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republican Sen ted cruz He says he wants the ban on military flights to be approved before government funding runs out at the end of next month to prevent another mid-air collision like the last one. WashingtonDC, which took 67 lives in January.
Cruz and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell held a news conference with some of the victims’ families on Monday, condemning provisions of a major defense bill expected to pass this week. The provisions would allow military aircraft to receive waivers to return to operations without having to broadcast their precise location, as was the case before the Jan. 29 crash between an aircraft and an Army helicopter.
Cruz and Cantwell want to remove the provisions, but making changes to the bill would send it back to the House, potentially delaying the troop pay raise and other key provisions. With that unlikely, Cruz said he would seek action to reimpose a ban on military flights as part of a government funding package in January.
Cruz said, “I am asking for a vote on the Rotter Act as part of any appropriations measure before the current ongoing resolution expires at the end of next month.” ROTOR stands for “Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform.”
The provision in the defense bill has reignited the debate on air security near the nation’s capital. Before the crash in January, military helicopters routinely flew over crowded airspace around the nation’s capital without using a vital system called ADS-B to broadcast their locations. The Federal Aviation Administration began requiring all planes to do so in March.
National Transportation Safety Board Speaker Jennifer Homendy, senators, airlines and major transportation unions all sharply criticized the new helicopter security provisions in the defense bill when they came to light.
Cruz said the provision of the defense bill “was rushed in at the last minute”, noting that it would overrule actions taken by President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make the airspace around D.C. safe.
“The special carve-out is what caused the January 29 crash that took the lives of 67 people,” Cruz said.
Families of crash victims said the bill would weaken safety measures and set back aviation safety. Amy Hunter, who lost her cousin and her family in the crash, said Trump and his administration had worked to implement the NTSB’s safety recommendations, but warned that these reforms could be lost in the military policy bill.
Hunter said that “now it threatens to destroy everything, all the progress that has already been made, and it will compromise the security 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 85 near misses around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash and several major concerns about the helicopter route, which allowed the Black Hawks to fly dangerously close to planes landing on the airport’s secondary runway.
The bill proposed by Cruz and Cantwell would require all planes to broadcast their locations, which has broad support from the White House, the FAA, the NTSB and victims’ families.
senate majority leader john thuneR.S.D. Said he hoped air safety legislation introduced last summer by Cruz and Cantwell, called the ROTOR Act, could be added to the funding package, which the Senate could begin considering this week before the holidays.
“I think we’ll get to that, but it will be really hard to undo the defense authorization bill now,” Thune, R-S.D., said.
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This story has been updated to remove incorrect reporting that Senator Ted Cruz was threatening another federal government shutdown if new restrictions on military flights were not approved by the end of January. Rather, Cruz said he would seek action to reimpose restrictions as part of a government funding package. AP members should not use older versions of US–Aviation Safety.