US Army and FAA in the hot seat publicly for the first time since January's fatal midair collision

CNN

27-03-2025

Family members of some of the 67 people killed in January's midair collision in Washington listened to the US Army and Federal Aviation Administration take fiery questions from lawmakers for the first time Thursday at a Senate subcommittee hearing on the preliminary findings of the accident.
'I'm glad that something's being done about it now,' said Dailey Crafton, whose brother, Casey, was killed. 'But you know, it's too little, too late for those of us who had family members on that plane.'
The Senate hearing came two weeks after the National Transportation Safety Board, whose chair also testified Thursday, unveiled its preliminary report on the fatal collision between the American Airlines regional jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was the first major aviation accident in the United States in nearly 20 years. The NTSB issued two urgent safety recommendations with the report, which the FAA adopted rapidly.
'(The FAA and Army) have been very cooperative with our investigation,' NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters following the hearing. 'We're working closely. It's a pretty broad investigation. It's a very complex investigation.'
Previously, investigators uncovered 15,214 'near miss events' between 2021 and 2024 where aircraft were within one nautical mile of each other, with a vertical separation of less than 400 feet. There were also 85 cases where aircraft were less than 1,500 feet apart, with a vertical separation of less than 200 feet, according to the NTSB.
The findings revealed a 'systemic issue,' that lawmakers are demanding answers on, said Sen. Maria Cantwell, ranking member of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation committee.
'I want to know, why did the FAA not act?,' Cantwell said. 'Why did the FAA not act on 15,000 reports of dangerous proximity? How were these helicopter routes allowed to remain when alarm bells were literally going off in the towers?'
FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau responded he was 'very concerned' about what's been learned so far.
'Clearly something was missed,' he said.
The FAA acted following the release of the report to adopt NTSB recommendations to close the flight path the helicopter was using at the time of the collision.
Following the hearing, CNN's Pete Muntean questioned Homendy on whether allowing the route to exist was a failure of oversight by the FAA.
'I wouldn't just put that on the FAA,' Homendy said. 'I'd also put that on the Army. The Army also has to monitor their own helicopters. They also have to figure out a way to monitor close proximity events and get that information and determine when their helicopters are exceeding maximum altitude.'
Among those in the crowd was Tim Lilley, father of Sam Lilley, the first officer who was killed while flying the PSA Airlines flight on January 29. Tim flew Black Hawk helicopters for the US Army for 20 years and flew the helicopter routes 'hundreds of times,' but never had an aircraft on approach when flying.
'It's apparent that the administration gets it,' Lilley said. 'They're acting. They're acting quickly … The army, they need to take that same action. There are things that could be done and could have been done already in the last two months that still need to get done.'
'I think that my son's legacy is to get some things done to make sure that this doesn't happen again,' Lilley said.
American Airlines said in a statement it continues to 'mourn the lives lost in the traffic accident.'
'We're grateful for the NTSB's urgent safety recommendations to restrict helicopter traffic near DCA and for Secretary Duffy and the FAA's quick adoption of those recommendations,' the statement read. 'We will continue to coordinate closely with PSA Airlines as it cooperates with the NTSB as a party to the investigation.'
Among the testimony came a commitment from the FAA that the agency will require nearly all aircraft near Reagan Airport to use an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast out system, known as ADS-B.
'All aircraft operating in DCA class B airspace will be required to broadcast their position and identification using ADS-B Out with very limited exceptions,' Rocheleau testified.
Civilian and military aircraft use ADS-B, which helps an aircraft broadcast its location, altitude and other key factors while monitoring other aircraft around it. But the Army often turned it off while flying on missions in Washington.
The NTSB previously confirmed the helicopter had the necessary equipment and was capable of transmitting, but investigators are still unclear why it was not transmitting.
Brig. General Matthew Braman also testified during the hearing the status of the operation and functionality of the helicopter's ADS-B Out was still under investigation, but said the crew was approved to operate with ADS-B Out off, in accordance with Army policy.
Lawmakers also grilled the Army for still flying training missions after the crash near Reagan Airport with the technology turned off.
'I find that shocking and deeply unacceptable and I want to encourage the Army right now to revisit that policy and to revisit that policy today,' Sen. Ted Cruz said at Thursday's Senate subcommittee hearing.
The Army, however, often turns ADS-B off when flying around Washington DC – including when in the airspace around DCA, the Army acknowledged.
Cruz also pushed for the Army to hand over a memo from August entitled, 'ADS-B Out off Operations in the National Airspace,' stating the Army hadn't given him the memo when his staff asked, but Braman wouldn't commit to providing it.
'If it is not provided to this committee within 24 hours, I am confident that you will have a senior commanding officer give you a direct order to provide that memo to this committee,' Cruz said. 'I just want to underscore; there's no reason the Army has to wait for the conclusion of the NTSB report to revisit your policy on ADS-B out. You can do so right now.'
Rocheleau also said the FAA is reviewing helicopter operations with machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and explore data sources.
'We're also continuing to analyze other airports that have both established helicopter routes and nearby airplane traffic,' he said. 'I will establish a safety risk management panel and engage with aviation stakeholders to identify additional hazard areas involving helicopter and fixed wing interactions.'
Homendy told reporters the data will show 'the next big accident.' When asked whether she was confident in machine learning and artificial intelligence, Homendy said, 'We'll see.'
The FAA also confirmed Thursday that collision warnings in commercial planes landing earlier this month at Reagan Airport were caused by testing of anti-drone system by the US Navy and Secret Service.
The mysterious warnings were reported around March 1 and occurred only miles from the site of the January accident.
'We were about 1200 feet, there was somebody diving straight onto us,' one of the pilots who got the warning told control tower at the time, according to audio captured by LiveATC.net.
Several flight crews reported the mystery alerts on their Traffic Collision Avoidance System, known as TCAS, 'indicating another aircraft was nearby when no other aircraft were in the area,' the FAA said in a statement at the time.
'Apparently, the Navy was using the same spectrum band as TCAS, causing the interference and faulty resolution advisories,' Cruz told the FAA during the hearing. 'Even though the FAA had previously warned the Navy and the Secret Service against using that specific spectrum band due to interference risks.'
'Yes, sir, that's correct,' Rocheleau responded.
'This is deeply disturbing that just a month after 67 people died while an approach to DCA that the Secret Service and Pentagon would inadvertently cause multiple flights to receive urgent cockpit alerts recommending evasive action,' Cruz said. 'It is inappropriate for such testing to occur at DCA, given the facts of what occurred.'
As for the family members of the 67 people killed in January's mid-air collision, this investigation hasn't gotten any easier. Lilley told reporters he wants answers and action.
'The hardest day of my life was the 29th,' Lilley said. 'The second-hardest day was the day after that, when the NTSB told us about our loved ones spread across the ice. What keeps us moving forward is that we're going to ensure that no other family has to go through what we're what we've had to go through.'
CNN's Pete Muntean and Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.