D. (after all, reading Advisory Committee Notes about amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence, it's fascinating stuff, amiright?), the gross unfairness of alleging negligence against the pilots who do not have their own legal representation in the case strikes me as an error and an injustice. And I am not a stranger to dealing with insurance carriers who want to settle, while the client wants to fight on - if the pilots' estates had separate representation, their lawyers would need to make sure their cowboy or hiking boots are on snuggly - the stuff to be thrown at them by the airline's corporate types and the insurance carrier attorneys who mostly call the shots, would seem likely to be intense.

Almost last, with mega-billions coming out of Congress for a totally new ATC system, it continues to seem obvious to yours truly that in designing it, and then doing all the many steps of implementing it, the lessons learned from the Board report will have a window of opportunity not usually present in the U.S. NAS. It should not go to the same fate of being ignored or shrugged off as so many Board reports have suffered. If the litigation - though of course separate from the Board work - creates leverage for such a beneficial outcome, I would say "Who wants it?" (with apologies to WSJ sportswriter extraordinaire, Jason Gay - about the U.S. Women's Hockey Team and the Wisconsin Badgers Women's Hockey Team as well). Or in less cryptic terms, Go fo It.

Last, Uberlingen. One of the Skyguide officials who was deeply involved with the aftermath of the accident delivered several presentations about it, most all of which went into some depth, during my academic residence at that certain Air and Space Law graduate law degree program located in Montreal, Quebec. Those presentations, as the old saying goes, "left a mark."

Excellent colloquy - the Senator was, uncharacteristically perhaps, quite restrained in tone and content.

But as to the "extra 0.1%" of corporate bonus earnings impliedly referenced as the fundamental issue, I'll venture a wild [insert] guess - that's hyperbole, yes? Or do you have some corporate SEC filings or other documents about actual bonus plans which directly link to cost and expense of ADSB-In retrofit and/or original equipagge? Or better yet, documents from American Airlines which, according to Sen. Cruz as well as Board Chair Homendy, has installed ADSB-In - again, according to their respective statements - with what sounded like barely more than trivial cost or expense impact?

No, it is to question thr validity of the asserted linkage to a quantified impact on calculatioms pursuant to bonus plans, and more specially, the American plan.

I'm not on this forum to manifest cynicism. Without reviewing an actual executive bonus plan of an actually affected aircraft operator, I'm unwilling to assume any of the following: the inclusion of the relevant retrofit in the aggregation of costs for any given plan which places material reliance on cost factors; the presence or absence of insurance premium adjustments based upon completion of retrofit of key safety avionics; or any terms which allow or require different calculations of the determining factors where NTSB recommendations and/or legislative mandates are implemented.

But no kidding, total costs incurred typically are relevant as a component of financial results which in turn are determinants for executive bonus plans, I'll grant you that.

And the hearing did mention American, obviously. As a specific test case, are you asserting that American's retrofit to the extent incomplete on some of its fleet has been left incomplete because of the "0.1%" quantification you assert? I'll wait for your post with excerpts from American's SEC filings or similar corporate reporting filings.

Legislation

From House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee website 19 February 2026

Washington, DC \x96 The comprehensive legislative response to the various aviation safety issues raised by the tragic 2025 midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a UH-60 Army Black Hawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) was released today by the bipartisan leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.
The Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency (ALERT) Act of 2026 addresses all 50 safety related recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which concluded its thorough investigation and issued its final report on February 17, 2026.

The ALERT Act considers all of the NTSB\x92s findings of probable cause that contributed to the accident and responds to each of the NTSB\x92s 50 safety recommendations to provide a thorough and holistic legislative solution to improve U.S. aviation safety. Critical safety issues the bill addresses include:

Establishing requirements for equipping collision mitigation, avoidance, and alerting technologies and systems for civil fixed-wing and rotorcraft;
Improving helicopter route design, guidance, and separation;
Preventing loss of separation (near-miss) incidents;
Addressing deficiencies in the FAA\x92s safety culture;
Enhancing air traffic control training and procedures, particularly during high traffic;
Strengthening the safety of the DCA airspace \x96 one of the nation\x92s busiest and most congested airspaces;
Repealing section 373(a) of the last National Defense Authorization Act; and more.
The ALERT Act is led by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA), Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL), and Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA).

[Quotes from Congressmen omitted]

Link to the text of the ALERT Act: https://transportation.house.gov/components/redirect/r.aspx?ID=486957-71714618

Link to a section by section summary of the ALERT Act:
https://transportation.house.gov/news/email/show.aspx?ID=RFS3V7AWS4PPNV2MA2XZXHULM4