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Cruz Wants Limits on Military Flights 12/16 06:11
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Sen. Ted Cruz says he wants restrictions on
military flights approved before government funding runs out at the end of next
month to prevent another midair collision like the one over Washington, D.C.,
that killed 67 people in January.
Cruz and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell held a news conference Monday with
some of the victims' families to denounce provisions in a massive defense bill
that's expected to pass this week. The provisions would allow military aircraft
to get a waiver to return to operating without broadcasting their precise
location, just as they were before the Jan. 29 crash between an airliner and an
Army helicopter.
Cruz and Cantwell want the provisions removed, but changing the bill would
send it back to the House, potentially delaying raises for soldiers and other
key provisions. With that unlikely, Cruz said he'll seek action to reimpose the
restrictions on military flights as part of a government funding package in
January.
"I'm seeking a vote on the ROTOR Act as part of any appropriations measure
before the current continuing resolution expires at the end of next month,"
Cruz said. ROTOR stands for "Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight
Reform."
The provision in the defense bill has rekindled debate over air safety near
the nation's capital. Before the crash in January, military helicopters
routinely flew through the crowded airspace around the nation's capital without
using a key system called ADS-B to broadcast their locations. The Federal
Aviation Administration began requiring all aircraft to do that in March.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, senators,
airlines and key transportation unions all sharply criticized the new
helicopter safety provisions in the defense bill when they came to light.
Cruz said the defense bill provision "was airdropped in at at the last
moment," noting it would unwind actions taken by President Donald Trump and
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make the airspace around D.C. safer.
"The special carve-out was exactly what caused the January 29th crash that
claimed 67 lives," Cruz said.
The families of the crash victims said that bill would weaken safeguards and
send aviation safety backwards. Amy Hunter, who lost her cousin and his family
in the crash, said Trump and his administration had worked to implement safety
recommendations from the NTSB, but warned those reforms could be lost in the
military policy bill.
Hunter said it "now threatens to undo everything, all the progress that was
already made, and it will compromise the safety around Reagan National Airport."
The NTSB won't release its final report on the cause of the crash until
sometime next year, but investigators have already raised a number of key
concerns about the 85 near misses around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the
years before the crash and the helicopter route that allowed Black Hawks to fly
dangerously close to planes landing at the airport's secondary runway.
The bill Cruz and Cantwell proposed to require all aircraft to broadcast
their locations has broad support from the White House, the FAA, NTSB and the
victims' families.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he hoped the air safety
legislation Cruz and Cantwell introduced last summer, called the ROTOR Act,
could be added to the funding package that the Senate may start considering
this week ahead of the holiday break.
"I think we'll get there on that, but it would be really hard to undo the
defense authorization bill now," Thune, R-S.D., said.
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