US House lawmakers propose comprehensive aviation safety bill after fatal crash

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday proposed legislation to address 50 aviation safety recommendations issued after a year-long investigation into the January 2025 collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people.

The chairs of the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Armed Services committees and the panel’s top Democrats said the bill aims to address a series of issues including deficiencies in the FAA’s safety culture, enhancing air traffic control training and procedures, and strengthening safety of airspace around Reagan Washington National Airport where the fatal collision occurred last year.

The U.S. House is separately set to vote Monday on the ROTOR Act, legislation passed by the U.S. Senate unanimously in December that would require aircraft operators to equip their fleets with a safety system known as automatic-dependent-surveillance-broadcast system, or ADS-B, by the end of 2031.

The Senate bill also boosts oversight of commercial jet and helicopter traffic and flight routes near commercial airports.

It’s unclear if the House might add parts of the bill unveiled Thursday to the Senate bill. “This comprehensive bill will make our aviation system safer by directly addressing various factors that contributed to this accident,” said House Transportation Committee chair Sam Graves.

Representative Rick Larsen, the panel’s top Democrat, said the bill addresses all 50 NTSB recommendations to “improve airspace safety to protect travelers from future accidents.”

The House bill calls for a comprehensive independent audit of the FAA’s safety culture and safety-management system, mandates improved helicopter route design and addresses a number of concerns about military aviation practices.

Last month, the NTSB found systemic failures by the FAA led to the collision that was the worst U.S. aviation disaster since 2001.

The NTSB determined the accident was caused by the FAA’s decision to allow helicopters to travel close to the airport with no safeguards to separate them from airplanes and its failure to review data and act on recommendations to move helicopter traffic away from the airport.

The NTSB made more than 30 recommendations to the FAA, citing a series of failures before the Washington crash. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, speaking at a conference Thursday, said the agency needed to improve its culture and has vowed to implement safety board recommendations.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Diane Craft)