Congress considers requiring US military to use helicopter safety alerts near DC airport, report near misses

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) – U.S. military helicopters on training missions would need to broadcast alerts to nearby commercial aviation aircraft around Reagan Washington National Airport to avoid collisions under annual defense policy legislation unveiled late Sunday.

In January, an Army Black Hawk helicopter on a training mission that was not using a key safety system known as ADS-B collided with an American Airlines regional jet killing 67 people near the airport just outside Washington. The 3,000-page legislation would also require the Pentagon to disclose to Congress the number of near misses that military aircraft have had with commercial aircraft during the last 10 years and issue future annual reports on incidents.

The bill does not specify the type of alerts it would require military helicopters to use. The Defense Department could only waive the requirement if a risk assessment had been completed and those risks to commercial planes could be addressed.

In October, the Senate Commerce Committee approved aviation safety legislation to require the use of ADS-B after the January collision. By contrast, the annual defense bill requires a report on the feasibility of installing ADS-B on all military helicopters.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz said in October the bill “closes a dangerous loophole that allowed military aircraft to operate in domestic skies without communicating their position quickly and accurately to other aviators like commercial aircraft do.”

Lawmakers from both parties and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have questioned why the Federal Aviation Administration failed to act for years to address close calls involving military helicopters near Washington Reagan National Airport. The legislation would require safety reviews at Reagan National and other major airports and would direct the Army Inspector General’s Office to initiate a safety coordination audit. The FAA in April said it would require ADS-B use near Reagan National by government helicopters, and in May barred the Army from helicopter flights around the Pentagon, after a close call. The FAA has also taken steps to boost separation between helicopters and jets. Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee who also sponsored the bill in October, cited an NTSB disclosure in March that since 2021 there had been 15,200 air separation incidents near Reagan National between commercial airplanes and helicopters, including 85 close-call events. Cantwell and Cruz’s offices declined to comment on the defense bill provisions.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Editing by Franklin Paul)